Do you ever wish for a simpler time at Christmas? If you are old enough you know of more simple holidays that involved family and friends, church and great food. For me almost all my memories also included the outdoors. From kids getting BB guns and rushing out to shoot them to adults getting new shotguns and shells for an afternoon quail hunt, guns and Christmas always went together for me.

My Christmases growing up in the 1950s and 60s always ran a similar pattern. We went to Florida the week before Christmas to visit my Grandmother who live there. That was usually a four day trip but we always came home a couple of days before Christmas to enjoy everything we had been working on, from the door decorations to the tree.

Christmas Eve we always had a service at Dearing Baptist Church, singing wonderful songs and eating great food. Then it was home to make sure the stockings were hung, milk and cookies were out for Santa and off to bed, where we tried to stay awake and listen, but never could make it long.

Well before daylight we would wake up and rush into the living room where a wondrous spread of gifts awaited up. There was always on big item wished for all year, a bicycle, a .22 rifle, a set of briar proof hunting clothes. Then there were smaller gifts.

I always got a brick of .22 bullets, 500 rounds promising many happy hours of shooting. And I could count on a box or two of .410 shells for rabbit hunting. Guns, bullets and shells were always prized. I am sure I got regular clothes and other things but really don’t remember them.

The stocking was kept to pull down last because it would be stuffed with small things. There were always a couple of oranges and I never made the connection that they looked just like the ones in the sack we had brought back from the annual visit to my grandmother in Ocala Florida the week before Christmas. But there were also boxes of sparklers, often a pocket knife, maybe the knife, fork and spoon set to go with the mess kit under the tree.

After exploring the gifts over and over I usually wanted to go outside and shoot my new guns and bullets. But I couldn’t go far. Christmas Day was the day for just my parents and my brother and I to have a big lunch together. We didn’t visit other family members until the days after Christmas.

My dad often took me quail hunting after lunch, one of his loves. We would go get the dogs from a nearby pen and head to fields where we knew the coveys would be feeding. If we didn’t go quail hunting I would usually get with a friend and go squirrel hunting, or go by myself. I loved being in the woods all along.

I still have the .22 rifle I got for Christmas when I was 12 years old. It still works well and is very accurate even after killing untold numbers of squirrels, birds and paper targets. Guns are often passed down from generation to generation if they are taken care of and cleaned.

The week after Christmas was filled with visits to kin folks houses. Usually there were huge meals at lunch time and my aunts and uncles hosted the meal on different days. That was quite and undertaking with over a dozen adults and 20 or so kids running around. Five of my mothers brothers lived near us and she was the youngest, so even when I was very young some of my cousins had kids my age.

I don’t know how we stuffed so much into the two week holiday from school but we did. It seemed we never slowed down from heading to Florida the day after school was out until the church services on New Years Day and then back to school.

Later in life deer season became important. Back in the late 1960s season was open all November then closed until opening again from December 26 to January 1. I hunted as much as possible during that week. Then in the mid 1970s I found out bass and crappie would hit good during Christmas holidays and started spending most of them at my place at Clark’s Hill, fishing and hunting every day except Christmas Day when I joined my family for dinner.

We all have Christmas memories and that is one of the things so important about this time of year. I hope everyone makes so great new ones this year!