Christmas...

I was talking yesterday about Christmas at my Grandma’s house and the memories that I will have forever the memories that will stay with me and no one can take them away.

Some of the memories are quite vague but I love them none the less. Some of them I know that I have created from looking at pictures of Christmas’ past but others were never in pictures they are only in the fading memories that I force myself to try and remember to keep them from completely fading out.

Christmas at my Grandma’s  always meant that the five of us would all have matching pajamas, but this could have been for anytime of the year. They were always homemade and I can remember being called away from playing for Grandma to measure a piece of elastic for the shorts that she would then write our name on the end in a fine point sharpie before letting us go back to playing. One set in particular is memorialized in a picture of me and two of my cousins standing in front of the refrigerator with those pink spongie curlers in my hair. Now I realize that my hair is much too fine to hold curls of any sort no matter how much hair product is in my hair and how much heat is applied. I know that in the office closet at their house there is a suitcase full of that material, pink with small white strips in a soft stretchy material as well as yellow and white that my cousin Jody had. I was always jealous of him, I wanted the yellow pajamas more than anything.

Everyone in our family has a stocking that Grandma handmade. One of those felt pieced together kits that you can buy at the craft store. All are different. There is resentment too. I wanted the one that was a train made out of candy…I got a green one with Raggedy Anne and Andy, the same one Jody has. I want a candy train. They have been in multiple rooms and they always had the best presents. They were in the office for the longest time. Then pinned to the curtains in the dining room, and then onto the breezeway curtains. Now they are wrapped in tissue paper in white shirt boxes in the office closet. I haven’t gotten up the nerve to ask for mine. I’m not sure if I can handle having it in my own home. It makes me sad because I know that once it leaves their house it will be over. That those memories of childhood will finally end. That it will mean that we won’t be spending hours and hours piled into the tiny rooms of their house waiting, being forced out of the house to play with something anything.  

When we were little and everyone was there wasn’t enough room for everyone to sleep in the house so there were a few times that we would sleep in the garage. Now let me finish! This garage had wall to wall carpet, a Dearborn heater that we would all sleep in front of.  They would put blankets down across the door so that there were no drafts. My grandparents would  bring in the redwood picnic table and we would eat out there and play games and have fun. I remember many times sitting at the picnic table playing Monopoly and not being old enough to play by myself and being on a team with my cousin Jeffrey and being the horse. I remember that no matter how much we played we never won.  

I don’t remember whether or not the tree was out there or if it was in the living room in the house. I remember playing with our toys out there and how much fun it was.

That room has since been enclosed and turned into a room with a heat/cool unit and a bathroom. It doesn’t feel the same. 

The memories don’t feel the same. 

love ya!