The theme on Songography is “Any Christmas Song.” I picked White Christmas because to Christmas is very nostalgic for me and White Christmas is a very nostalgic song. And a big part of my childhood was spent in Forest Service Ranger Stations up in the mountains. That was back when when snow was kind of magical and not the pain in the butt that it is now.  I’m using my  father’s old photographs so I don’t know if that is cheating or not because I didn’t take them.

I think that is my brother, Bob, taking a photo of me and my little sister Ellen at the Payson Ranger Station on the Tonto National Forest in Arizona. My sister was born in Payson and we moved to Utah soon thereafter. I think this was on a visit back to Payson. The Forest Service was very tight knit socially and everybody moved around a lot so we knew somebody almost everywhere. I love the old school jeep and truck and the galoshes. Does anybody wear those any more? Those buckles would get iced over and they would be hare to take off.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the tree tops glisten
And children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow

I’m guessing that this is northern Arizona in the early 1960’s.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
With every Christmas card I write
May your days be merry and bright
And may all
Your Christmases be white

This is the old Payson Ranger Station in Arizona. The building on the left was the Assistant Ranger’s Residence. It is now a museum. The building on the right was the Ranger’s office. It is part of the museum. We lived across the street in in a cinder block house owned by the Forest Service.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
Just like the ones I used to know
Where the tree tops glisten
And children listen
To hear sleigh bells in the snow

This is my Mother at their Forest Service owned house in Happy Jack, Arizona on the Coconino National Forest (I think). This was after my parents were first married and several years before I was born.

I’m dreaming of a white Christmas
With every Christmas card I write
May your days be merry and bright
And may all your Christmases
May all your Christmases
May all your Christmases
May all your Christmases be white

I think this is another scene from northern Arizona.

I’m dreaming of a white
Christmas with you
Jingle Bells
All the way, all the way

A road through the forest. We used to do the Griswold thing and go cut our own tree (with a permit to do so of course). It was always an adventure to go find the tree. Dad was an expert at “improving the tree.”

The movie White Christmas came out in 1954 and I was born in 1955. I find the movie fascinating because to me it shows how the “Greatest Generation” thought of themselves. The old can do if we just pull together and work together spirit.

Dad tells me that this is the Santa Fe ski area way back when. It is a lot different now. I love the guy rocking the red ski sweater and what looks like a tow rope in the background and the shack which may have been the “lodge.”

And here is a clip from the movie. Everything is cool until you get some dialog and it is in a language I couldn’t understand. Oh well!!

Things are a lot different. Everybody is kind of spinning in their own orbit these days.

But hey, I still love Christmas for a bunch of different reasons and I still love snow, when I don’t have to go anywhere in it. Have a Merry Christmas!!

Linking to Song-ography