: pleasure and sadness that is caused by remembering something from the past and wishing that you could experience it again

(Definition taken from Merriam-Webster dictionary.)

Don’t you just love this word? I do, and I love the deja-vu sensation it brings when I experience nostalgia.

I don’t know if it is because I’m getting old(er) or what, but it seems I have experienced several instances of nostalgia in the past days/months.

Most recently was yesterday, when I went to the dentist for my semi-annual checkup/cleaning.  The visit ended with a clean “bill of health” for my teeth….no cavities!  When I got home, I posted this on Facebook:

(Names were obscured to protect the innocent…..)

My sister Vickie and my mother Carol will understand what this means.  And I have to admit: a little bit of gloating motivated the post.

It all goes back to a tradition that we had in our family when we were growing up.  Whenever my mother took my sister, brother and me to the dentist if any of us got a clean bill-of-health (no cavities) we were rewarded with an ice-cream sundae at the local dime-store soda fountain! This was a great treat because my parents were very frugal and so this was the only occasion when we got to enjoy this store-bought treat.  The best part was we didn’t have to wait…we went directly to the dime-store from the dentist’s office!

The admitted “gloating” comes in because at every dentist appointment during my childhood years, I never had a cavity! I don’t know if it was because I loved hot fudge sundaes so much that I did an amazing job brushing my teeth or if I was just blessed with good, strong teeth.  Whatever the reason it was always my good fortune to get to enjoy the sundae.  The sad thing was if my brother or sister happened to have a cavity, they had to sit there and watch me while I enjoyed my sundae.  (I don’t know this for a fact, but knowing me I probably teased them by flying a spoonful of luscious, gooey hot fudge and ice cream past their mouths before swooping it back into my own!)  Good times…..

Another instance of nostalgia happened a few days ago when I was digging around in our storage room looking for the scrapbook that holds the red paper cupids that I wrote about in this post. (I was writing about them as part of a writing challenge.)  While searching through some boxes I found these items:

Thank goodness my mother carefully saved these things for me so that I still have them! (Especially my Cry-Baby doll!) Each item brings sweet memories of my childhood….

The last instance of nostalgia that I’ll write about occurred last fall.  I was helping my mother by working on a surprise Christmas gift for my siblings. She had gone through a lot of their photo albums and pulled out photos of our early childhood Christmases and mailed them to me.  I then scanned each one of the 129 photos, edited them as best as I could, and used them to create a book and an online slideshow as a gift for my sisters & brother.  It was so much fun to see all of those photos again! It brought back wonderful memories of Christmases at our Grandparents’ house, or visiting with cousins during the holidays.  Here is a sampling of some of those photos:

My older sister Vickie & me with Santa (1961)