Friday, December 05, 2003
Christmas was always a big thing when I was a kid. We were pretty poor, my truck driver father supporting a wife and 5 kids. So Christmas meant the only new toys we would get (except for one on our birthday) and luxury foods like candy. When we lived in Traverse City there were three Christmases.
1). Go down to evil grandma's house for early Xmas Eve. She lived in a stone house down the road from our house. Besides my nuclear family there would also be Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Tom and Aunt Harriet, and their two kids. Grandma was a pyscho bitch from hell and didn't like my father, hated my mother, and as an extension didn't like us kids very much. So one of the memories of those nights was the time my two cousins got train sets from Grandma and my family got sweat shirts. Another memory is the time I got sick, threw up in her bathroom, and as I was kneeling over the toilet she came in and screamed at me. Pyscho bitch.
2). My mother always had to run home first and then we followed and Santa would have arrived and there were a load of presents under the tree. I never believed in Santa- as the youngest of five it was rather clear to me that Santa didn't exist. So we opened our presents and I would have a new toy to play with- lincoln logs, Tonka trucks, one year a Winnie the Pooh game.
3). Christmas morning we walked through the snow to my other grandparent's house, which was next door. There were a few new presents to open, and then the long wait for Christmas lunch. The usual foods- turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, Grandma's cranberry relish (she invented a recipe that Jello later published in one of their cookbooks).
After evil grandma's husband died she stopped talking to us and after nice grandma's husband died the Christmas morning get-togethers were not as fun. As an adult I still like to give presents but I'm not as fond as getting them. I hate to have to exclaim with delight- "Oh, a lovely set of coasters!"
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1). Go down to evil grandma's house for early Xmas Eve. She lived in a stone house down the road from our house. Besides my nuclear family there would also be Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Tom and Aunt Harriet, and their two kids. Grandma was a pyscho bitch from hell and didn't like my father, hated my mother, and as an extension didn't like us kids very much. So one of the memories of those nights was the time my two cousins got train sets from Grandma and my family got sweat shirts. Another memory is the time I got sick, threw up in her bathroom, and as I was kneeling over the toilet she came in and screamed at me. Pyscho bitch.
2). My mother always had to run home first and then we followed and Santa would have arrived and there were a load of presents under the tree. I never believed in Santa- as the youngest of five it was rather clear to me that Santa didn't exist. So we opened our presents and I would have a new toy to play with- lincoln logs, Tonka trucks, one year a Winnie the Pooh game.
3). Christmas morning we walked through the snow to my other grandparent's house, which was next door. There were a few new presents to open, and then the long wait for Christmas lunch. The usual foods- turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, Grandma's cranberry relish (she invented a recipe that Jello later published in one of their cookbooks).
After evil grandma's husband died she stopped talking to us and after nice grandma's husband died the Christmas morning get-togethers were not as fun. As an adult I still like to give presents but I'm not as fond as getting them. I hate to have to exclaim with delight- "Oh, a lovely set of coasters!"
