MM202 - Christmas Memories Pt. 1

Paul takes the time to share some of his fondest Christmas memories from his youth. Merry Christmas everyone.

[INTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Welcome to Morning Mindset. A daily dose of practical wit and wisdom with a professional educator & trainer, Amazon best selling author, United States Marine, Television, and Radio host, Paul G. Markel. Each episode will focus on positive and productive ways to strengthen your mindset and help you improve your relationships, career goals, and overall well-being. Please welcome your host; Paul G. Markel.

*Professor Paul*

Okay, welcome to another Morning Mindset podcast. I am your host Paul Markle and it is still the Christmas season and if you would indulge me. If you would I'd like to share with you some of my Christmas Memories now when I was a young man, I was a young child my parents had lots and lots of photo albums. I don't know if people even do people even do that anymore two, people have legitimate photo albums, or is that something that only your grandparents do?

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But we did we have photo albums and I remember looking at pictures of myself when I was two or three or four years old or five or what have you pictures of sitting on Santa Claus's lap in the mall, you know picture sitting in front of the Christmas tree in my parent's house. But I don't really remember those Christmases. Those are just you know, other people's memories that I that I see that I was there and I was present but I don't remember that one of the first Christmas is that I actually do recall though was when I was in elementary school and we were living in the suburb of Detroit called Roseville, Michigan, if you know anything about the geography of Southern, Michigan and the greater Detroit area there's a lot of suburbs that surround Detroit, Michigan.

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I was born in Detroit. I was born actually in the city of Detroit, but when I was young I lived in this little subdivision lots of, you know, a suburb named called Roseville, which is right next to Saint Clair Shores and so on and so forth, and I remember we would have a Christmas party at school every year, and we had a gift exchange and I think back then the the gift exchange limit was like two or three dollars, you know, they would tell her moms and dads that that we were and we would bring a gift for a boy or a gift for a girl if you were a girl you brought a girl. If you were a boy you brought a boy gift. Can you imagine that in today's world?

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Yeah, where there was no gender fluidity when I was we knew in the 1970s that we were either little boys or little girls and we understood that. Even in the second and third grade we did but I remember how excited I would be at the idea of the gift exchange because back then we still put Christmas trees in our classrooms and we would decorate the Christmas trees and we will put the little gifts underneath them and then we had room mothers how many of you guys had room mothers? If you're young and you're listening to me, I don't know if that if they still do that if they still do that, but the room mothers were volunteers.

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They were moms who volunteered every year to assist the teacher with party's right there. Like the if you guys know the office that the TV show The Office they're like the party planning committee, and the room mothers would always make sure that for our Christmas parties and birthdays and stuff that we had cake or cupcakes usually cupcakes or cookies or punch or juice or whatever it was, and they would come in and they would just kind of oversee it and help the teacher out.

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But I remember before the last day before we would get out for Christmas break. We would have our little party are in class Christmas party, you know, and we would do the gift exchange and it was always a trepidatious feeling wondering if you were going to get a good gift. Because you knew that there were some kids in your class who are going to show up with really lame gifts. But when I was I don't remember what year it was with it was in third grade or fourth grade or what have you but the gift that I got for the Christmas gift exchanges school was a little red by plane.

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Yes, it was it was made of metal. It was a toy biplane. It imagined a Hot Wheels car only a little bit larger. Now like the Red Baron would have flown and back then we knew the Red Baron wasn't because it was cool stuff. I remember how excited I was to get that and I came home and that was my main focus for several days because you get out of school. Obviously, you get out of school before Christmas Day. We probably got out three or four days before who knows when it was so there I am at home around the Christmas tree waiting, you know playing. My little toy plane, my little red biplane and to this day I still remember that thing. It was so cool, I was so excited about it.

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I remember the Christmas season in Michigan as I don't remember Christmas season in Michigan. We didn't have snow. I don't recall one. Sometimes we had a lot of snow. Sometimes we had a little bit of snow, but we would go out. You're ordering that Christmas break myself and my brother and sister and the neighborhood kids because there's always neighborhood kids and at the end of the street we would build snow forts and we'd be out there with our plastic shovels and buckets and so forth making, you know snow fort blocks and what have you and we'd stay out as long as we could until our cheeks were red and our fingers were numb or mittens were all wet, and then we go inside and you know, Mom. My mom would warm us up.

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She'd make us hot cocoa. We didn't have microwaves back. Then she would actually make it on the stove and she would take all of our wet stuff because my mom was very handy. She would. She needed scarves or crocheted are scarves and she could even do mittens and hats and all that stuff, and of course we'd come trumpet in the house and our hats and mittens and scarves and all that would be wet and she take them and she'd throw them in the dryer, and so by the time we were all done drinking our hot cocoa and we're all warmed up again our stuff would be dry, and at least for me, I would be back out at it.

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I'd be back out in the snow messing around with my buddies and friends and playing and throwing snowballs and all that until the sun went down and we had to go in for the night, and those were wonderful memories. We didn't have a lot of money when I was young, as a matter of fact, it was hard, it was tough on my mom and dad when I was a young person. I remember having you know, a car would break down or something would go wrong with the family car and there was a time when we only had one car there was often when I was young.

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It was very common for a family. You know Mom and Dad kids and silver is very common to only have one car to car families. You hadn't had that money and we didn't have a lot of it but we still had everything we needed. We had a warm home to live in we had parents that loved us. We had gifts under the tree even if they weren't super expensive gifts, but we appreciated him. I know I did and I loved I grew up. In the warm embrace of not only my immediate family but my aunts and uncles and cousins and my grandparents on both sides because back then in at least when I was young in the I was born in the 60s and grew up in the 70s.

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Grandparents and aunts and uncles all lived within a few miles of each other. So it was very easy to you know, visit each other's houses for holidays and so forth and that was something that it's something that I've carried with me all these years and I'm very very tremendously grateful for that. So I thought that if I would just share a little bit with you, we don't always have to be solving all the world's problems in the Morning Mindset right? Sometimes we can just share, have a good time. Alright, folks. I'm going to keep saying this because I can and this is my show. I hope you have a Merry Christmas and I will talk to you again real soon.

[OUTRO]

♫ Trenches by Pop Evil ♫

*Alex*

Thank you for spending time with us today. To get show notes, submit a topic request, for more from your host Paul G. Markel, visit MorningMindsetPodcast.com. That’s MorningMindsetPodcast.com. Please leave a review of this podcast on your favorite podcast player, we appreciate your time & effort, and we look forward to reading your honest feedback.