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.