Posts about both sides of my family
I have several genealogical charts of my father’s family. A couple of them comprise the entire family, one of them is only of my father’s direct family, and one of them includes the children of the females in the family. All of them contain valuable information; names, birth dates, dates
When I closed the door for the last time to my father’s house, I took with me boxes of documents, certificates, letters and bits of paper with scribbles on them. Most of these were either in German or Russian. I can order a coffee in German. I can count to
New Year’s Eve conjures pictures of countdowns with clocks striking midnight, fireworks and corks popping out of champagne bottles. I have spent many a New Year’s Eve with those pictures and sounds, surrounded by family and friends, or one or the other. Lately the night has been quieter. There is
Christmas traditions can be made, remade, forgotten, remembered and reinvented. One of the traditions I used to love was reading from Tasha Tudor’s book Take Joy! as we gathered around the Christmas tree, just before we opened our presents. I inherited my mother’s copy of the book and I still
When I was a child, we always had real Christmas trees. My father, my mother and I would drive to a Christmas tree farm to choose the perfect tree. My father would carry it into our apartment and place it carefully in the stand which my mother had set up
On Friday night I had the pleasure of my eldest grandson’s company. It was the first time he had stayed overnight with me on his own, without at least one of his parents. It was a big thing for a nearly three-year-old. We had big plans for the next day