My Family Christmas Eve Family Portrait, Ontario, Calif, 1970
I’m breaking my own rule this week. This is not a slide, it’s a snapshot. But it’s the only picture I have of my family at Christmas.
We’re at my Aunt Mattie and Uncle Art’s house. That fake white flocked tree with gold ornaments reappeared every season for more than two decades. I never realized how well it went with the curtains and hanging lamp in the corner.
That’s me in front with asymmetrical bangs. I have no idea what ever happened to the teddy bear; I was never into stuffed animals. But I’ll never forget when the brown corduroy coat I’m wearing got sucked out of the window of our speeding Oldsmobile Cutlass on the way home from Palm Springs. Guess I should not have held it up to the open window. My brother Mike, holding a transistor radio, is four years my senior. He often mistook me for a punching bag-OUCH! My mother, Donna, is holding a terrarium wrapped in tissue. The Compton High School class of 1958 voted her Outstanding Homemaker. She was that and more. A stay-at-home mom who spoiled us by cooking nearly everything from scratch, sewing clothes and costumes, and making sure we went to Disneyland regularly. My dad is wearing his trademark Pendleton jacket and smile. He was a workaholic with four used car lots. Sadly, after a long painful battle with diabetes he died seven years later at the age of 38.
My mother still lives in the ranch house I grew up in. Nothing ever tastes better to me than her home cookin’. My brother and his wife have a spread in Wrightwood with horses, pigs, ducks, geese, dogs and cats. These days they host Christmas dinner –but with a twist. The main course is homemade pizza. What would you like on your Christmas pizza?
A VERY Merry Christmas to you and yours!!
OK, the tree — two things: I’m so digging the Christmas cards tucked amoung the branches, A+!
And that angel tree-topper? Is there a story behind it? Looks homemade, and I mean this in a good, contruction-paper-n-paste-forever way.
What a nice family picture, Charles. In addition to Robert Heinlein, Ian Fleming, Michael Karl Witzel, Raymond Benson, Louis Lamour, Richard Marcinko, and Clive Cussler, you’re one of my favorite authors.
AH memories, growing up with those trees was great, I grew up in Ontario-Montclair-pomona in the seventies, and I would love to see what has changed, I left Cal. in 95, moved to Mo. but now live in Ut. Love this site it brings back soooo many memeories for me THANK YOU
Back when ‘swag’ had a different connotation.
…Lorenzo
Thank you for sharing this picture and memories with all of us.
Hi Charles I have loved looking at all your work,I love it!You havent changed a bit,you crack me up.Because I live in Utah (the boonies)I havent been up on all that you have going on.I would love to catch one of your shows when we are out to visit.Keep up the good work my friend,Love ya Laurel
I subscribed to you after I saw you on Martha Stewart in February 2008 and have now just started digging into your archives. I love the way you find humor in some of the tiniest details!
I love the angel on your Christmas tree! I haven’t been able to find an angel for my own tree that’s nearly as beautiful as the cheap little angel we had on the tree when I was growing up. You’ve inspired me here, to have my nieces take turns each year to make one for my tree in the years to come; then I’ll have a splendid collection of angels in no time!
Thank You!
Wow Charles, yet another of your great slides takes me down memory lane. We (you and I) both grew up in Ontario. You are only a couple of years older than me, but being that little bit older gives you some better memories of this time period.
There must have been a sale on those bears around Christmas (at White Front maybe?), because I had that exact same bear. I couldn’t go to sleep without him. And that jacket! I had one just like it too. I remember trying it on at Sears in Pomona (“The friendliest store in town”)…remember the smell of popcorn in that store?
Wonderful picture looks like great memories . I am so sorry to see that your father passed so early in your life but good to hear that your mother is still around and still in the same home .we all love a home cooked meal for Christmas over pizza anyday anyway merry chritmas and happy new year in 2009 be sure and visit your mom I am sure the Christmas memories are still very deep in her heart
Hi, Charles. Nice to chat with you today about the highlights of the Inland Empire. I wanted to ask, have you ever attended a show at the Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theater in what used to be the old Claremont High School gymnasium? We saw “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” last year and were delighted by the glamorous atmosphere and horrifying/wonderful region theater talent.
Thanks for all you do!