The Holidays DON'T Come From A Store!

Once again, the Holidays are upon us folks...and what can I say about the holidays?

I remember the holiday season as a child, that will ALWAYS hold a special place in my heart, and the memories will never fade. It will always feel as if it was "just yesterday" to me....they were such "magical" moments as a child. The holidays always began of course with Thanksgiving, like I imagine it does with almost every American family. The women slaving over a hot stove all day in the kitchen, men slumped lazily in the livingroom watching football. Goodness...I can't remember a time when the men of my family haven't been slumped lazily somewhere, while us women did all the work in the kitchen, and around the rest of the house. Which proves the old saying to be true, " A womans work is never done". Seems kind of unfair if you ask me...but it is what it is.  The heavenly smells and aromas that would come from the kitchen of my grandmothers house on Thanksgiving were out of this world! If I close my eyes really tight and try to remember, I can still almost smell them today. I remember how my grandmother would be covered in flour, kneeding dough while making her homemade rolls. Those rolls are amazing, a recipe I definately want to learn and have passed down to me. Memories of running through the kitchen and sticking my little fingers in the big bowl of creamy warm mashed potatoes, and trying not to get caught. Snatching deviled eggs off of the platter, which I don't know how...but she always knew when I was grabbing one and I would get busted. All my grandmother could do is laugh at me though, so it wasn't a huge deal.

Besides all the yummy food that was overtaking the kitchen, there was just this warm feeling of family togetherness everywhere you turned. My aunt Heidi would be home from college, which was a big deal for me. I so looked up to her as a kid, we are only 10 yrs apart, but having her home for the holidays was special. I loved to listen to her tell stories about her adventures at college, I would just sit there in awe..with my mouth hanging wide open. I remember that she had this beautiful piano downstairs in her room, and we would nag her to death trying to get her to go play us something. Normally we didn't have any luck, so we just tinkered on it ourselves. I imagine my grandmother had a pounding headache most of Thanksgiving, now when I look back on it. My grandfather who was a trucker would be home, and normally brought tons of candy since he hauled for Mars candy co.. Which what kid doesn't love candy, right? He wasn't a very affectionate type, but we still loved having him home anyway, and we knew he loved us. Other than that, it was just my mom, grandmother, my younger and only brother, and me!

We would finally get to sit down at the table to eat, and boy oh boy DID we eat! I know I would eat so much that I would literally get pretty sick, I would end up having to lay down most of the afternoon from a belly ache. I mean, turkey,potatoes,green bean casserole, sweet potato souffle, stuffing, deviled eggs, cranberry sauce, rolls, veggie tray, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, cherry pie, ice cream, and punch. I'm sure there was lots more food that I'm overlooking...just thinking about all of that gives me a belly ache.

The next day, began the day of turkey leftovers...that used to be my favorite. Having some turkey on my grandmothers homemade rolls w/ some miracle whip! Mmmm! That to me was almost better than the entire Thanksgiving dinner. The best part of that day was getting to put of the Christmas Tree! As a kid I thought that was such a big deal to be able to help decorate the tree, all the ornaments, that hideous silver crap called tinsel...but my favorite part was putting the angel on top of the tree, and then getting to be the one to plug in the lights. How beautiful the tree looked all decorated....from that day until Christmas Eve there was just a "magical" feeling all throughout our home. Warm, fuzzy feeling....Christmas Carols were playing on the record player..can you believe it?! Record player, yes vinyl not a cd! Lol! My favorites were Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman and Rockin around The Christmas Tree. I still love those songs to this day. Where we lived we even got Christmas carolers, I haven't seen that done in forever. It might be nice to have someone come knock at our door to sing Christmas carols for us, I actually would like that. The most magical night of all was Christmas Eve though, I remember how my mom and grandmother would make my brother and I go to bed fairly early after having a nice big dinner. We laid out our plate of cookies and glass of milk for Santa and then off to bed. Only problem was, I could NEVER ever fall asleep on Christmas Eve as a kid. I would literally lay awake all night long, getting up and running back and forth to peek through the door at the Christmas tree..I wanted to see if Santa had come and dropped off our presents yet. Boy, how I must have driven my mom and grandmother crazy, Lol. I remember one year how my aunt Heidi, had gone outside and was ringing some sleigh bells to make us think that it was Santa and his reindeer coming and that we had better lay down and sleep or he wouldnt come down the chimney with our presents. That worked, at least that year. For the most part, Christmas Eve just was guaranteed to be a sleepless night for my brother and I. We waited until at least 4-5am before waking anyone up...but when we did we would make sure everyone was up. Banging pots and pans together and shouting...now I can understand why some parents beat their children! Lol! *joking*

All of these memories are so fresh in my head, as if they were just the other day. I can remember these candle holders that my grandmother had, the glass was frosted and the smell of the candles was heavenly! Smelled like berries of some sort....I remember the bowls of dyed pistachios, that we would eat until we couldn't eat another bite, and our little fingers would be so red from the dye. I remember cracking walnuts into this huge bowl so that my grandmother could make her famous chocloate chip cookies, laying under the Christmas tree and gazing up at the strands of lights and being just mesmerized , making ornaments for the tree out of big old pine cones that we got from the front yard. One of my favorite memories is curling up on the couch with my grandmother to watch the Christmas specials on tv. Oh how I loved those silly little shows, I believe that they were made using puppets. My favorites one had to be Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

As a kid they seemed like pure magic! My grandmother always used to say "Lucky is one who sees Christmas Through the eyes of a Child". I so understand that now as an adult, and how right she was! What a treat it was to get a white Christmas too wasn't it? I believe I had 2 as a child, and oh how I loved to go outside and make the snow angels...but the best was always getting a big bowl of snow so that my grandmother could make my brother and I some snow cream. Snow cream on Christmas morning, what a treat!

Christmas today at our house is still very special for my mom, grandmother & I...but there's nothing like Christmas as a child. Decorating the tree isn't fun for me anymore, but I think that's basically due to my health, and the fact that I have the inability to use my fingers the way I should be able to. I love to watch it being decorated, which tonight actually...my mom and stepfather are going to be putting up and decorating our tree. This should be interesting to see..since last year I put the tree up, and weighted the base down with dumbells, so that our fur babies would not knock the entire tree over again like they had done a previous year. Somebody (stepfather) threw away the dumbells, so now there is nothing to weight the base of the tree down....kitty's are going to have a blast I can assure you. I am anxious to see what it looks like once it is put up and completely decorated...I just wish my mom liked to turn the lights on more often. She always complains about saving the bulbs..but whats the point of putting lights on the tree if you're only going to turn them on Christmas morning? A little Re-Donk if you ask me. The whole "decorating" thing around our house has gotten to feel like just a chore anymore anyway, it doesn't feel like something festive. The fun has disappeared, at least to me. One thing I do miss is going to Christmas Eve services at church...since that IS what Christmas is about to begin with. The candle lighting,the story of Jesus's birth, the nativity scene...it's just nice, and we just don't do it anymore. Maybe I'll try and find another way to go to a Christmas Eve service, I really do miss it. As for the rest of my mom & I, we still have our little Christmas traditions that we try to hang on tight to, and we are thankful that we have my grandmother here to share yet another Christmas. So let the cookie baking, present wrapping, eggnog and cider sipping go on, and I would like to take this time to wish everyone a Merry Christmas. I have NO problem in saying Merry Christmas, and for me Christmas is just not that one day it is the entire holiday season....so MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!