Holiday times are usually rich in memories, each of which could be the
jumping-off point for a story. A thousand remembered details tumble
around in the attic of my mind:
The Advent season when I was an acolyte at church and had to light all four candles on the Advent wreath, which was suspended from a chain well above my head (it's not easy to light candles when you can't even see the wicks, and what would possess a church with child acolytes to suspend the Advent wreath eight feet in the air?).
The Christmas morning we woke to a last-minute snowstorm that granted our "white Christmas" wishes.
The Christmas I had scarlet fever.
The heart-shaped tree ornament I embroidered in 4-H.
The year I got a handmade wooden dollhouse (since handed down to my niece).
The year we had a sleetstorm and I played Trivial Pursuit with my mother and grandmother, and we all ended up laughing hysterically at our wild guesses for the answers we didn't know.
The rich spread my great-grandmother always put out on Christmas Eve, and her squeeze-the-life-out-of-you-but-in-a-goo
The Advent season when I was an acolyte at church and had to light all four candles on the Advent wreath, which was suspended from a chain well above my head (it's not easy to light candles when you can't even see the wicks, and what would possess a church with child acolytes to suspend the Advent wreath eight feet in the air?).
The Christmas morning we woke to a last-minute snowstorm that granted our "white Christmas" wishes.
The Christmas I had scarlet fever.
The heart-shaped tree ornament I embroidered in 4-H.
The year I got a handmade wooden dollhouse (since handed down to my niece).
The year we had a sleetstorm and I played Trivial Pursuit with my mother and grandmother, and we all ended up laughing hysterically at our wild guesses for the answers we didn't know.
The rich spread my great-grandmother always put out on Christmas Eve, and her squeeze-the-life-out-of-you-but-in-a-goo
The look of blue light strings reflecting off snow.
The year I had an operation, and my then-boyfriend drove me from Philadelphia to my parents' house in New England in a car with a dead heater, and then drove back to Philadelphia to celebrate the holiday with his son, and then back up to New England again so I wouldn't pop my stitches trying to lug a suitcase home on the train. (Yeah, I ended up marrying him!)
Do you have memories that could serve as writing prompts?
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