Bonnie Lewis's Fondest Christmas Memories

Bonnie is shown with her mom during the Christmas season, early 1960s.

I guess my best childhood Christmas memories were our Christmas trees. The photo of me and mom must have been in the early '60s. Every year my mother would decorate the fireplace mantel (seen in the above photo) with fruit, nuts and real evergreen garland. We also used real evergreen garland to decorate the steps banister.

I still love decorated Christmas trees. I was able to find photos of trees from my childhood and trees from recent years.

This is the same Christmas tree from the 1960s shown above.

Christmas tree in 1958 with a Santa ornament that was later used by Bonnie's sister as an adult.

First tree in first house in Pennsylvania

The tree on the left was the first Christmas tree in the first house I purchased, 1996. It was already decorated with mouse-themed decorations. My cat, Starr, climbed up the branches of this tree and did knock it over. A few years later I bought a smaller 4-foot tree (no photo available) and used the same ornaments. When I moved to Arizona I gave all those ornaments away (sigh). 

This is my Arizona dragonfly tree decorated with purple ball ornaments. I have added more ornaments to it since, which are mostly Annalee mice ornaments.

Christmas tree in Arizona home decorated with dragonfly ornaments, purple ball ornaments, and Annalee ornaments

Close-up of Arizona tree

Flashback to the '60s:

Aluminum pom-pom tree, like one Bonnie's family owned in the 1960s

Now my mom loved real trees. But for some reason in the mid-1960s I bought one of those (tacky) aluminum pom-pom trees for our family tree. She hated it!!! But she didn't buy another one to replace it.  I don't have a photo of our specific tree that had all green bulbs. The above photo is from the Internet. Today people are selling these vintage aluminum Christmas trees on eBay and Amazon for a lot of money. I remember some of these trees had color wheels to shine different colors on it.

Pinwheel ornament from Bonnie's childhood

Lastly, is a photo of the only ornament from my childhood trees, a pinwheel ornament that I still use. The idea was that it would spin from the heat of those large light bulbs we used. My sister had a lot of our childhood ornaments, but I guess she gave them away when she moved.

Oh, I would have liked to include the only photo of my brother's Lionel train set up. He designed and made all the scenery. At Christmas he and my dad would set it up in the basement. I believe I sent that photo to him a couple of years ago, and no photo on the Internet would do!

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Thanks, Bonnie! I love decorated Christmas trees, too. Your story helped me remember that part of my childhood Christmases that I had almost forgotten.

Share Your Story

Readers, remember, you too can share your fondest childhood Christmas story for publishing consideration here between now and Christmas by emailing it to blackdolls @ sbcglobal . net (close in the spaces).  Please also send some associated images.

Merry Christmas!

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