My Earliest Childhood Memory

Day 3 of my June blogging challenge, and it’s again more difficult than I expected. The problem is that I have to sort between what are my actual recollections, and what are the images in my mind that are really more combinations of stories retold about me and old photographs. Rupert the dragon, falling out of a swing at the park, feeding my brother dirt cookies… all are impressions, but none with real stories to go with them. Here’s a memory that I know is all there.

I remember the Christmas just after my fourth birthday. I visited my grandparents in Baton Rouge. Santa showed up while my grandmother was in the kitchen baking. (I always recall seeing her wearing a navy blue or black apron covered with big pink cabbage roses.) Santa asked me to come and sit in his lap, so I did. And then it happened. I looked at Santa’s hand, and made the comment that his rings looked exactly like my Grandma Ellen’s rings. He also smelled just like her– a mix of floral perfume, cinnamon, and vanilla.

Yep, I totally called out Santa/ Grandma in front of my whole family. Because I was the oldest grandchild, that one incident spoiled Santa visits for all my cousins to come.

And thus began the long tradition of my comments ruining all the fun at our family gatherings.

What is your earliest childhood memory?

 

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