My Christmas Memories

All of us here at the radio stations are blogging about our Christmas memories. Where do I begin? I have so many of them.

Family get togethers come to mind first. Every Christmas we would go to Farmers Ridge. It's not a town, it was a place where my grandparents lived. Waaaay out in the sticks. Farmers Ridge was near Belleview, Illionois, a town of about 20 people. Just south of Pleasant Hill, Illinois in Pike County.

My Grandparents lived on a farm. This was back in the years when they stocked up on coal for heat. No heating system and no air conditioning. I remember Grandpa would go out of the house every now and then to get the coal from the pile he had stocked up.

Yes, they did have electricity but the phone was different. You answered the phone by how many rings you heard. One ring might be someone who lived down the lane. Two rings was for somebody else, and so on.  I remember 4 rings was my grandparents. Then they would know that the phone was for them from those four rings. Grandma or Grandpa would pick up the phone and start talkin'.

They were simple farmers just trying to get by on the farm. But during those years at Farmers Ridge, us kids had nothing but fun. Of course, myself and the other cousins would get into trouble somehow, which made it even more fun. Playing in the barn, on the tractors, helping Grandpa feed the pigs and the cattle. And of course, the big Christmas feast with fried chicken, pork and beef, all of which Grandpa and Grandma raised on the farm. Butchered them, hung them up in the barn to let the blood out, and then cut them up and fry them for Christmas dinner. It was so good. And after that, all the presents were opened.

We went to Farmers Ridge every Christmas. I miss those days very much.