If I'm not on the Naughty List, I should be. I haven't posted in nearly 6 months.... Been a little busy with graduations, parties, shuffling off to Skidmore, retrieving and sending her off on her own. They say the best things to give your teen are Roots and Wings! They may be the best but surely the hardest. New friends, new responsibilities, new time constraints and new travels alone on the highways. So far, so good! Celebrated her 18th birthday for the first time without family. New friends took up the slack. Tattoo one and now TaTWO on her own; both meaningful and classy.
Now on to the purpose of this Christmas Eve epistle of remembrance. Eighteen years ago this morning we lost Dad. Two of my very best gal friends lost their Dads on Christmas Eve too. I guess He had a plan for the decades down the road.
The memories I have of Christmases past are full blown and still clearly visible. Hopefully, for many more Christmases to come;
- Right after Thanksgiving, my sister and I would find the stencils, grab the sponges, get Mom to buy us a fresh pink can of Glass Wax and head to Hewitt Bros. to "holiday up" those big windows.
- Dad would get those big old C7 lights from the attic and string them on the floor throughout the house to replace the ones that had given up from the year before. There was "a way" they needed to be strung across the front shrubs and Mom guided the placement..(probably with a Pall Mall in hand!)
- Dad and I always went to John's Grocery and picked out our tree. Dad had the patience of Job and a multitude of needles stuck in the knit gloves he always chose to wear...(pretty sure he had many leather pairs he could have grabbed.)
- We'd bring it to the porch and he would saw off the trunk a bit and put it in the rusty red and green stand we always used. This was above and beyond as there was nothing handy about my Dad....All of his handiness came from that amazing brain settled right under that wavy head of awesome hair.
- A few days later after the tree "relaxed", we brought it to the spot where Mom resided the other 11 months of the year...her perch in the lower bay window... I got to crawl under and fill the stand with its daily drink.
- Usually a couple of weeks before Christmas we would take our annual trip to Hotel Syracuse. It seemed like NYC to us as we drove by the stores and billboards we had only seen on TV. We'd shop in some of them, have a grown up dinner in a fancy restaurant in the hotel and retire to our room...Mom and Dad had "an appointment" at the bar and we were given carte blanche to order our dessert from room service in our very own room.
- The days just before Christmas, my Mom and her "helper" would make the Christmas spaghetti sauce for our dinner on Christmas day. It was easy as nobody had to spend hours cooking that holiday...just throw the salad together and heat the garlic bread.
- Christmas morning had an agenda! NO ONE was allowed downstairs until Mom and Dad had descended. Once they confirmed that Santa had indeed been there, we were allowed to slowly head down... Dad would be holding the vintage, double bulb spotlight while Mom was filming. That spotlight is now the light over the mancave bathroom sink in my house... We were then allowed to gasp and smile and beg to go straight to the mantle but we knew it was into the kitchen for juice and coffee. We downed those juice glasses in record time and headed to the fireplace. Stockings were a free for all...we opened all at once. Of course, Santa had filled the toes of the stockings with oranges and the annual lifesavers, socks and a few goodies specifically for each of us. Then off to the kitchen for breakfast. Scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, cinnamon buns and juice or milk.... ( coincidentally exactly what tomorrow morning's breakfast is at EIEIO.)
- We'd pick up the table, find our gift spot (where we'd place each gift so it didn't get lost or thrown out with the wrappings) and a place to sit in the living room! Then we'd open....finally...one-at-a-time. (coincidentally just like we'll do tomorrow morning!)
- We'd have poppers (an English tradition) and don our paper crowns and read our silly jokes. The ugly, now beautiful Santa and Mrs. Claus would sit on each side of the gold angels slowly circling from the fire of a few tiny, slender candles. After dinner we'd gather around the Organaire (electric organ) and sing a few carols. I'd actually play and we'd all sing...we were so v bad!!!! We'd end with Oh Holy Night. Those high notes were killers but we pretty much kept straight faces and made God proud.... at least that's what we were told.
- By this time it would be getting dark and as we got older, my sister and brother would often rush off to see their friends. I would marvel at all the things I had been given by Santa, my sibs and my folks. My two all-time favorites were a Barbie house and a pink clock radio that Mom had packed in an old suitcase so I wouldn't guess what it was.
