Merry Christmas!
While I’ll spend a lot of time next week and throughout New Year’s Eve night and New Year’s Day remembering (and analyzing) the prior year…Christmastime is more for remembering back through the years.
Lots of my memories center around my grandmother, Nonnie. I’ve written about her a lot both here on Hectic-Kitchen and over at Hectic-Dad.
Nonnie was one of the most influential people in my life, and though she’s been gone since 1985, I still think of her often.
More recently, my Dad passed away, and he’s somebody else that I think of a lot this time of year. We had our ups and downs, but like a rollercoaster ride, both were thrilling in their own way. Much of my parenting and life-view came from him.
For the past 29 years, I’ve had one or more of the Hectic Kids around at the holidays. So many memories come flooding back as I’m writing this.
The year all the kids (including our one-month old baby) contracted chicken pox at our big family Christmas (they were all too young for the vaccine, with all of them under 4 years old)…that was a doozy and made the rest of the holiday season really interesting.
Two ski trips to Breckenridge, Colorado…including the first one where my whole penchant and talent for meal-planning came to the fore. And the second trip where my son shattered his arm on Christmas Eve morning so we spent the next 30 hours in the hospital!
Year after year of gathering at our house with my wife’s family…and the wonder as to how many would show. Will it be 30? Will it be 120? We’ve been at both ends of the spectrum. You can imagine how interesting it is to plan a meal for that large a variation.
The year we decided to spend no more than $10 on every present, but had a budget that allowed for two-dozen or more presents per kid. The nightmare that came with wrapping all those small gifts.
The year we decided to do one present per kid and then having a bunch of them turn up as “unavailable” when I finally had scraped together the money to buy them. The scramble that ensued would’ve made for a great movie. Far better than Jingle All The Way.
I remember years where I snuck the presents from their hiding places and wrapping until the wee hours of the morning as the kids slept with visions of sugar plums dancing in their heads while I was cutting paper cut after paper cut from wrapping paper.
Oh, and the year my six year-old wandered downstairs and almost saw all the presents I was wrapping. It was truly a Cindy Lou Who moment as we walked upstairs, hand-in-hand, to get her a drink of water and then gently put her to bed…terrified the entire time that she would figure out that the magic was really just a lot of hard work.
The year it snowed so heavily during our Christmas party that we had 40 people stuck at the house. Or the year we got iced in and couldn’t go anywhere.
Thinking further back, I remember getting together with all my cousins who I only saw two or three times a year. We rotated who hosted the party, so many years we were in tiny houses that were barely big enough to hold all of us. But the laughter and warmth made it seem like the houses literally expanded.
I remember the year my cousins and I all took the family photo with scrapes on our foreheads where we had banged our head going down the stairway to the basement. I’m the shortest (at 6’ 2”), but the stairway had a 6’ clearance. The photo is hilarious, since we all had the same red marks and scrapes. Apparently we didn’t learn from the others’ experience!
I remember using a tape recorder to record our conversation during the meal and then listening to that tape for years on end…laughing at how ridiculous we sounded.
Farther back, I remember the wonder of Christmas morning…coming into the living room and seeing the presents under the tree.
Or watching the faces of little kids light up as they discovered the wonder of Christmas all over again.
It’s a funny thing…I’m sitting here, all teary eyed, remembering all the Christmases past. All the hubbub around me has seemed to melt away. It doesn’t matter that it’s going to be 50F through Christmas, with no chance of snow on the ground. Nor does it matter that my ToDo list is longer than my arm. Or the fact that I’m still trying to figure out gifts for half the people on my list.
All that evaporated as I went on that trip down memory lane. And now I’m feeling a lot better about the season. I know I won’t remember all the bad stuff in the future…I’m going to hold onto the sweet memories and let the rotten ones disappear.
Try taking a trip like that yourself. Watch a movie with the family. Sit and talk a while. Call somebody on the phone. Whatever you do, enjoy the season. You never know who’s not going to be around next year to enjoy it with you.
So sit back and reminisce a bit. My wish for you?
Make It A Merry Christmas!
