Grow­ing up in a fam­ily of four chil­dren with a sin­gle father didn’t make for the most cel­e­brated hol­i­days. When I was eight I had absolutely no friends in school. One of the only friends I had was sick and missed a lot of school, so the only per­son I talked to was the lady who super­vised the play­ground at recess. Her name was Teresa. I remem­ber that year in third grade when she found out where we lived and deliv­ered a present to each of us. That was the only present we received that year. I can’t remem­ber for the life of me what that present was, but I remem­ber her thought­ful­ness and her name! Makes me cher­ish that much more when I am able to help out other chil­dren in the com­mu­nity know­ing that the gift we give may be the only one they will receive.

After ten, Christ­mas was never the same for me. My grand­par­ents in New Jer­sey flew us out for Christ­mas and each year after that. It was amaz­ing and over­flowed with awe­some mem­o­ries! Here are a cou­ple ran­dom things I remem­ber!
*Mass on Christ­mas Eve
*Open­ing All Our Presents on Christ­mas Eve…the presents marked with Santa, we knew were from our Aunt Karen…because she designed them. LOL
*Run­ning down the stairs to open the stock­ings hang­ing off the stair case from Santa(a.k.a.- Aunt Karen) on Christ­mas Morn­ing to find choco­late coins and life­saver books…and a $50 check from our Grand­par­ents.
*Long walks with our dad days ear­lier try­ing to find some small gifts we could get every­one.
*A huge din­ner of Turkey, dress­ing, olives, mashed pota­toes, green bean casse­role, rolls and the best of all Grandmother’s cheese­cake!!! YUM!! We would fit every­one at the table, all our uncles, aunts and their chil­dren! It was always dec­o­rated so nice.
*Play­ing darts down in the base­ment and Ping Pong.
*All our Aunts and Uncles sleep­ing over for the night, peo­ple everywhere!

*Other ran­dom thoughts…I remem­ber sit­ting around the table and play­ing Trivia Pur­suit and swear­ing that Uncle Jerry must sit around and study these cards all day, because he knew EVERY answer!
*Also remem­ber all the trips down to Penn­syl­va­nia! Thanks Uncle Jerry and Aunt Kathy!
*I also remem­ber the candy bowls that were filled up every­where and sneak­ing it!
*The puz­zles we would put together.
*The fur­ni­ture in the upstairs bed­room and all the tro­phies my Aunts and Uncles received when they were lit­tle.
*The coo coo clock that rang every hour and half hour! Loved that…The pic­tures that were hid­den under­neath it of us as lit­tle chil­dren.
*The finds that our grand­par­ents found on the trav­els all over the world…especially remem­ber, the carved ball inside the carved ball, inside the carved ball.…I used to look at it for­ever.
*Help­ing dec­o­rate the small Christ­mas tree in the Front Room.
*Going down in the base­ment and lis­ten­ing to old time records on a radio our father had built when he was younger.…listening to Danny Kaye…“Thank You very Much for the Under­wear!“
*The pit­ter pat­ter of our feet on the sec­ond story and grand­mother cry­ing out up the staircase…“Bequiet, I am try­ing to sleep!”

I could go ON and ON…

*The fam­ily all stand­ing in their match­ing sweaters…the ones Aunt Karen designed :) in front of the TV for Pic­tures.
*Watch­ing the Sound of Music per Sun­beams request every year and my brother absolutely despis­ing it!
*Play­ing scrab­ble with Grandpa and Grandma…they would beat me everytime…But when I took out the scrab­ble game that I used to play with him…I kept some of the score cards with my Grand­fa­thers writ­ing on them…and I actu­ally did win!!! But then I also remem­ber him hav­ing to set a timer because I spent most of the time with my nose in the scrab­ble dic­tio­nary.
*I remem­ber learn­ing about Stocks and Bonds with Grandpa…he would have me get the paper and he would mark the loss or gain.

Ok…I will stop now! I really could go on forever!

I think of how per­fect it was and how happy we were and how every­one worked together to cook and clean. I want that for my children…but am start­ing to think they had a LOT more time to devote to it than me.

Just the other day I com­mented on how this year I really didn’t want to put up a tree and just not feel­ing extra hol­i­day­ish this year. Actu­ally my dream was to pack up and take off with my fam­ily and spend Christ­mas alone with them…something I haven’t felt like I have done for a while. It wasn’t until I received this extra spe­cial note from my sis­ter that put my life back into per­spec­tive and showed me that even all the effort I put into mak­ing the hol­i­days extra spe­cial that there are peo­ple that actu­ally appre­ci­ate my efforts. If not for any­one, I need to give my chil­dren spe­cial mem­o­ries that will last their life­time and not con­sume myself with all the work it entails. I hope that every­one in a Hol­i­day funk will know that all of the time they spend will make the hol­i­days that much more spe­cial to oth­ers. I hope my sis­ter doesn’t mind me post­ing this…but it seri­ously touched me and I love her!

I want you to know how much I appre­ci­ate you Har­mony. You have been an amaz­ing sis­ter. I always look back on all my trips to visit you as so much fun. Thanks for all the times you went out of your way to be there for me and for all the lit­tle things you do to make my life bet­ter. Every hol­i­day was bear­able because you brought life to them. I never really told you that and I thought you needed to know. You gave up your child­hood to be a ser­gate mom to us and I thank you.
Pray­ing for strength and wis­dom for you daily.

All my love,
Your lil sister