This would have been christmas of 1971, 72 or 73. The date is based on the box of golf balls my father is holding. He is wearing a new sweater, my mother's go to gift for my father, he had dozens of them. The golf balls were in a package that my oldest brother sent from Hong Kong or Singapore. My oldest brother finished high school in 1970, and enlisted in the Navy in early 1971. His first assignment was on a aircraft carrier. Most the time spent off the coast of Viet Nam. Breaks would take them to Philippines, or Hong Kong or Singapore. The ship was nuclear powered, and Japan wouldn't allow them in port. He sent a box with christmas gifts one of those years, I remember the golf balls. The white artificial tree was a favorite of my parents, I think it was bought the winter we lived in Phoenix, 1965?
Funny the little things that trigger memories.
Oh that photo! The paneling, the modern clock on the wall... even the old thermostat. And tell us about that Santa-ish thing on the table behind your father.
ReplyDeleteIt does set an era in time. Santa, I don't remember, it looks like something one of my mother's "crafty" friends would have made, I suspect there is a one-quart coke bottle under it.
Delete"a big shiny aluminum xmas tree" - lucy. those were all the rage back then. my aunt had one.
ReplyDeleteMy parents had an aluminum tree, and a white plastic one.
DeleteI remember those white trees!
ReplyDeleteMy mother liked the color, my father liked that it lasted for years.
Deletelovely memory this
ReplyDeleteI too can remember a few christmas prizes - funny how ones 'stick out' and so many others are lost to memory.
Of all the stuff my parents gave me over the years, two Whitman Coin Collecting albums are one that sticks, with me 50+years later. 99-cents at Kmart. And a clock with the last year of issue of US solid silver coins, it is on top of the book case in the dining room, a gift the first winter we spend in Florida.
DeleteI see the facial resemblance between you and your Dad!
ReplyDeleteAnd the hairline. I found myself recently sounding like him.
Delete