Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2015 Edition Post # 9

The photo above is similar to the one we had and gives you an idea what was included in the kit. 

Editor's Note: From now and until Christmas Eve I will be participating in the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories, 2015 Edition by Thomas MacEntee and the Geneabloggers. If you would like to join you or want to know more about it please see this link. I am reposting this post from the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories 2014 Edition and have added a few other memories.

Today's Christmas Memory is about Christmas crafts.
  
In the late summer of 1973 we were living in Centerville, Ohio while my Dad was going to school for NCR in preparation of moving up in the company. We would be there until the spring of 1974. We were a family of seven traveling to Ohio from southern Florida in a station wagon and very little room even with roof top carrier. For my brother, sisters and I we would be experiencing a real winter instead of mild Florida temperatures and lots of sunshine!

As the holidays drew closer we went out and bought our Christmas tree, lights, and ornaments. My Mom picked up a paint by numbers wooden Christmas ornaments kit for us to paint and then put on our tree. Most kits contain about 30 ornaments. We may have done more than one kit, especially since there were only 30 ornaments but I am not sure. This may have been the Christmas she also bought a group of ornaments to be sewn and put on the tree as well. I believe that year we made our own garland that year. I believe that our garland that year was either made from popcorn or chains of red and green construction paper. However, Momma and Daddy are visiting The Biltmore in Asheville, North Carolina with two of my siblings and their families so I can't ask her at the moment.

I have other memories from this time in Ohio. We got to go to Kentucky and see my grandparents, George and Myrtle Rueff which was not a tradition in our family due to the distance between our home in Florida and their home in Kentucky. Flying our family to visit my Kentucky kin during the holdiays was cost prohibitive all those years ago. Being able to share the holidays with them and my Rueff cousins was a lot of fun! 

Another memory from this Ohio trip is that my sister Susie celebrated her first birthday there!