"Family Traditions" Contest

This is my entry in the "Family Traditions" Contest by @sultnpapper! You can learn more about the contest and how to enter HERE! I started writing this shortly after hearing about the contest and after a couple of days I was in a little bit of a quandary as to whether or not that I was going to be able to participate in this contest even after I told @sultnpapper that I would. You see, after thinking for quite a while I couldn't come up with a current family tradition. 🤔

(In Addition)
Not only that ... the only one that I could think of was, let's just say, a very very long time ago! So that is where I've been these last couple of days wondering should I even enter as my family tradition "died" a long time ago. It's not that I haven't tried to create new family traditions within my family but you need some willing participants to do that. With the introduction of cell phones, the internet and cable it seems some of us have just given up on family traditions all together which is sad and I guess maybe I'm guilty of it as well as, if I'm being honest with myself, I gave up even trying after having tried many times to create new ones. So, I will submit my long ago "Family Traditions" memory which @sultnpapper was right includes both Religion (sort of) and the Holidays but is more importantly about family! 💖

My Long Lost Family Tradition!

I was lucky that this, long ago, memory popped into my head early one morning after learning about this contest. As some of you may know, I come from a large family. My parents had nine of us .. seven girls and two boys. My family tradition is centered around the Holidays and mostly involved my parents and us girls. You see my Dad loved a movie called "The Bishop's Wife". I'm talking the original version with Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven. Back then there was no such thing as the internet, cable, dvd's and (shhh) even vhs. So, starting in November when the Sunday paper came my father would pull out the TV guide and scour it for the showing of "The Bishop's Wife". If you were lucky then you could find two or three showings of the movie but often times my Dad would find one on a nice clear television station. Back then you were lucky also to find four or five good clear stations and you most certainly needed bunny ears for the television aka antenna that sat on top of the television. 🐰

A copy that I currently own.

Now my brothers were usually given a pass if they didn't want to watch it as it was a gushy kinda' movie but they did sometimes still watch it with the rest of us. My parents would make a little bit of a "to do" out of sitting down as a family to watch this classic by buying just a couple of extra goodies to snack on while watching. That was a big treat for us as there wasn't much extra money for frivolous stuff. Usually, the snacks would be chips and dip, cheese and crackers and if we were really lucky then a bit of ginger ale. 😋

A photo from the present to represent the past and I'm eating these right now! 🙂

I don't know how many of you have seen this movie but it is a classic and any newer versions just do not compare in my opinion. The copy that I own is in black and white just like the original too. It is just a nice old film which also was about family and the importance of not getting caught up in something and forgetting about what is truly important.

Yep, I made this!

One of my favorite scenes in the "The Bishop's Wife" is the Christmas tree scene where Matilda (the maid) is trying to decorate the tree and Dudley (Cary Grant) helps her out a little (a lot). The special effects back then were nicely done. Dudley lifts is arms and hands to put the decorations on and then lowers them to add the tinsel. I found a clip of the scene on youtube to show you. The video is less than two minutes so even though @sultnpapper said he probably wouldn't be watching any videos then maybe he will make an exception...did I mention that it is less than two minutes long?! 😉

I just love tinsel on a Christmas tree! It just makes everything twinkle even more! I will say though that some of my siblings could get carried away with it. The following photos are from way back then and all I could find so please excuse the quality but I think you will get the idea why I say that some of them could get carried away with the tinsel! This is also when mom and dad decided to let us kids decorate the tree but I will adamantly say that I had no part in the decorating of a couple of these trees pictured!

Way back then and we sure could've used "Dudley's" help as you can see!

This is a tree in my home that I decorated one year. The only thing that I love more than tinsel is lights and lots of them. I just feel like they make the world a little brighter if only for a little while.

I hold the record in the family for most lights on a Christmas tree and I'm perfectly okay with that. I also never leave the tree lit when we are not home or when we go to bed..safety first!

(I Just Remembered...)

Oh! Another tradition that my family (parents and siblings) had growing up is that we always had a Nativity. When we were little Mom would let us take turns holding the baby Jesus before setting him in the manger. Mary and Joseph did light up but were not lit up in this photo. Mom also had to repaint them as the paint on them had faded with age.

The Nativity

Anyway, I'm not real sure if my post is what @sultnapapper was exactly looking for but I had both a happy and sad time putting it together. Happy because it brought back some nice memories and sad because a few have passed on and looking over old photos and thinking of the great times we had as a family made me miss them and the things we did as a family. I'm not gonna' end it on a sad note though so I quickly put this little collage and gif together about the tinsel and why I love it on a tree and why the Christmas tree decorating scene is my favorite from "The Bishop's Wife".

Tinsel aka Icicles

Tinsel catches the lights on the Christmas tree and adds a bit of sparkly razzle dazzle!

A little gif that I made and please keep in mind that I pretty much made the collage and this gif in about thirty minutes to add at the last minute cause that's how I roll ... sometimes ... lol! 😁

Ooh pretty!

Thank you @sultnpapper for sponsoring the "Family Traditions" contest!
and
FYI...this contest is open to anyone and has some pretty big prizes up for grabs so check it out! You have plenty of time to enter as it runs till 08/08/2020 - 10:00 PM Texas time! This is the contest announcement post again for any additional information.
https://hive.blog/contest/@sultnpapper/a-dash-of-sult-n-papper-08-01-20-contest-it-s-on-now-usd100-hive-in-prizes