{the Spirit of Christmas Past}

Each year as we start to prepare for the upcoming Christmas Season, it always stirs up memories from Christmas Past. We all have Christmas memories and traditions. Christmas is a time for family, a time for love, a time for happiness and great memories. Christmas memories of the past show a simpler (and more joyous) time, when Christmas meant so much more than who was getting what and how much it cost. Some of the best memories and traditions I remember from my childhood are from simple things that were handmade, like handmade Christmas ornaments, paper chains, and stringing popcorn and cranberries for our tree. We also always had a fresh-cut Christmas Tree - I will never forget the fragrant smell of pine in our home in the month of December! 

This is me in a Christmas Past!

As I grew up, got married and had children, we created our own Christmas Traditions from simple to fancy. I am now having fun creating many of those old traditions with my grandchildren, which you can read about here. 
One of my own Christmas Traditions was creating handmade garments for my children. I remember so many years of planning out what I was going to make and often times staying up late to complete garments just in time for a church Christmas program! Below are a few of the handmade Christmas Garments I made for my children from many a Christmas Past. You can click on any of my pictures to see a larger image.

Smocked pinafore and Smocked short-alls

Smocked bishop collar on black velvet dress

This smocked bishop collar got several years of
use with other Christmas dresses!

A closer look at the smocked collar

Smocked on Red Silk Moire with
a shadow work lace insertion collar

Close up of collar

Close up of smocking

The red dress stirs soooo many memories of a Christmas past. It was our first Christmas living in Tennessee (1993). We were temporarily living in a tiny duplex and in the midst of moving into our newly built house, which we moved into two days after Christmas - truly a Christmas to remember! All of my sewing had to be done at the kitchen table in that tiny duplex kitchen where there was barely enough room for the kitchen table, let alone my sewing supplies, most of which was packed away in boxes! I was determined to carry on my tradition as my daughter was nearing the pre-teen age where she would sadly outgrow smocked dresses. 

The spirit of Christmas Past lives on when you make something handmade that you and your loved ones can cherish forever! 

Now it's your turn to share the Spirit of Christmas Past on my Monday Memories Linky Party! Let's have some fun sharing Christmas Memories from the past and blog hopping!

Here’s how it works:

1. Scroll down to the bottom of this post until you see the “add your link” button. Click that, and create a descriptive name for your link. This will make it easier for folks to browse through all the links.

2. Make sure to link to your specific Monday Memories post, not the main page of your blog.
3. Make sure your blog post includes something handmade from a Christmas Past.

And I created a fun, little badge especially for the party, so feel free to post the code in the box below at the bottom of your Handmade Monday Memories post on your blog if you’d like…

a href=”http://sewnso.blogspot.com">img src=”http://www.southern-stitches.com/Blog/cmaslinky.jpg”>

And now it's your turn! The best part is there are no crowds to deal with, no pushing and there is room for everyone!