Make Your Seasonal Memories a Source for Memoir Writing with Our Holiday Writing Prompt

Post #26 – Women’s Memoirs, Writing Prompt – Kendra Bonnett and Matilda Butler

It’s Christmas Day, and no matter how you choose to celebrate…gifts, lights, family, food, midnight mass, community service, ski trip, cruise, or whatever signifies the holidays to you…we wish you peace and happiness.

The dancing doll was bigger than I was. I think this was New Year's Eve. So many happy memories.

Matilda and I started thinking about the traditions and customs not only of Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanza but of all the many special days of our lives—birthdays, holidays, graduations and special events—throughout the year.

Most of us capture our special celebrations with photographs and home movies (now video), and what a great resource these are…both of memories and memoir. Recently, I was going through some of my family photos from Christmases past. As I flipped through the snaps and enjoyed our old 35mm and stereo slides, I found myself writing stories in my head. I recalled the year I opened every gift under the tree before my parents awoke. I remembered our neighbor Ed Clancy dressing up as Santa. He always stopped to see us after he returned from visiting children in local hospitals who weren’t lucky enough to be home with their families. I envisioned as if it happened yesterday the year I gave my brother the plush Babes in Toyland soldier. He screamed with delight when he saw it. Daddy built a red-and-white striped guard’s booth for the soldier.

One year our neighbors gave us a trophy deer head that my sister fancied (she liked to pat the fur). My parents didn’t know what to do with it. They didn’t want to mount it on the wall…but then they got a brilliant idea. They wired the antlers with Christmas lights and put one red light on the deer’s nose. From that time on, Rudolph came out once a year and held the place of honor on the wall above the fireplace mantle.

It Wasn’t Just About the Toys, But…

As a Baby Boomer, I grew up in what may have been the golden age of toys: Operation, Candy Land, Creepy Crawlers, Aurora HO slot car racing sets, Snippy electric scissors, Robert the Robot, Slinky, GI Joe, Etch-a-Sketch, Lucky Trolls, Play-Doh, Chatty Cathy and Barbie. Yep, no doubt about it, our generation wins the toy competition.

When I was eight, I was given a dissecting kit along with a couple frogs packed in formaldehyde—I was a budding scientist. I also got a huge Raggedy Ann doll. She must have been four feet tall. Once I finished with the frogs, I decided to do open heart surgery on poor Ann. I laid her out on my bed covered with a sheet (to create a sterile field, of course) and went to work.

Ed Clancy played Santa for us every year. Even the dog sat on Santa's lap.

My mother must have sensed it was too quiet in the house and went looking for my sister, brother and me. She was too late to rescue Ann. I was just stitching up her chest when she found us.

We always cooked our Thanksgiving and Christmas turkeys on the outdoor grill. It took my father and mother working together to truss the turkey to the rotisserie spit. The bird cooked for hours with my father in close attendance. The last hour he smoked it with mesquite or apple wood. Delicious. The crisp, smoky skin was magnificent.

The Parent’s Perspective

My mother with her two grandsons. One of her handmade stockings is already hung by the fireplace.

Kendra has had the fun of sharing mini-memoir vignettes with you and now’s it’s my turn. Our eldest son and his wife have joined us for Christmas this year, which gave me an opportunity to get out old photo albums to share memories, laughter, and discover lingering outrage.

We had no money and so we made most of the Christmas presents. This means we got Ken (on the right) and Edward involved in crafts so that they could make gifts for their grandparents.

When my parents arrived from Oklahoma, my mother opened her suitcase and gave each of us a Christmas stocking that she had made. Well, that was just perfect as it fit our do-it-yourself theme. These stockings were used each succeeding Christmas until about three years ago, I gave each of our sons his own stocking and said it was time they began creating their own traditions. Of course, by then I had made stockings for each of our daughter-in-laws, so I passed on the pairs of stockings.

My father holding his plaque with a paper mache fish

We turned our sons’ sandbox into craft central that year. We helped them make molds in the sand and poured in hot paraffin to create fantasy candles. Perhaps the most long-lasting creation was the sand cast paper mache fish with embedded seashells. Then my husband and I mounted it on wood. My father loved that fish and hung it on his garden wall where it swam in the air for 20 years. Occasionally, it had to be repaired, but it continued on. My father also continued on for 26 more years and always cherished that gift, a memory of his grandsons’ love.

I'm showing off my new cheese board.

But our sons and my parents weren’t the only ones to get handmade gifts. In this photo, I’ve just opened a cheese board that my husband made for me. He had the boys make me some additional cutting boards, much smaller in size, that I still use in my kitchen.

Long hair? Well, this was 1973. Pictures also remind us of the times, styles, and fads.

Earlier I mentioned “lingering outrage.” That is an exaggeration but in a mild form that emotion was definitely part of today’s reminiscing. After comments and jokes and remembering,

Ken wearing his least favorite red ToughSkin jeans.

Ken said, “Mom, why did you make me wear those clothes? Why did I have red jeans?” It’s clear he couldn’t stand the clothes we bought him and I don’t object to the criticism. I could argue that as a child, he couldn’t understand the 70s. Instead, I think I’ll just share the blame with Sears. Ken had to suffer through a childhood spent in Sears’ ToughSkin jeans — bought because no matter what he did, I knew the knees would never wear out. Of course, this meant they were so thick and stiff that he almost couldn’t walk in them when they were new. I found a blog that called these the “jeans from hell.” The blog author went on to describe how Sears created these indestructible children’s jeans, “Enter a sinister group of chemists, colorblind fashion school dropouts, and disgruntled Carter-era defense contractors – all hidden inside a hollowed-out volcano somewhere off the coast of Indonesia – and the world was forever changed.” Ken would certainly agree with the colorblind fashion school dropouts.

Hope you’ve enjoyed our brief journey down memory lane.

We remember…

Now It’s Your Turn

Pull out some of your photos and study the holidays, family gatherings and special celebrations of years past. What memories come to mind? Do you suddenly recall a very special event that perhaps you haven’t thought about in years? Is there a theme to your holidays?

Even our pets get into the holiday spirit. Angus checks out his bag of toy mice.

1. Write 250 words about one special holiday or family event—a good memory. Tell the story. Then try to explain why it’s so special for you and what it says about you and your relationship with your family.

2. Write 250 words about a holiday disaster…even the happiest of families have them. Again, tell the story and explain what it says about you and your relationship with your family.

Matilda and I and everyone associated with Women’s Memoirs wish you and your family a warm and sharing holiday season with peace and good cheer. And we wish you a happy and healthy New Year. Will 2010 be the year you start (or maybe finish) your memoir?

Tagged as: Family history, family story, Memoir Vignette, Women's Memoir Writing, Writing Family History, Writing Prompt, Writing your memoir