My sister teases me because I have such a bad memory.

I can't for the life of me remember sitting on Santa's lap as a child. Can you?

Who would have thought that pulling a lousy fake beard off of old man Callahan would have made such a stink? Who knew?

I was framed I tell ya...

JJ

I remember going to the firehouse to see Santa and get a stocking. He came in on a firetruck with the sirens blaring and lights blazing, and we'd get so excited.

I saw on the news last night where one of the stores had a 'regular' Santa, and then to his side, there sat a "Skinny Santa" - a Chipendales type guy. Guess who was sitting on HIS lap??

When I was a kid we met Santa at the school Christmas program every year. The school was for the first eight grades. There was about thirty students in all, almost all of them were my cousins.
The school started out in a rock building built by my Daddy and his aunts and uncles on land my granny gave. Eventually when they got enough money for two teachers they added a clapboard building for the first four grades and the next four stayed in the rock building. All the kids in four grades were together in the same room.
Those buildings seemed huge to me, but now my cousin lives in the rock building and it is only about 20 feet by 30 feet total.
Before Christmas we had a pie supper where women brought pies and cakes wrapped up real pretty so no one was sure who brought what. They auctioned the pies off and the men who bought the goodies got to eat with the women who made them. If more than one of the men had a crush on the same woman or just wanted to cause trouble, the prices would go as high as ten or fifteen dollars. Sometimes a father would run the price up on his daughter's pie just to test the devotion of her boyfriend. After the auction was over, everyone sat around tables to ate pie and cake and sing and listen to music.
The guys had to be very observant before the auction or else they would pay a lot of money for the wrong girls pie and they would have to eat with someone they didn't really like. There as always a lot of teasing going one and sometimes the pie supper caused problems for the guys, but mostly it was all in fun.
At the pie supper, they also had a cake walk. You paid a dime and they played records as you walked hand in hand with some guy around numbered blocks laid out on the rock floor. When the music stopped, they drew a number out of a hat and if you were standing on that number, you got a homemade cake. Or if you were really lucky, you got a Hostess cupcake from the store in town.

At Christmas they used the money from the pie supper for the Christmas pageant. The big rock building would be crammed full of people. Everyone for miles around came and we would be angels dressed in white crepe paper dresses with tinsel halos in our hair or maybe Mary dressed in our mothers robe. Joseph and the shepherds would wear their Dad's robe and carry crooks sawed out of plywood. Everyone would sing carols and we would always end with Silent Night.
After the pageant, Santa gave out sacks of candy with an apple and an orange. He had a red suit with cotton for a beard and sometimes it was my Daddy. Everyone stood around and giggled while the kids sat on Santa's lap and told him their Christmas wish list. When it was my Daddy, he would always pretend it wasn't him, but we always knew. We could smell his Old Spice.
That was in the sixties. It still happens at my mother's church. Where I come from things change slowly I guess.
smile

jj Callahan was my DAD
....ha ha just kidding. He was my uncle! Not!
Where I grew up we had something like smiles did. We called it a "Time"?? They still do it only now they call it an "old fashioned" Time. Everyone would ask each other"are you gonna go to the time?"
We had soup suppers and only my Moms wasn't yucky( i was a finiky 5 yr old) so I would follow her around the Community hall kitchen to make sure I would get hers and only hers.
I remember well being in the lineup for Santa and was so nervous about remembering all I had to tell him and making sure I got it right, that I don't ever remember sitting on his lap.

I remember believing in Santa, but I can't think of one time that I ever sat on Santa's lap. I can remember my brother or sisters sitting on Santa's lap, and I can definitely remember all the times my own children sat on Santa's lap. I even have pictures. But me? Nope. Can't remember one time.

I have a black and white, 5x7 photograph of myself sitting on Santa's lap. I had on a winter coat and scarf and I was just adorable. Really, I was....and I can prove it to any doubters out there. I always took a photo of my sons with Santa too, from their first to there oh maybe 9th year. After that they were 'too cool' for Santas lap....

Yes, I too remember sitting on Santa's lap both at my grandmothers and then at the department store.
When my friend and I were older we used to coax the little ones to sit on my friends uncles
lap(He was Santa at the Department store). We had a lot of fun and most kids would do it. I was the shy one so worked with them. She wasn't shy so worked with the others. I think all the mothers took pictures. Sometimes we elves had more fun than Santa.
Maggie

Chatty, we have a picture of me sitting on Santa's lap, but I don't remember it.

Vicki, I'm glad I'm not the only one who can't recall a darn thing!

JJ, you meant to tell me you were at it when you were just a little thing! SOme things never change, huh?