[3 goldens]

I a nbot sure how many people are in our little town now that the small Navy base has shut down, but I wudl say around 4000l Is much larger than my home town, but still does lots of things like we did.

Tomorrow is the lighting of the Community Tree at the park. They have hay rides that go thru the neighborhoods with lots of outsdie lights. Sing Christmas carols while riding (large trailers pulled by trucks, sit on bales of hay)0> The high school chioir and various church choirs sing, santa and the Grinch show up. they have hot cocoa and cookies, and a few craft tables for the kids to make Christmas ornaments. Is a lot of fun,.

I am making a big pot of veggie beef soup and tossed salad and bought potao rolls. youngest son is coming out from Corpus with his 8 year old daughter (he got custody of her) and older son who lives around the coner is coming with his two kids (his wife is working) and they are going to eat with me about 5:45 and then we are going to the park for the festivities.

There is advantages ot living in a small town, even if you do have to drive 20 miles to get to the Malls in the city.

 

[maple1144]

Sounds like so much fun!

 

[Florabora22]

That does sound like fun. I love small get togethers with close family and friends.

 

[Pumba19]

i've always been a small town kid my city living experiences were very short lived.. nothing beats the closeness of a community that feels like family

 

[Elisabeth Kazup]

I love our village. We had our parade last Friday night. You know you're in the boonies when the decorated tractors outnumber the floats and the new garbage truck gets a rousing ovation!!

Cider and bags of popcorn provided by the real estate company, chili by somebody else, cards for soldiers provided hot chocolate and donuts. All the stores were open (1 block on either side of our 'square'). It was fun. Penny had to miss it this year but she'll be back next year!

 

[Pumba19]

haha one year in a parade here for Canada Day, they had the new fire trucks in it and afterward they were all on display at the lakefront, they even had a little mini fire truck driven by a firefighter giving the kids rides, when they actually got a fire call and they booked it out of there leaving the kids in the back of the mini fire truck looking very confused haha it was too cute

 

[Deb_Bayne]

i've always been a small town kid my city living experiences were very short lived.. nothing beats the closeness of a community that feels like family

Hey Pumba, I've been to your town, in 1979 I spent Christmas Day on the Reservation near there and rode a horse that day. After I got off the horse they chose to tell me then that the horse was just broken in the day before. This was my third time ever on the back of a horse, I'm sure glad they didn't tell me this before I got on the horse. That was a great Christmas, first one without my family and they treated like I was their family.

 

[Pumba19]

that's awesome! it's quite the town, and i am sure very different from 1979 haha.. i moved away for 10 years, and after moving back in June, i got lost on several occasions lol

 

[goldensrbest]

Small towns are great for raising famlies, then growing old in, because you have that connection,with people that we need,so much.

 

[3 goldens]

Theframing community town I grew up had a population of 610 when I got marriedand moved---and I think they counted every dog, horse and cow to get that number. There were 22 kids in my senior class. Our"town" consited of the Shahan General Store where you could get anything from material to a bucket for your well, small section of toys and read made clothes, lanterns, livestock feed,, hand dippede ice cream cones for 5c each, pick out which soft drink you wanted from the big red chest full of ice and all kinds of soft drinks, small selection of lunch means, bacon, wheel of cheese on the end of the counter, etc. Even our post office was in one corner. Was about like Ike Godsey's store (only larger) on the Waltons.

We had a one chair barber shop, a one bay garage, a one room city hall, and another store, the Mercantile that sold about the same stuff as Shahan's. Was also a little resturant with limited amount of stuff on menu, the black smith, 4 churchs, and util I was a freshman, one school. They did build another school for elementary. Today that town has about 8 schools and population of several thousand. Oh, I forgot, Thelma Senter turned her spare bedroom into a beauty shop!

Our Christmas Parade was like the described above. By the time they put in our bad and our scouts, and our "city officials (mayor who was my grandpa and the sherrif, wasn't really much people left to wach it. Bands from two neighboring communities would always come. And how proud we were when we got our first fire truck and it lead the parade. However, I do think it was the first fireturck ever built with an engine rather than have horses pull it. My uncle was fire cheif (no py of course) and remained so until his death over 40 years later. Now they have a really niuce fire department with 3-4 vbehicles. and paid firemen.

It makes me sad that so much of the farms were sold and now are covered with houses. People lock their doors now, there are seveal traffic lights in town, etc. It is not the town I grew up in and it makes me sad.

 

[Debles]

I grew up in a town of 1000. It was wonderful, straight out of "Stand By Me."
I sometimes wish my kids had grown up in a small town but it still would have been different , due to the time difference.

Lincoln is still considered small by many compared to big cities, it has 300,000. My kids had a good childhood and we have lots of fun Christmas activities. I do love a really small town though!

 

[3 goldens]

On Thanksgiving after dinner our family would go down walking in the pasture and pik out our Christmas tree and Daddy would tie a rag on it, then would cut ir around the 15th of Dec. to me, that was just how Christmas trees were obtain--properly.

In the city 10 miles from us (about 50,000, as you entered town you passed Bergfeld Park and every Dec. they had the lone Christmas Tree lot set up there. We would pass it and I felt so sorry for people who had to go there and buy Christmas trees. I could imagine that I would ever buy a tree from a lot. However, married in '65 and moved to Akron Ohio, and that was a shock to me. So much noise, and the stench from the tire factories. And I had to get a tree fromn a lot.

Today we have an artificial tree, something I never dreamed I would ever do until abut 5 years ago. I just got to wrrying about fires, and with artificial I can put it up Thanksgiving or day after and leve it up til mid jan. if I want to.

We do have two pine trees by our driveway so I can bring in the scent of pine very easily. Also have holly growning along the front of the house, so can boughs of holly if I want to mess up my "holly hedge." BUT I still miss the old days of cutting down our tree and cutting wild holly boughs.