Santa came!

On this Christmas morning our folks forgot to fill the stockings and later when we found them full, they told us an elf slid under the door to do it while we weren't looking. Maybe Greg didn't buy it but I did. Christmas mornings Greg would always drag me out of bed at 3:00am to see what Santa brought us.....the folks too which I'm sure thrilled them.

When we were teenagers, Mom would joke that we would never admit to her that there was no Santa for fear Christmas morning would stop. There probably was some truth to that !

Greg never stopped believing in Santa and kept the spirit of those Christmas mornings all his life!

Manners

By todays standards our parents were really strict! We were expected to be well behaved and when we weren't we did get punished. There were no "til the count of three", "time outs", bribes or any question about what would happen if we did something wrong. Good manners were a really big deal to our folks. We were taught very early to have good table manners and to sit perfectly quiet and still in church. Children were to be seen, not heard and you never interrupted when adults were talking. At meals, the napkin went in your lap and you did not talk while eatting or chew with your mouth open!

You might think we had good manners out of fear of punishment but the truth is, our folks would always praise us for our good behavior. It meant everything to us to make them proud.

I remember when this photo was taken. All of my grandfathers great grandchildren were sitting on the couch and floor around him for a group picture. Alot of squirming was going on but Greg was sitting perfectly still for this historic picture. You can't see me, I was at the other end of the couch with my fingers in my mouth......at least one of us had perfect manners that day !