Is It Throw Back Thursday Yet?

When my mother moved in in February, she brought with her dozens of photo albums that have been great fun to go through. We divvied the contents up amongst my sisters and me and sent off giant envelopes of pictures to Massachusetts, New Mexico, and Minnesota. Of course, a huge load stayed here and I am beginning to sort them. Nothing like some unexpected down time for organizing old photos.

When we were kids, a highlight of every Christmas was Mom dragging out the Santa Claus picture posterboards stored under her bed. Christmas wasn't Christmas without a visit to Santa at Frederick & Nelson in Seattle, the giant department store where my father did something or other. Every year we stood in line, wrinkled list in our hot little hand, every year we got our photo taken, and each year's photos were added to the posterboard. With four girls in the family, the same coats and dresses inevitably reappeared in the photos. Black and white segued into color sometime in the early 1960s. My introduction to the big red guy in 1952 was not propitious, but he and I were getting along just fine, thank you very much, by 1953.

As you can tell I'm feeling pretty good or I'd be whining instead of feeling nostalgic. A week and a half in—hurrah!