WALKIN', WRITIN', WIT & WHIMSY

Imagine, if you will, a film reel in your mind, spinning merrily around, giving you glimpses of every Christmas Day in your life to date.  So, would that film be popcorn-worthy, perhaps a bucketful, oozing with hot butter and sprinkled with salt?

I hope you would be smiling and, if you were crying, hopefully it was because you were experiencing a flood of happy memories.

Reliving some of my memories right here in my blog.

Over the years, in my various “Stir the Memory Pot at Christmastime” blog posts, I’ve flashed back to long-ago Christmasses, while sharing photos of me clutching a new dolly as a child, to later years, where my image was captured in that same-old perpetual pose, touching the Christmas tree, thus marking the passage of another year’s time.

My parents never owned a movie camera to capture their only child’s Christmas morning wonderment, but that’s okay because they were keen on taking lots of photos, thus affording me a precious peek into my past, at Christmastime, or otherwise. 

As mentioned previously, my parents encouraged me to find my creative passion, be it through music, art or photography.  I’ll admit that learning to play the accordion was my father’s idea, not mine. I took lessons from age seven to ten, we had recitals and I practiced every day. After we moved to the States in 1966, the lessons ended as no accordion teachers could be found. 

But, when I expressed an interest in learning to play the guitar after the guys in the Y&R Creative Department ad agency where I worked jammed with their folk guitars in between grinding out Chrysler and Plymouth ads, at Christmas 1979 I became the proud owner of a folk guitar.  I took lessons for a while, but that guitar, long out of tune, languishes in the basement collecting dust, along with other hobbies I set aside through the years.

Best.  Gift.  Ever.

As for picking a favorite Christmas gift, if my happy face was any indication, the Betsy Wetsy baby doll I coveted and asked Santa to bring, would be right up at the top of the list, as would my Barbie doll in her shiny black case, but, as I got older and left dolls in the dust, something else piqued my interest.

It all started when Mom gifted me HER Baby Brownie camera.  It was not a gift wrapped up with a bow, nor at Christmastime – she merely handed the camera to me and said “it’s yours now Linda.”

Mom had used the Baby Brownie for years and said she now deemed me mature enough to take care of it and, if I wasn’t reckless by taking unnecessary photos, my parents would pay for developing the film. 

Here is a photo of me holding the camera, several years later, pictured with Mom and Nanny in 1969.  My grandmother, newly widowed, spent that Summer at our house. Yes, at age 13, I towered over them. 🙂

As the saying goes “all good things must come to an end” and sadly, after years of being the Kodak workhorse that it always was, the Baby Brownie began to falter.  I now wish I had kept it as a special keepsake, but I did not. 

The Baby Brownie camera’s end of life did not end my fascination with picture-taking and my parents continued to cultivate that budding interest in photography.

The Kodak Instamatic Camera.

Because Kodak was the gold standard for easy-to-use cameras, I was given a Kodak Instamatic Camera that year for Christmas.  If you’re of a certain age, you probably remember that boxy-looking camera and the Sylvania Blue Dot Magic Flash Cubes required for taking photos in low-light situations.  The flash would go off and blue dots and a bright light made your eyes go wacky for a while.

While this camera worked well, the flash cubes, film and developing (via mail), which was still subsidized by my parents, became a costly venture, so, still another Christmas present a year or two later, was the Polaroid Swinger. 

Meet the Swinger (the camera that is).

This camera’s TV ads touted the ease of instant picture-taking and had a catchy jingle,“Meet the Swinger, Polaroid Swinger”. It was great to skip the hassle/cost of photo development, plus it was fun to watch a photo emerge from the camera instantaneously.  However, the liquid preservative brushed onto the photo afterward smelled like nail polish remover, so I was relegated to using it in the basement (“far away from the furnace Linda!”)  The finished photograph’s colors seemed unnatural. 

Here is a photo of me taken Christmas Day that year with the Polaroid Swinger.

Mom and Dad were not deterred by these camera/photography hiccups, so there would be a few more cameras through the years, always arriving as Christmas presents.

The Kodak Pocket Camera.

My Kodak Pocket Instamatic Camera had a built-in flash, thus eliminating the pesky flashcubes and red eyes. This little camera really promoted my interest in capturing every image I could and I had it for many years. Because my shutter-happy self was now working, I could afford to pay for photography expenses.  Even after I got my 35mm camera, I continued to tote along the pocket camera as a back-up camera, since it was compact enough to tuck it into a pocket, purse or carry it in a pouch on my belt.  That little camera gave me lots of joy and I was sad to finally say goodbye to it after the film door became loose allowing light into the camera.

Here I was in 1979, on a trip to England with my parents, on the River Thames, holding onto that trusty Kodak Pocket Camera.

I had to buy a cassette player for my college journalism classes in conjunction with “reporting” on the various “beats” I was assigned the last semester of my curriculum. So, in the late 70s, I began recording Christmas morning while opening our gifts, both at home and when we celebrated at my grandmother’s house. I still have those cassette tapes, but I’ve not listened to them since the last recording done in 1985.

Clearly, I am a saver, not a thrower and, admittedly the house needs decluttering, but what do you toss versus what do you keep? The basement contains a treasure trove of memories spanning over a half century.

I ventured briefly into “filmmaking” too.

For Christmas 1978, Mom and Dad bought me a movie camera, but I only used it a few times, Christmas Day (as usual) and I filmed my Creative Department coworkers at Young & Rubicam. I hope to find those reels one day and have them converted to a format to view them.

At Christmas 1980 I upgraded to a 35mm camera.

My father used a 35mm Leica he brought with him when he emigrated from Germany in 1950, but I don’t know what happened to that camera. His photographic efforts weren’t great.  Mom and I were always off-center and after I was taller than Mom, most times I was missing my head or part of it.

After booking a Greece land tour/Greek Islands cruise for 1981, my parents bought me a Canon AE-1 35mm camera, along with a photography class. I was lucky because our American Express tour guide for this entire tour/cruise, Antony Sofianos, had the same camera as me, so he gave me lots of pointers. Antony often took photos of me using my camera during that two-week trip. Here we asked another tour member to get a photo of the two of us, Antony with his camera in tow, in front of the oldest olive tree in the world.

New camera lenses followed for birthday and/or Christmas presents, adding to my photography gear and soon, unlike the ease of the compact pocket camera, suddenly I found myself laden down with the camera and lens cases …

… and eventually hauling a flash, filters, extra film, a notebook to jot down where I’d taken photos and emergency photography “rain gear” so I was soon lugging around a big camera case and my trusty pocket camera always attached to my hip. 

Some of my favorite photos were taken by the ship’s photographer who accompanied the Panama Canal cruise land tours. He took these two photos in the San Blas Islands, the first, laden down as usual with camera equipment. It was a stinkin’ hot day, with no breeze and I felt like I’d melt.

Life situations intervened and my last big trip was in 1983 to four Scandinavian countries and the U.S.S.R.  I put the 35mm camera aside and returned to using the pocket camera until it broke and I bought my first compact digital camera.

A few months ago I went to the basement to take pictures of some of my prior hobbies, not just art supplies from a half-century ago, but also once-treasured gifts, like the aforementioned 35mm camera and guitar.  I felt sad to find the 35mm camera’s leather case cracked and in disrepair.  I took its photo and poked it back into the movie camera’s case where I had stored it all those years ago, thinking silica gel and two camera cases would keep it “camera-ready” for any future trips.  Sadly I was mistaken, but who knew digital cameras and/or phones would become our go-to for capturing images?

The camera is pictured next to the guitar case and an old Autumn door wreath.

I stood there looking at these once-loved and coveted gifts, feeling I had somehow disrespected them, not to mention their givers.

There were also small gifts that were dear to me ….

Yes, there were other gifts along the way that were just as meaningful, some items I still have and continue to hold dear to my heart.

Then there was the farm set that I (finally) got for Christmas at age 26.  This gift was a joke of sorts, because as a young girl, I asked Santa for a toy farm set one year.  I had visited a family member’s farm where I got my pet rabbit “Scratch” and was enamored with the barnyard animals.  Admittedly, toys in the 50s or 60s were more gender specific, i.e. girls played with baby dolls, boys with trucks and GI Joes, so it was suggested to me nicely that “little girls don’t play with farm sets” … but, lo and behold, for Christmas 1982, there was a small package under the tree with this note on Christmas stationery inside …

I remember wondering as I walked down the basement stairs what that gift could be.  I was convinced it was a movie projector or screen, even though the movie camera had little mileage on it, so it must be something else for the 35mm camera since it was apparently fragile.  But, it was that farm set, cleverly disguised, so I wouldn’t have jiggled the package and guessed what it was. 

Yes, I saved the Christmas note Mom wrote, but why no photo of the farm set?  Because my father immediately misappropriated the entire gift to use for a tank diorama he was building, his hobby.

Fast forward to Christmas 2025 ….

Speaking of gifts with multiple pieces, I bought a fun early Christmas gift for myself, an Advent jigsaw puzzle of dogs dressed in festive holiday wear.  There are different types of Advent jigsaw puzzles – some are for 12 days, some 24 days and others you have a “master puzzle” and add new pieces to it every day for 24 days.  I opted for doing a new, 50-piece mini-puzzle daily for 24 days. 

My mom was an avid jigsaw puzzler for many years and I saved some puzzles she completed that I liked, plus others she unfortunately never got to work on. Some look very difficult and I don’t have a dedicated spot to do puzzles … maybe after I declutter the house, my #1 New Year’s resolution for 2026.  In the interim, this five-inch daily mini-puzzle was perfect for me.

I emBARKED on my puzzling journey of “Christmas Paws” on December 1st …

… and this was puzzle #1. 

Each puzzle takes about 15-20 minutes to complete, which is not too RUFF and yes, they are DOGgone fun.

My Christmas Eve Wordless Wednesday post will be a slideshow of all 24 completed pup puzzles, which I will entitle “Christmas Pupapalooza”, so stay tuned.

Here’s a picture of my own pup, Peppy, on Christmas Day 1964 …

… I even turned that 50-year old photo into a vintage-looking Christmas card in 2014.

I’ll leave you with this Christmas card with a special message about gifts tucked inside – just click here.

Terri’s Challenge this week is Winter Wonderland/Solstice, but I wanted to do my annual Christmas memories post, so I will join her Challenges again on January 4th as she has no Challenges next week.