Uncle Morris and the Christmas Tree

My mother liked flocked Christmas trees for several years. She usually decorated them sparingly, and usually with a single color scheme – one year it was red ornaments, one year it was blue…

We always spent Christmas Eve with my dad’s family, either at our house or my grandparents’ house or Uncle Bernarde (my dad’s brother) and Aunt Eileen’s house. One year when we went to celebrate Christmas Eve with them, we didn’t have a Christmas tree yet. I’m not sure why we hadn’t got one yet, but I remember Ricky and I were upset because we were afraid Santa wouldn’t bring us any presents if we had no tree to put them under.

When we got home late that night, lo and behold, there was a fully decorated Christmas tree in the living room! And Uncle Morris (my mother’s brother) asleep on the couch.

I think this might be the tree that Uncle Morris brought us, but I'm not sure.

This house was WAY out in the country, between Bangor and Hartford. We only lived there one year, but it happened to be one of the worst winters we had. I know that one time during the winter we lived in this house Uncle Morris was on his way to our house and got stuck in a snowbank. As his car sank in the snow a road sign came right up through the floorboard of the car. It was nighttime, so he decided to just stay in the car instead of trying to get out and walk. When it got near daylight he was afraid he would be hit by a snowplow (the car was completely covered with snow), so he managed to get out and walk to the nearest farm house to use the phone and call us. (NO CELL PHONES BACK THEN!) Seems like I remember that the farmer used his tractor to pull the car out of the snowbank.

PHOTO L-R: Wathada, Morris, Ron, Dianne (me)