A Christmas Memory: Day Ten - A Change of Seasons

One of my favourite Christmases was the one right after we moved from Portugal to Switzerland. We had spent four years in a country where there was no snow in the winter months. Don't get me wrong: I loved Portugal. When you're a kid, though, and you've known winter months with snow - you sort of miss them when they're gone. Man, were we ready for that snow!

So that first Christmas in Switzerland, we came down on Christmas morning (I remembered the tree as being so bizarrely shaped; and when I found the photo to scan for this story, I saw that I was right!) everyone had snow related items. There were snow suits, sleds, ice skates and (though I don't see them in the photo, I believe there were) skis. Christmases up to this point had been a lot of toys - but THESE Christmas presents! They meant more adult things like sports, like outdoor activity, fun stuff we hadn't had before. I loved it.

Looking back on that Christmas (looking at the photos) I see things I had forgotten... like how that ugly tree was quite amazing in its' height and shape and how it held all those great ornaments and those wonderful old fashioned huge lightbulbs. Or how neat it was to see the Portuguese artwork and tablecloth in a new Germanic country. Or the plushness and warmth of the velvet furniture and shag rug (or that my mother used to wear a fur coat -- see it on the sofa?). Most of all, though, when I look at photos from Christmases past I see my beautiful baby brothers and remember how happy childhood was, how much fun life could be, before things got complicated.

That's probably why people spend so much time looking back over the past.

It was pretty.