My 16 Days of Christmas

One of dad's assignments was Brize Norton Royal Air Force Base, so we lived in England for about 18 months.  It was a time when there seemed to be an abundance of British bands taking the world by storm (The Beatles, Freddy and the Dreamers, The Dave Clark 5 - to name a few).  Men were growing their hair long and women were wearing their skirts short.  Daddy worked part-time at the NCO club and on weekends, there were dance contests.  We twisted and then we mashed potatoed.  Mom learned to knit (even in the dark of theaters) and once a week we got to shop on a little truck - Mr. Giles.  The milkman delivered milk every morning (outside temperature, unpasteurized, with cream on top - awful) and we had to take a teaspoon of cod liver oil every night before bed (with a candy chaser).

It was in England we learned how to appreciate chocolate - well maybe not appreciate, but we sure liked it.  We always headed straight for the Cadbury's Buttons - they were the best!  At Christmas (we happened to be there for 2) Cadbury's put out a special sampler tray and Santa would put one in each of our stockings.  We would run out to the living room (once we heard the Christmas music and smelled the coffee) and glance around, taking it all in. We would see those chocolates in our stockings and would run right past the tree with all those things we wanted because we had been "nice" all year and grab our stockings and break out the chocolate!  Man, that chocolate was good!

I have to tell you about the Christmas tree!  Base housing did not allow fresh trees in the family units, so our tree was spectacular and shiny.  We pulled each "branch" out of its sleeve, shook it so it filled out and inserted it in the little hole in the "trunk".  We plugged in the light that had a colored shield over the bulb that turned non-stop, directed it on the tree and it turned every magnificent color of the rainbow.  We had an aluminum tree.  Oh, those chocolates were so good!