The the “Christmas in the Stars.” collaboration continues! I’m so glad to be working with so many good friends from around the Star Wars fan-site community. Over the next few days there will be a short, daily guest blog post about a favorite Star Wars memory from a friend of us here at the Star Wars Report. We continue with “Endoring Memories!” a story from our own Karl LaClair of The Wampa’s Lair podcast.
Enjoy!
-Riley Blanton – Founder, Executive Editor – starwarsreport.com
—————————————————————————————————————————–
Endoring Memories!
Whenever I think back on my favorite memories of Star Wars surrounding the Christmas season it’s never to what sort of Star Wars I got on Christmas morning. While it was always exciting to receive a Star Wars present for Christmas, my fondest memory always revolves around the tradition of setting up our Christmas tree.
Back before I owned any of the Star Wars movies on VHS (yes, I’m that old!) the only way I could watch them was when they were on TV. Each year they would play the Star Wars Trilogy on the Sci-Fi channel around Christmas time and each year our family would have either The Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi on in the background while we decorated the tree. Growing up in upstate NY we typically had a decent amount of snow on the ground the week before Christmas. So my brothers and I would run outside after we had finished the tree to recreate the Battle of Hoth. We used our bright red toboggan as the Snowspeeder to race down the hill away from the imaginary AT-AT walkers in pursuit. We even set up huge tree branches pointing into the sky to represent the Ion cannon. That’s right, at our Echo Base we had more than one!
But I have to say even more than our Battle of Hoth reenactments, what I remember most fondly about those early years of my Star Wars love expressed at Christmas was actually using the tree to play with my action figures. The Christmas tree would double as an excellent Endor as I used the figures to jump from tree branch to tree branch to avoid the AT-ST walkers gunning for them from beneath the tree. These adventures that started in the tree would often spill over to the mantle over the fireplace. I would use my Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Chewbacca, and rebel soldier figures to scale the stone face of the fireplace where they would then camp out on the high ground on the mantle to fire down on the Stormtroopers who would be in pursuit. Needless to say, these everyday Christmas decorations became tools in my imaginary world. And I loved it!
