Well tonight, i turned on youtube and had wonderful images of christmas, with classical christmas music playing.
i enjoy christmas...yes, i'm one that like to keep the christmas tree up quite a while past christmas...last year was
valentines day...i'm sorry, but to me it's pretty...i've been known to set in the living room, by myself with the lights off, except
for the christmas tree lit...those little multi colored lights just fill the room with a warm glow......
to me, it brings back many memories....good memories...yes things were tough back then...we didn't have the fancy vehicles
we do now...remember when you had to go out and start the car to get warmed up...rather than push a button on the key chain.
communities would come together...i remember we used to have a community christmas party...we would have either vegtable,
chilli or "oyster stew"...sweet rolls....and ground lunchmeat with eggs, onions, pickle relish, salad dressing, and just a bit of
sugar, spread on white bread...we would eat, sing, have cake walks, play bingo, santa would show up, and talk to everyone
who had a christmas wish to share...and then as leaving, everyone got a treat bag...an apple, orange, a few peanuts in the
shell, and some hard candy....we would then all go home, in our cars and pickups....happy in most ways....
back when we didn't always have cabs on tracts, but heater tarps as we called them...i remember as a kid, we had
a M we used to feed with in the winter, the tarp would cover most of the front of the tractor, then had plexiglass where
the driver set....you would take the trailer out or when the snow got heavy, we had a slead of sorts...out to the
field where you planted "feed"...sargo what it was called...you would have the feed in shocks...i remember seems like
in every big pile, in the middle of winter, there were a few mice there....in the fall, we had a single row "corn binder"...
i got the job of riding it....and steping on the thing that made the shock go out...you would let them off in rows in the
fiield...then you would come along and then "shock" it....that was my job as a kid...i would hold the two shocks together
while my dad and grandpa would add more around them.........later, we got a 4x4 pickup, and loaded the feed in
the back, and if needed, you would put it in first gear, get out and pull the feed off....or unload the bales...granted you did
this on a flat area, and drove well ahead of the cattle.
what has happened to us......i wanted to do an old fashioned christmas this year....last one was a few years ago.....you
would have thouht i suggested some sort of horrible and evil thing....
first....the meal we had back then....wasn't good enough for today.....
the activties......boring.......
i had planned to have a bike and ipad for kids drawings......is that all ???
and he gift bags....is that all.....if that's all you are giving out, might well not do it.....
today, when you feed cattle, you use round bales.....and feed with a tractor with a cab.....or a bale feeder on the back of a 4x4 pickup...
spend the minium in the weather..
what's happened to us.....i remember back then, we were happy....we worked hard, but we had roof over our heads, and food
in our belly's
people worked together....we had community sprit.....today....quite the opposite....many want others to fail, so they can get what
they have for a little bit of nothing....
maybe i should rephrase something.....maybe christmas time is a bitter sweat time.....good memories of the past, and looking how things
are now....in my humble opinion....things are worse.....
i wonder....can we get back what we had before ??? or is commerical and industry got too big a hold on us ???
dang, wished the milo would dry down so i could get it cut....then onto more important jobs....like getting the christmas tree up....
making piles of banna bread...peanut clusters....peanut brittle...little pretzels dunked in white chocolate..cherry mash...dates with pecans in them, rolled in powdered sugar and if you are very lucky....marzipan....and other goodies........and enjoying the pretty lights on the tree....and travel back to a better time.
