It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas because . . .

Tonight I’m wishing back to the 1970s when our heat and air vents were close to the floor instead of some kind of a mechanical issue that now has them in the ceiling.

Then, if I go farther back in my time machine I’d want one of those living room floor furnaces we had in the 1940-50s when I grew up in OKC. Those were great warmers, but in our house the best place to be was in the kitchen cause Momma was always making, or baking, and had something in the oven.

Christmastime was always the funnest when I was about kindergarten age because Momma would let me help her make candy. OK, so mainly I just watched, but that was fun, too.

She always made fudge at Christmastime cause it was my sister’s and both her and Daddy’s favorite. Momma also made divinity for me cause chocolate was one of the hundreds of food items that I was allergic to back then.

The funnest time I remember was when we had to use spoons to scrape the divinity off the wax paper because the candy didn’t set up.

Daddy laughed. Momma didn’t. She said it was all gummy because of the damp weather.

But Christmas was always an exciting time of the year because Momma made it that way back then, mainly in her kitchen.

Her Singer treadle sewing machine was another way that she made the magic. Over the years I have no idea how many angel costumes, including wings, that she made for me and my friend, Donna Gail Hall.

Her sewing machine was next to my rollaway bed at the foot of their big bed, and Momma made all of our clothes. Including Daddy’s pajamas. But she didn’t make his work clothes because he had his Tinker Field guard uniforms.

Daddy later went to work for the Oklahoma Publishing Co. where he also wore uniforms.

He was a big man and could have well filled out a Santa costume back when I was a pre-schooler. That’s when I, for real, remember seeing, and saying: “I saw Momma kissing Santa Claus.”

That was in the late 1940s one Christmas Eve when we lived on E. 10th St. in OKC.

I’m pretty sure it must have happened.

Of course that was more than 75 years ago.

I have good memories about stuff that happened years ago. But things that happened yesterday, and today, are cold as ice. At least they are tonight.