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Susan Piller works as Admin support to the Principal and Academic Dean at CFOT.  She is a Salvationist at Heritage Park Temple, and she shares about Christmas from her childhood.

As a child, Christmas in the Piller household was loud – full of laughter, sometimes tears from emotions and over excitement, but very loud. With my older sister and two younger brothers, my parents and a cat we made a lot of noise – sometimes joyful, sometimes not so much. My dad was the board game player and would play with us kids. Whether we won or lost the game didn’t really matter, as long as we beat dad!

One cat we had would gently lift the glass ornaments off the tree and stick handle them (or paw handle) down the hardwood floor hallway to smash against the wall! And one year, only one, we had a real Christmas tree. Due to the cat, it hit the ground daily! By Christmas day the tree had very few needles left – a real “Charlie Brown” tree. All of the cat’s antics I thought were funny, my parents, however, did not agree. Of course I did not have to clean up the broken glass or the pine needles. The glass ornaments were replaced with plastic and an artificial tree replaced the real one, but the cat stayed.

I remember the smells of the baking leading up to Christmas. All the cookies and dainties, homemade pretzel mix and caramel corn and the cabbage rolls – made from pickled heads of cabbage. Neighbors would wonder what on earth my mom was cooking, but to us it was soul food.

Ah yes, growing up Piller was good, especially at Christmas time.