christmas 1975

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First Christmas With Child
To mark the holiday season, a shot from my first Christmas, though some may argue I was around for Xmas '74 in embryonic form.

This is a typical family scene from the first quarter-century of my life - Dad and I (or Amy when she arrived on the scene) doing something that amuses Mom. I'm pointing at something, perhaps training for my childhood habit of pointing down any road I wanted to explore on family drives. We lived in this house through my early teens, with the same layout up until we moved.

The Santa ornament in the foreground hung on the tree for years and still swings on Amy's tree. This tree lasted for three decades, until the colour coding on the branch wires wore off...which weren't really necessary towards the end, as knew where each limb was supposed to go.

Putting up the tree began with a trip into our large, slighty musty crawl space, where the Christmas decorations were buried back behind boxes of preserves, old football yearbooks and cheap mystery novels. The tree's location varied over the years - here it's in the upstairs living room, since my grandparents visiting from Toronto slept on the sofa bed in the basement. Usually we played our small handful of Christmas records while putting up the tree, featuring the good, bad and ugly of seasonal music. I would wake up around 3 a.m. to poke at whatever Santa brought, usually sneaking a chocolate coin and turning the TV on as quietly as possible. Mom and Dad probably knew I was up but left me alone to have my fun.

Photo taken in December 1975 

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