My first post!

Hello,welcome to my blog! In spite of all the hype about blogging lately, I was still hesitant to jump into the blogging universe ...I guess I thought I'd bore everyone to death.

Then I saw a post on mamichelle's blog that inspired me. She had several posts about her past Christmas memories. As I was reading, memories of my own Christmas past started flooding my mind. I wanted to share some of those memories and that's what made me want to blog. Thanks Michelle for inspiring me!

I'll share one of my favorite Christmas memories with you. When I was a child, the first one up woke everyone else in the house up. We weren't allowed to open the gifts until my parents made their way down stairs. We would open all of our gifts & then all pile into my Dad's car (including our pug). My Dad would drive us to Washington, DC (there wasn't a single car on the road). Of course it was about 4 o'clock in the morning on Christmas day too. Our first stop was F Street. Hects, Macy's, Woodward & Lothrop and the other "big stores" had these huge windows. Each window had a Christmas themed animation. I recall one year there were elves building toys in the Hects window. One had sugar plum fairies dancing. They were really beautiful and I know Macy's still does it.

Then my Dad would drive us to see the President's tree and the smaller trees at the Capital . In 1954, a "Pathway of Peace," 56 smaller, decorated trees representing all 50 states, five territories, and the District of Columbia were planted surrounding the National Christmas Tree. Each year school children from each state provide hand made tree decorations.

We would walk around looking at all the hand made ornaments, and my siblings and I would each pick a favorite. Then we would exchange a hand made ornament we had made, for a favorite from one of the trees. I still have some of those hand made ornaments. One is a wooden thread spool. A strip of wrapping paper is wrapped around the empty thread spool. Then a piece of curling ribbon is put up thru the thread spool & tied in a knot for hanging. Very simple, yet I always put it on the tree. I'd post a picture, but I decorated the tree very simply this year with just lights.

That is one of my favorite Christmas memories. I hope your Christmas was as wonderful as mine was. In honor of Christmas, I'm going to send a RAK to the first person that posts a reply on my blog.

Hugs, Kimi

PS-Thanks Wendy for helping me get my blog set up. You rock! It was so nice to chat with you in person.

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