Countdown to Christmas part 11

"Bringing my boyfriend to Christmas dinner"

It was my senior year of high school.  This particular year had been a hard one.  During the first semester of school I needed major surgery so I had been on "homebound study" until the beginning of second semester when I could go back to school.

I had started dating my boyfriend the beginning of our junior year of school.  We were both in ROTC together, we were both on rifle team, we both love shooting pool, and we both loved to play chess.  To me this was the perfect relationship.  (At this point in my life I didn't realize perfection was an illusion) 

When I was told I had to have surgery I was taken by surprise.  He was there everyday I was in the hospital.  He would go to school, go to his job, then stop by the hospital every night on his way home.  He would bring my mom and I a meal knowing that we didn't like the hospital food.  My mom thought he was the sweetest, but couldn't believe I was dating the greatest, geekiest, nerdiest guy in the school.  He was awesome!  I honestly think that if we hadn't wanted different things in our adult life that we would have still been together.  

Christmas day he came over around noon, four hours before we were expecting anyone to show up for dinner.  He offered to help in the kitchen, grandmother said "no", but that he could definitely keep us company as we got everything together.  He had a great sense of humor and told us stories of fun times with his family.  You see, he had been adopted when he was 7 years old.  His adopted mom died of breast cancer when he was 12. So it had been his dad and grandparents from his dads side for that past few years. 

After dinner we got out the chess board and set it up in front of the fireplace.  My uncle who also plays came over to watch and talk to us.  I remember looking up to answer a question my uncle had asked and when I looked back at the board sitting in the center was a sapphire ring.  I looked at my uncle then at my boyfriend.  My boyfriend smiled and said "Merry Christmas".  It was a promise ring.  

When we broke up after graduation, him to go lead his life, and me mine.  There wasn't any animosity, there wasn't any drama.  I promised to always have him in my heart,  he was my friend, we had been inseparable for 2 years.  He left to join the Marine's, and we never spoke again.  My mom and I do speak about him and the laughter we shared. And we always give an additional prayer for the guy that made my last two years of high school the very best.

Until tommorrow..............

Countdown to Christmas part 9 & 10

I am sorry I completely forgot to post yesterday.  I am posting 2 stories here today to catch up.

"Let the Christmas pranks commence!"

Age 13....

My mom taught me the love of pranking.  Well, it's love when I'm the one doing the pranking, not the one being pranked.  My mom started pranking me when I was about 8 years old and the 1st instance was April Fools, but that's a story for a different time, this is a story of my Christmas past.

As I have written before I love music and my love of music only continued to grow.  By the time I was 13 years old I had a violin, electric keyboard, acoustic guitar, and access to my grandparents piano and organ.  I was in musicians heaven.  This Christmas was like all of the other Christmas', except I had an oddly shaped box under the tree. 

Now I know you would like to know what I had put on my Christmas list but I hadn't written one this year.  I had been up late finishing up the baking, and wrapping gifts.

When it came time open the box I was flummoxed.  I had no idea what it could be.  When I got the box opened it was a large case, upon opening the case what sat inside started my heart beating double time.  It was an electric bass guitar.  Doesn't every girl need one in her collection?!?!? Don't judge me!

I was in awe.  It was a Fender Bass, black, brown, and white.  I was in heaven.  The only thing missing was an amplifier.  There wasn't another box,  until my mom said, "there's a box with your name on it in the garage".  I ran out to the garage, saw the box and carried it into the house.  My excitement knew no bounds.  I opened the box and there was an amplifier.  The only thing I couldn't find was the plug.  I turned it around and realized that I couldn't find the plug because the wires had been cut.  I was disappointed.  My mom had been ripped off, they had sold her a defective product.  I knew the amplifier was old and used, but I didn't care.  I figured I would wait to let her know that it wouldn't work after everyone left so as not to make a big deal about it.  When I turned to tell her "thank you" nothing left my mouth.  Sitting on the floor next to my mom was a brand new amplifier and she was laughing her head off.  That's when I realized she had known all along that the amplifier that I had carried in would never have worked. 

 "A Nothing Unusual Christmas"

Age 16....

Another regular Christmas not too much happening.  More marriages in the family, more babies, more cookies being made.  Opening Christmas gifts there wasn't anything unusual.  My aunt and I still had our tradition of hot chocolate with marshmallows. I knew I was getting older so I knew that I wasn't getting the number of gifts under the tree as I had when I was a kid, mainly because my gifts had gotten expensive.  At 11 I got a junior acoustic guitar, age 13 an electric bass, and at 14 I received an electric guitar (didn't tell the story of that one).  My mom had been a trooper and I wasn't going to take advantage of that.  I was grateful for all that she had done.

After all the gifts were opened it was mine and my cousins job to take the trash out.  As we were heading to the garage something caught my eye.  My grandparents car wasn't parked in the garage.  That was definitely unusual. We rounded the corner and there was something under a sheet sitting in the middle of the garage.  I knew that shape, I knew it was for me, some 6th sense.  I dropped the bag of trash ripped the sheet off and screamed. 

Yes, cool collected me screamed.  Hey I was a 16 year old girl!!

Under the sheet sat the most beautiful sight.  And yes every 16 year old girl needs one in her collection! Don't judge me!!  It was  Honda 250 motorcycle.  At that point in time of my life I was done.  I was in heaven.  I was the luckiest girl in the world.  My mom had never hinted.  I had never asked, but I had always wanted.

Little did I know that the best Christmas' were yet to come!

Countdown to Christmas part 8

I enjoy sharing the Christmas' of my childhood with you.  Now I don't want you to think that my family is without its drama, because it's not.  For me Christmas is the season of Joy and that is what I like to share with you.

I was my grandfather's sidekick.  If there were things to do outside I was right there with him, I did not enjoy doing housework, well that and grandfather paid.  With grandmother and my mom the work was done for free.  So any chore that my grandfather asked for I did, I never asked for any money he would just give me some at the end of the week.  This particular Christmas I was about 9 years old, it was Christmas Eve, and I had just helped grandfather bring wood into the house for the fireplace.

My grandfather kept a fire going from October until Spring.  After lugging log after log he said "here", and handed me $5.00, then he said he needed to go to the store and asked if I wanted to go.  I said yes because I knew what I wanted to get.

We headed to the grocery for some last minute items and I went straight to the candy aisle.  I spent all of the money on candy and soda.  Back then you could get a pack of Nowlaters for $0.10 as well as lemon heads, and red hots.  The soda was Faygo, a 16oz bottle cost $0.25.

That night in the bedroom listening to the AM station give the update of where Santa was and me sharing my hoard with my little cousin was the best ever.  And on all future Christmas Eve's it was the only time our parents let us eat that much candy at one time.

When I got older my grandmother finally asked me why I never liked doing housework inside but would always be with grandfather.  I laughed and told her "grandfather gave me $5.00 every week for the chores I did."   Grandfather had never made a big todo about the money and neither had I.  He always made the holidays special for the entire family in his own way and I hope some of the traditions that he implemented still continue on.

See you tomorrow!

Countdown to Christmas part 7

Time flies when you have stories to share and 18 days to do so......let's start then.

Because we have such a large family we had two Christmas trees, and when I say large family I mean very very big.  My grandmother was a farmgirl, one of 9 children, 7 of which lived to reach adulthood, who married a city boy, who was an only child.  Five of the seven siblings had on average 5 children, and their children and so on.

One tree, the main one was left empty for Santa to place our things.  It was near the fireplace in the family room so he didn't have far to travel to get to it.  The other tree was in the living room, that tree was where we put gifts that we would purchase for each other.

As I have discussed earlier I loved music and this Christmas took place in the 80's, hair bands and leather jackets.   In 1984 Bon Jovi came on the MTV scene with a song called Runaway.  In the video Jon Bon Jovi was wearing a brown leather jacket with fringe.  It was a must, I needed one, but I wanted mine in black.  I begged and pleaded with my mom.  When I went to the mall with my friends I went into the leather store, where they had all different styles of leather jackets.  I knew the jacket was out of my mom's price range for what she was going to spend on me for Christmas.  I told her that was the only thing I wanted for Christmas that she didn't have to get me anything else.

I didn't hold out much hope.  Like I said earlier, I never put a lot of stock in getting anything that I asked for for Christmas.  I would have been happy without the jacket.  On Christmas morning as I unwrapped my last package from the living room tree, sitting inside the box was a black leather jacket with fringe.  My mom had gotten it. I knew how expensive that jacket was, and I took good care of it until during the course of my adulthood and moving I lost it.  I had it from the age of 13 until about age 24.  I didn't wear it much after the fringe style died down, but I always remember the continual hugs that I gave my mom for getting me the one thing that I had wanted for that Christmas.


Until tomorrow................

Countdown to Christmas part 6

I learned all about charity from my family.  This story is about just one of the things we would do every year.

In my family we were raised to give, whether it was as a listener, or of our time.  This particular Christmas I was about 12 years old.  My grandparents and my mom had been planning some things that I hadn't paid any attention to until my mom said, "get your coat we need to go to the store."

In the car was my mom, her two younger sisters and myself.  I didn't realize why I was needed to go if there were the three of them until we arrived at the grocery and I was told to get a cart.  I was confused because each one of us had a cart, why would we need 4 grocery carts?  It didn't take long to find out.  My mom had a list and she just began filling up the carts.  I just followed the others around pushing my cart, trying to figure out where all of this food was going to go.  We had a large chest freezer in the garage but my grandparents filled that every fall so we didn't have to shop that much and it was completely full.   When we left the store loading the car was an adventure.  We piled as much as we could in the trunk but had to also put things in the backseat.

We we got home I was surprised to find 10 large banker boxes with wrapping paper decorating them lined up in the kitchen.  As we unloaded and separated the items from the grocery, my mom and grandmother began putting items in the boxes.  When we were done, those boxes were loaded into the car and my mom said to me "lets go".  This time it was just the two of us since there wasn't any room in the car with all 10 boxes for anyone else.  When we arrived at our Church there were a few of the Elders moving things around and I sawy other boxes there  with food items in them.

I found out on the way home that my mom, her siblings, and my grandparents all chip in and buy Christmas dinners for 10 family's that may not be able to afford to buy the amount of grocery's for the holiday, each box containing an entire meal,  turkey's, canned vegetables, bags of potatoes, and desserts.  The boxes are donated to the Church and had to be there by a specific time, so that family's could anonymously come to the Church and pick up the food after the donators had left.

When my older cousins and I began working we also started donating, and not just our time.  Because our family is so extensive and the in-laws began aiding in our endeavors, approximately 90  boxes are donated to the Church every year, not just at Christmas, but divided between at Easter, and also Thanksgiving.

Knowing that someone out there is having a holiday meal with their family, something that I had always taken for granted as a kid, always warms my heart.

Until tomorrow..............

Countdown to Christmas part 5

As I sit here and write this blog a lot of stories come to mind about Christmas' long ago.  One story that comes to mind is of my grandfather and I hanging Christmas lights outside.  As I told in a previous story we had two Blue Spruces in the front and back yard that we would decorate with lights and this story is about one of those times.

My grandfather hadn't been able to climb ladders for many years, and my uncles weren't available so we, meaning he, decided that we could hang the lights this year, I was 11 years old at the time.   I made my way to the shed and grabbed the ladder.  As I lean the ladder into the tree I see the first problem.  The tree is about 12 ft high and the ladder was only 6 ft.  I needed to get the lights all the way to the top of the tree.  How was I supposed to get to the top?

Well my grandfather said it was doable.  I keep moving the ladder around the tree, per my grandfathers instructions, trying to set the ladder up so that I can climb as high as possible.  If you have never seen a Blue Spruce tree it looks like this....

The problem with this tree is that the tips of the needles are very sharp and they poke into your clothing, well they poked into mine.  By the time I got to the top of the ladder I felt like a pin cushion, and still couldn't get all the way up to the top.  As hard as I tried it was not happening.  Finally my grandfather told me to climb down.  Once down he went to climb the ladder.  I told him, "if you climb that ladder I'm telling grandmother." 

You see, by this time in his life grandfather had many medical issues and one of them was gout in both legs so wasn't able to climb the ladder.  I bet he would have given it a shot if I hadn't threatened him with the one person that he didn't want to know.  He looked at me and said "why do you have to tattle on me?"  It was cold and it felt like we had been out there forever, when we had probably only been out there for about 1 1/2 hours.  Grandfather finally decided that we would leave those trees for my uncles to do and we would handle all of the other lights that would go around the house.

Once we got inside grandmother had hot chocolate ready for us.  I never did tell, until I related the story to my grandmother many years after my grandfather passed.  She laughed and said "Thank you".  

More stories to come....

Countdown to Christmas part 4

So what does every 11 year old little girl want for Christmas?  That's right, a guitar!!!  Don't judge me!

My family is very musically inclined, so much so, that we begin training the kids at an early age and I wasn't an exception.  I was taught to play piano, and violin when I was about 6 years old.  As I got older and began finding my own musical likes, I realized I wanted to learn how to play guitar.

Now this was around 1982,   MTV had just started in 1981, the Buggles sang about how Video killed the radio star,  Olivia Newton John's song about getting Physical, Paul McCartney sang Ebony and Ivory with Stevie Wonder, Joan Jett was singing about how much she Loved Rock-N-Roll, and Duran Duran had their song about a girl named Rio.

I was seeing all of the bands that I loved in living color watching them sing their music in exotic locations that I wanted to see for myself.  I wanted that life, I wanted to sing songs to the world.  I wanted to be a kickass musician and make myself known in the music industry as a contender.

Ok, lets backup a bit and let reality set in.  I didn't like singing in front of people.  I didn't like playing my instruments in front of people, except in an orchestra because there were so many of us, that I didn't feel singled out.  How was I going to do all of these things that I wanted to do.  Well, I was going to face these hurdles one at a time.

Singing in front of people, fixed, I will be a back up singer.  I don't have to be the lead singer. Problem solved!
Musical instruments in front of people, fixed, dark lighting was the thing.  Put people in the mood for dancing.  Problem solved!
Playing guitar, Houston we have a problem!! I don't have a guitar nor do I know how to play one.

So I did what any red-blooded person would do at a time like this.  I added a guitar to my Christmas list to Santa.  I didn't have much hope, so I didn't think about it.  I continued to watch MTV, listen to cassettes on my walk-man, listen to the radio, and play air guitar.

On Christmas morning that year there was an oddly shaped box sitting under the tree.  I had no idea what it could be.  I just knew that I wasn't going to get the guitar, no one else in the family played guitar.  No one else in the family had an interest like me so I didn't have anyone that I could talk to about playing.  As I opened the box, I looked up and my mom had a smile on her face.  Lifting the lid I looked down at what was in my lap.  It was a junior acoustic guitar with a book for me to learn how to play.  I got my guitar!!! I was in heaven!!! I was going to rock this place like no ones business!!!

As I sit here writing this as an adult I think back to those dreams that I had of being a musician.  I honestly say that I didn't want to sing for the world and play my music.  I wanted to acknowledge all of the different musical genre's that I love.  Learning to play guitar was just one more way of giving thanks to all of the musicians out there and showing in my own way how much I love their music.  When I play violin it was classical music, when I played piano it was classical and R&B, when I played my little junior acoustic it was country music.  So me sitting on the floor with the book propped up, learning where to put my fingers on the frets on a snowy Christmas morning, ready to sing my hear out.

Thank you to all the musicians out there for making everyday, not just Christmas, bright for me!

Countdown to Christmas part 3

In the first post of the Countdown to Christmas blogs I discussed a general idea of Christmas Eve and Christmas morning in the house.  What I didn't say was how many people were in the house during this time.  It was my grandparents, my mom, my aunt, and her daughter, it was that way until my other cousin came to live with us also.  I come from a huge family so if a parent was in need of help we stepped up, that teaching came directly from my grandparents, even giving a child a place to live while the parent tried to find a solution to their problem.

My mother has 4 siblings and my mother is the middle child.  The sibling born right after my mom is the heroine of this tale of "Oh no, the batteries!"  This is also the aunt that was living in the house with her daughter.  

My aunt and I have always been close even when I was a baby.  And remained so even after her daughter was born.  I was told by my mom that my aunt would take me everywhere with her.  I was around 10 years old this particular Christmas Eve.  I had finished my baking of the cookies, and I was helping my aunt wrap Christmas gifts.  It was around 10 o'clock at night.  I had an hour before I had to be in bed and I hear my aunt ask "Where are the batteries?"  I told here that "I hadn't seen any batteries."  And we were wrapping clothes, why would batteries be needed for clothes.  I continued wrapping.  She looked at me and asked. "Want to run to the store."  Of course I said "sure", I always went places with her, we would listen to the radio and sing. 

She told my mom where we were going and off we went.  We sang Christmas carols on the way to the store, the only one open being a 24 hour drug store.  There  were very few cars on the road, it was so quiet, at the time I didn't remember the streets ever being so empty.  When we got back home, she was emptying the bag and said, "I got us something."  I hadn't realized that she had bought other items at the store besides batteries.  She pulled out a box of hot chocolate and a bag of marshmallows.  Starting a new tradition for us, one that continued even after she eventually moved into her own place.  I always went over on Christmas Eve to help wrap gifts.  With me I would bring cookies, hot chocolate with marshmallows, and batteries, so we wouldn't have to leave the house.

Stay tuned for more Christmas past stories.

Countdown to Christmas part 2

Memories of Christmas pasts...…..


At the age of 8 I started my yearly tradition of baking the Christmas cookies on my own.  My grandfather an observer who would sit in the kitchen and taste test, and also make sure I didn't burn myself or the house down.   Chocolate chip cookies, my all time favorite, and raisin pecan cookies.  A person may ask, "Where were the Christmas tree cookies with the icing?"  I can honestly say with certainty that I'm not artistic enough or have a steady enough hand to put designs on cookies.

This was also the year I began writing my letter to Santa all on my own, with the help of a catalog so that I wouldn't forget to ask for certain things, and by things I mean toys.  Those that are old enough will remember the Sears Catalogs, with the massive toy section.  My list was always 3 pages long.  Some may call that "excessive", like my mother did.  I call it, "I wasn't told that Santa wanted us to stick to a page limit."

In my mind, if I wasn't told that it had to be at a certain length then I was going to keep writing out my list until I had everything on there that I wanted.  What's the worst that could happen?  Me not get everything or anything off the list?  And that right there was what I was taught.  Just because I may ask for something didn't mean I was going to get it.  So if I didn't get anything on the list that was fine.  The whole idea was that I was writing a letter to Santa and it was up to him to decide what I was getting and I would be happy with whatever he sent, because he thought of me.  A little 8 year old girl in Indiana, who liked to bake him cookies.


More stories to come as we countdown to Christmas!

Countdown to Christmas part 1

Getting ready for the Holiday season for me starts with memories from childhood.  Getting the boxes out of the attic and checking Christmas lights to see if we needed to buy more.  Living in a three generation household was an amazing experience for me.

My grandfather loved holidays, his favorites being Memorial Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.  We had two Blue Spruce trees in the front and back yard which were decorated with lights.  The entire house on the outside had lights going around the eaves, the shrubs also had lights.  We also had red and green light bulbs to replace the clear ones in the driveway lamp posts.  With a Santa on the roof and the nativity scene in the front hard we were set, and yes setup took longer than a weekend.

These are my thoughts every holiday.  And these are memories I pass down to my son who was also lucky enough to know my grandmother before she passed, as an adult as my grandfather passed away when he was 6 years old.

My first memories of Christmas was as a child, baking cookies to leave out for Santa.  My cousin and I would go to bed listening to an AM radio station that forecasted where Santa was.  We were sent to bed about 9pm on Christmas Eve, we were so excited that we slept in spurts.  Everytime we woke up we thought it was time to get up and we had only been asleep for an hour or so.  This went on all night.  The radio station keeping us informed on how close Santa was and then we would fall back asleep. I  want to say I was about 7 years old and she was 5.

At 5am Christmas morning we were up for good, there was no going back to sleep.  We tiptoed pass the bedrooms not ready to wake anyone else up, and saw on the table next to the tree that the cookies we had left out had been eaten and the milk was almost completely gone.  Santa had been there, we had to let everyone in the house know.

My cousin went and woke up her mother and I woke up mine, and our grandparents.  It was time to open presents, or so I thought.  My grandmother had other plans.  She stated it was time to have breakfast.  My heart sank,  I wanted to open gifts, I saw my name on a couple of the tags.  I was anxious.  I ate my breakfast like I had never eaten anything for a good long while, I stuffed my face as fast as I could.

After breakfast we sat around the tree, our tradition was for my grandfather to hand out the gifts.  In his calm voice he said my name "To Freida.  From Santa."

41 years later and I still remember the tone of his voice.

I will be sharing Christmas memories with you throughout the month of December.  Keep your holiday memories alive, share yours if you would like in the comment section.