Seven siblings, Dad worked at a rock quarry and farmed to raise all that we ate for the most part and Mom raised us kids full-time. No indoor plumbing until I was eight, so times were tough, but I did not know it because that was the way it was with everyone in our area.

Best Christmas memories was coming down the old creaky steps and crossing the uneven hardwood floors to look under the Christmas tree. The smell of fresh fruit would hit me when I entered the room and for many years, I would smell that same smell. Our stocking (everyday socks) was under the tree and usually stuffed with bananas, apples, oranges and some kind of chocolate candy. Never got a lot of toys but what little we got was sure special. And Dad seemed to always be setting at the kitchen table beside the wood stove drinking coffee and Mom in the kitchen readying for cooking breakfast.

Funny how these small things like the smell of fruit or other things are etched in our memories. I think about this every year and the then simple life as I knew it.