Charles’ 
Slide of the Week: December 23rd, 2004
My Family Christmas Eve Family Portrait, Ontario, Calif, 1970
I’m breaking my own rule this week. This is not a slide, it’s a snapshot. But it’s the only picture I have of my family at Christmas.
We’re at my Aunt Mattie and Uncle Art’s house. That fake white flocked tree with gold ornaments reappeared every season for more than two decades. I never realized how well it went with the curtains and hanging lamp in the corner.
That’s me in front with asymmetrical bangs. I have no idea what ever happened to the teddy bear; I was never into stuffed animals. But I’ll never forget when the brown corduroy coat I’m wearing got sucked out of the window of our speeding Oldsmobile Cutlass on the way home from Palm Springs. Guess I should not have held it up to the open window. My brother Mike, holding a transistor radio, is four years my senior. He often mistook me for a punching bag-OUCH! My mother, Donna, is holding a terrarium wrapped in tissue. The Compton High School class of 1958 voted her Outstanding Homemaker. She was that and more. A stay-at-home mom who spoiled us by cooking nearly everything from scratch, sewing clothes and costumes, and making sure we went to Disneyland regularly. My dad is wearing his trademark Pendleton jacket and smile. He was a workaholic with four used car lots. Sadly, after a long painful battle with diabetes he died seven years later at the age of 38.
My mother still lives in the ranch house I grew up in. Nothing ever tastes better to me than her home cookin’. My brother and his wife have a spread in Wrightwood with horses, pigs, ducks, geese, dogs and cats. These days they host Christmas dinner –but with a twist. The main course is homemade pizza. What would you like on your Christmas pizza?
A VERY Merry Christmas to you and yours!!
Charles Phoenix
Los Angeles
December 2004
Sets this Slide belongs to:
Holidays
7 Comments on “My Family Christmas Eve Family Portrait, Ontario, Calif, 1970”
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January 11th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
OK, the tree — two things: I’m so digging the Christmas cards tucked amoung the branches, A+!
And that angel tree-topper? Is there a story behind it? Looks homemade, and I mean this in a good, contruction-paper-n-paste-forever way.
November 27th, 2006 at 11:23 am
What a nice family picture, Charles. In addition to Robert Heinlein, Ian Fleming, Michael Karl Witzel, Raymond Benson, Louis Lamour, Richard Marcinko, and Clive Cussler, you’re one of my favorite authors.
February 19th, 2007 at 7:30 pm
AH memories, growing up with those trees was great, I grew up in Ontario-Montclair-pomona in the seventies, and I would love to see what has changed, I left Cal. in 95, moved to Mo. but now live in Ut. Love this site it brings back soooo many memeories for me THANK YOU
November 2nd, 2007 at 10:57 am
Back when ’swag’ had a different connotation.
…Lorenzo
February 15th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Thank you for sharing this picture and memories with all of us.
August 29th, 2008 at 8:05 am
Hi Charles I have loved looking at all your work,I love it!You havent changed a bit,you crack me up.Because I live in Utah (the boonies)I havent been up on all that you have going on.I would love to catch one of your shows when we are out to visit.Keep up the good work my friend,Love ya Laurel
November 6th, 2008 at 3:40 am
I subscribed to you after I saw you on Martha Stewart in February 2008 and have now just started digging into your archives. I love the way you find humor in some of the tiniest details!
I love the angel on your Christmas tree! I haven’t been able to find an angel for my own tree that’s nearly as beautiful as the cheap little angel we had on the tree when I was growing up. You’ve inspired me here, to have my nieces take turns each year to make one for my tree in the years to come; then I’ll have a splendid collection of angels in no time!
Thank You!