<p>Last Thanksgiving was at my moms. She was bed ridden and we, my siblings, did not understand why. She seemed healthy. But we were, mostly, all there. My D2 was at a semester abroad in Switzerland. My S was back home alone because he had to work the next day and we were over 4 hrs. away.</p>
<p>Thank goodness for skype. Each skyped with her. She died about two weeks later.</p>
<p>OMG, I miss her!</p>
<p>Thank you for sharing that, morrismm, I’m sure that is a very emotional memory.</p>
<p>I remember one Christmas when I was maybe 12 or 13. We lived in a big old New England colonial that backed up to woodland and abandoned cow pastures growing up to scrub cedar trees. As I recall, my dad was away on a business trip and my mom was down with the flu. We didn’t have a Christmas tree yet, we couldn’t go out to buy one, and well … we needed a tree.</p>
<p>My brothers and I took the hand saw and went out through the snow and found a small cedar tree which we cut down and dragged home. We managed to get it all lit and decorated and surprised our parents. My mother remembered the specialness of that tree forever – she always said it was one of her favorites. And it did smell different!</p>
<p>When I was 6, Santa brought me a new bike. I desperately wanted to try out my new bike, but we had snow on the ground. My dad drove the car up and down the driveway to create ruts and then shoveled the rest so I could try out the bike on Christmas day. His list of shortcomings is long (including divorcing my mother and moving out of the house on my 14th birthday), but it’s nice to have this pleasant memory.</p>
<p>I have such wonderful Christmas memories. Every Christmas Eve we would all cook for our Feast of the Seven Fish. This is the traditional Christmas Eve dinner in Italian homes. The house smelled so good from the giant 8 foot extra wide tree that we hunted for every year at some far off tree farm on what seemed like the coldest Saturday of the year. My mother would pack eggplant Parmesian and fresh Italian rolls she bought at the bakery at 5:00 AM in the morning. We would all be in the center of the tree farm and my mother would open the trunk of the car and within seconds we would be eating warm eggplant Parm on these delishish rolls. Thermos of hot coffee and hot chocolate seemed to magically appear as did the food. My mom loved our traditions and seemed to bring magic to every holiday. I still don’t know how she kept everything hot for that long drive.
After eating our huge fish dinner Santa would arrive and he would bring us his gifts. Santa was one of our wonderful Jewish neighbors who thoroughly enjoyed the festivities. We all sat on his lap and the super 8 camera (video in later years) would film us from the time Santa “arrived on the roof” to the time he parked his reindeer. The coffee and hot cocoa was flowing and extended family all joined us for desert before we headed out for midnight mass. We all walked to church just to burn off the calories. We would get home after 1:00 and immediately my siblings and I would stack all the presents into their respective piles. My parents must have shopped for weeks because Christmas was pure extravagance. Mom would stuff our stockings with the silliest things…funny long underwear to keep us warm…silly socks…the warmest wool hats…they were all picked carefully and always inspired the same reaction of “oh mom!!” After unwrapping all of the presents it was the middle of the night and we would all sit down to breakfast. The bacon smelled so good as did the saugages, eggs, and french toast. I don’t think we ever went to bed before 4:30 in the morning. I miss those memories and every year I relive them in my heart, and I could still hear the beautiful laughter of my mother.</p>
<p>My mother and father would be up long before us and would have the dinner in the oven ready for our early Christmas day dinner. Christmas was such a great day filled with all the wonderful people that my mother welcomed into our home and her heart. People gravitated to our home because as tired as my mother must have been she always had the most beautiful smile and hearty laugh. Christmas was our day we spent playing with our toys and visiting with all of the people who came to visit. It was a huge open house where everyone was welcomed. I am still in awe of my mother because I have never met a woman who had such total joy and love in her heart. I am grateful that my mom was part of our first three kids Christmas’ but sadly she passed away before my daughter was born. I am so grateful to have had such great childhood memories. They were trully magical…</p>
<p>I love all the stories!
When my H and I first married we didn’t buy a Christmas tree for our apartment because we were going home to see parents for the holidays. They’d be decorated, right? Well, along came Dec 22 or so and we were down–nothing was decorated and we didn’t have a tree. We did however have a potted palm–we bought some lights on a midnight run to K-Mart and that was the most lit up thing ever! Now we always have a tree and celebrate no matter how much time we’ll be at home during the holidays. We learned our lesson!</p>
<p>I just remember being in second grade or thereabouts and lolling about on the couch one morning of the vacation and watching the usual mayhem of my “creative mom’s” holiday crafts and baking and my siblings dismantling and building things and the radio playing Andy Williams singing Christmas songs. It was just a big tacky mess. It was home. It was bliss.</p>
<p>I struggle a bit with the holiday season of late. I dislike the sense of needing everything perfect.</p>
<p>I think that the struggle to be “perfect” is thanks to people like Martha Stewart and other gurus. Perfection isn’t attainable…but these stories are perfection. Thank you for them.</p>
<p>Traditions are more important than you think. ANY time I say, I think we should do “such and such this year” I get a big NOOOOOO… !<br>
My H said THIS YEAR since the kids are gone maybe we can do something new…
Answer: NO ! They’re coming back to visit…it HAS to be the same!
(although it is Never perfect!)</p>
<p>Speaking of creating perfection…the first Christmas that H and I were married, we were still in school (gasp), living in an off-campus apartment. We knew that we’d be spending Christmas day shuttling between both our parent’s houses, so I wanted to create a <em>perfect</em> Christmas eve, complete with a fancy dinner, and the works. Trouble was, we had NO MONEY. I tried and tried to come up with an idea for something really special that we could afford, and was so disappointed when I didn’t. We ended up cooking cheeseburgers on a hibachi that we put out on the fire escape. Turns out, that WAS perfection. We’ve had cheeseburgers for our traditional Christmas Eve dinner every year since then.</p>
<p>When we were little my mother would pack all six of us in the car, take us to the dime store and give us each five dollars. We each had to get a present for all five other kids and for my mom and dad. And get wrapping paper. I remember racing around the aisles trying to hide the little bag of lincoln logs from my brother or the year I got my little sister a baby doll stroller. On year I got my father handkerchiefs with his first initial on them - A. One of my older sisters got him the same handkerchiefs with our last initial on them - L. My little sister got him the same handkercheifs with the letter R. On Christmas morning my very perplexed father asked her what the R was for. “Ratfink – that’s what mommy calls you.” My father just roared as my mother turned bright red.<br>
The best part of this was that it taught us all that to give truely is better than to receive. I remember just aching for Christmas so I could give my sister her stroller or what ever. Even now we all exchange presents every year – it may just be a little thing but it is given from the heart.</p>
<p>lololu, I love the “rat fink” story.</p>
<p>JustaMom, when we got married my DH was in a grad program and I was finishing my degree. We lived in an efficiency apartment that my DH would clear of the little insect friends every morning before I woke up (always the chivalrous hubby). Our first Christmas, we went camping. There was a storm and our cheap little tent tore apart and we ended up sleeping in our broken down old car. It was “perfect.”</p>