I’ve been cleaning old files off the hard drive that have been collected over the lifetime of a few computers.

I came across this blurb that I had typed up a little over 10 years ago when I was remembering the first Christmas without my Grandmother.

It may be about a different time of year, but it does share a little bit about me and how I grew up.

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In our family, Christmas rotated to different homes over the years.

One Christmas Eve found Mom, Aunt Debbie and I sleeping over at Grandma and Grandpas.  About 5:30 in the morning I heard Mom and Aunt Debbie trying to figure out how long we’d have to wait before Grandma and Grandpa got up.  They finally came up with the idea of having me “go to the bathroom” so that I’d make enough noise to wake them up.  It worked.  I’m pretty sure that Grandma had been awake all along and listening to us plot and scheme.

Another Christmas found us at Uncle Mike and Aunt Shirley’s when they lived out on the farm (they still had the pony and the pigs).  Once again, we spent the night at the hosting home on Christmas Eve.  It was during this Christmas that I had a loose tooth.  After spending a couple of hours being “scared” by Uncle Mike with stories of pliers and string tied to doorknobs, Aunt Shirley helped me out.  I’m sure that I wasn’t the best of patients, but fortunately she had patience of her own.  With time, wiggling, and plenty of Kleenex she helped with the extraction and I was lucky enough to get a visit from both Santa and the Tooth Fairy.  I remember wondering which one ate the cookies.

Christmas at Aunt Debbie’s and Uncle Jimmy’s had a great ritual which consisted of the Christmas Eve appetizer extravaganza.  Nuts, cookies, crackers, cheeses, Uncle Mike’s beer sausage, toffee, specialty candies, and whatever new recipes the family had come across.  Everyone in the family that could possibly make it did.  No one wanted to miss out on the pre-Christmas sugar rush.  When Grandma and Grandpa were there, we’d smell either Ham or Turkey cooking all night and we’d manage to talk Grandpa into playing music with Uncle Jimmy. Grandpa played guitar and 5 string banjo.

We’d set out the cookies (after tasting them to make sure they were still fresh).  For some reason, no one found it necessary to taste test the carrots we left for the reindeer.  And then the night was capped off with my getting to sleep on the floor under the Christmas tree listening to continuous Christmas Music on the radio.  After such a long night, it wasn’t difficult to sleep very soundly.  In fact, one Christmas, Santa had to “Ho Ho Ho” as he was leaving in order to wake me up to open presents.  I’m sure that this was a relief for Aunt Debbie and Uncle Jimmy as it appears they had been lying awake for some time.

It was great being able to go up early and spend Christmas Eve night with the host family.  But the best part of it was that Mom got to as well.  There was the occasional year when she had to work late, but she almost always seemed to make it on time (even during some pretty nasty weather).  It couldn’t have been easy after working such long hours and at the time I never thought or said too much about it.  But I did appreciate it.

It seemed that no matter what difficulties had happened over the past year, or what family squabbles might have occurred – for a few days in December we came together to share old stories, great food, and a lot of love.  And the last one is what made Christmas so great.