No Gift of the Magi

Wow!  I can't believe Christmas is next week!  Aren't we just getting over summer vacations?  What happened to Halloween?  It was here, then it wasn't and all of a sudden, BAM!  The holiday season was here.  Not that I object to the holiday season, I'm an everything Christmas ho.  I love the season and everything connected with it, always have, always will.  I'm still a little girl at heart and I would love to recapture the feeling of little girl Christmas Eve.  Every now and then, I can feel some of the excitement of childhood and it makes me so happy.  Every now and then, I'll have a deja vu moment regarding the waaay distant past of childhood and it's just wonderful.  I can't describe how incredible it is for me to experience this feeling.  Of course, there are some remembrances that aren't so wonderful, but I'm quite adept at throwing out memories I don't like.  Like the Christmas a boy visited my house and brought a beautifully wrapped Christmas present.  My mother answered the door and I heard him talking.  I tried to hide from him in my closet, but my mother hunted me down like a wild animal and literally threw me at his feet.  I was 10 and despised boys.  I had to accept his love offering while I was holding my new Christmas doll.  The doll was a "walking doll," and was about as big as I was, and had flaming red hair.  She wore a beautiful green plaid dress and had white patent leather shoes.  I had just received her and was no doubt engaged in some fantasy world with her when the doorbell rang and the boy with awakening hormones tried to ruin my entire life first by allowing my mother to realize a boy was interested in me, then by offering a present!!!!  I remember staring him down as he handed me the beautiful Christmas box, then looking down at my doll and realizing they shared GAH the same hair color!  I grabbed the box and slammed the front door shut!  Then I threw the present on the kitchen table and ran to my room.  My mother came in later and asked what was in the box and I told her I didn't know.  I hadn't opened the present.  She mentioned something about rudeness and manners blah blah blah and I with dread, I opened the box.  Chocolates.  Maybe that boy wasn't so stupid, but I still hated him for liking me.  And exposing his feelings for the world to see!!  Nitwit.  Oh how I suffered...  But as I stated earlier, that's a memory I've thrown out...

Crap Christmas

"Ding dong merrily on high" - HA!!!  The Ding Dongs in my family were running on high all the time.  I've spent some time telling a few Christmas stories about my mother.  Rabid as she was/is, she has always had a heart for gift giving and always came through with the best presents ever.  When my sister and I woke on Christmas morning around 2 a.m. (don't shake your heads, ya'll know you did the same), we were always treated to a fabulous display of toys under the tree.  Then we became teenagers and we still had Santa presents under the tree - also fabulous.  And then I got married.  My mother continued the Christmas bounty as she had since we were tots, but the MIL apparently never understood the concept of giving a present to another person.  Oh, she gave presents, but they were always gifts from hell, i.e. her basement. (Side note - MIL was a hoarder.) One would think that if it was difficult to choose presents for family, you would ask them what they would like to have for Christmas.  No, you were never asked what you would like for Christmas.   "Oh my, is it December 24 already??  Let me go to the basement and see what I can dig out to hand to so and so....."  This is how a 15 month old ends up with steak knives and a teenager receives a tire jack.  No thought whatsoever put into gift giving.  No pretty Christmas wrapping paper on any present, not even a gift tag. And woe to you if it had industrial wrapping paper.  You know those gifts - they sell them already wrapped.  Gadget type things that serve no purpose and you immediately pitch.  "Here, you take this."  Merry Christmas.  Let me see..... during my years and years of marriage, I have received a wedding dress (about 12 years after we were married) that was 5 sizes too large for me, a pair of used shoes, a bottle of furniture polish, covers for stove burners, a swimsuit 5 sizes too large, and my personal favorite - a lion's head door knocker the size of Texas, broken.  The huzbin got so mad that year, he decided we were keeping the knocker and giving it back next year.  And he did.  And she didn't even remember giving it, but of course you don't remember such crap when you don't really Christmas shop.  The year I received the XXXXXlarge swimsuit, my daughter and I put it on.  Together.  Two of us in one bathing suit.  I have the photo to prove it.  When we were young and poor and needed things, we used to be angry over crap presents, but as time went on we began looking forward to them and one year we had a party and auctioned off the unopened Ding Dong present.  All our friends had begun looking forward to the crappy Christmas presents. And every now and then when the occasion called for it, we would re-gift a MIL crap Christmas present. Seriously, how many of you receive swimsuits or furniture polish for Christmas?  Have fun shopping for everyone on your list and stay out of your basements!!

Christmas Presents

Ahhhh.... tis the season.  The season for giving a gift to someone you care about.  Thinking, planning, seeking, choosing, purchasing, wrapping.... It's all very important to us as we want to do it just right. I love it!!  Probably because Christmas was such a big deal when I was a little girl.  In our house, presents were closely guarded and well hidden.  Presents were supposed to be opened Christmas Eve.  In our house, we opened presents on Christmas Eve because our mother spun the whack-o-meter and decided presents AND Santa on Christmas Day was too much for us.  Our presents were always beautifully wrapped immediately after purchase, then placed under the Christmas tree.  The year I was 14, I fell into temptation by the devil to open some presents about a week before Christmas.  I was already an expert liar - now I turned into a rotten sneak.  I could peel the tape back without tearing the wrapping paper, unfold the creases, take out the box, open it, admire the gift, then reverse the procedure. I told my sister if she would pay me, I would open hers, too.  But I ruined my holiday.  When we all gathered to open presents, there was no excitement for me.  I had no surprise.  Lesson learned.  And because in our family, one crackpot isn't enough, my mother's sister often added to the insanity in her own fun way.  One year, she and our uncle got in a huge fight a few days before Christmas and in a fit of anger, she threw all their Christmas presents out in the front yard where they laid for weeks.  Then it rained.  And snowed.  The passage of time hasn't allowed me to remember what happened to the presents, but I'm sure there was no good ending to this.  And there was the year my dad presented my mother with the gift of a cuckoo clock.  Very.  Bad.  Move.  One splintered chair,  one set of dishes hitting the walls later, he came up with a piece of jewelry which was bizarrely accepted as if there had been no first act in that nightmare.   Ahhhhh..... tis the season.....  Choose your presents wisely.

A Holiday Party

This is the season for excitement and wonder, especially if you're a child.  I used to be a child.  My sister was also once upon a time a child.  As I've stated, our household was generally crazy with family and friends continuously running in and out, our mother cleaning, our mother throwing fits, screaming, flinging objects through the air at the drop of a wrong word, pitching tirades that lasted all day, declaring outrageous rules, etc.  But somehow, most of this (not all) would calm down a little bit (and I say this in spite of my previous post) in an attempt to enjoy the holiday season.  For many years in the 60's, my parents hosted a holiday party.  Mind you, in the 60's life was quite different.  First and foremost, children were chattel.  We were the property of our parents.  Today's children are very different - they're placed on pedestals and every move in the family depends on the child's mood and preference. This was not true way back in the 50's and 60's.   In our family, we were never asked anything, other than, "Why can't you be like so and so??"  We were yelled at, screamed at, and shouted at.  Every now and then we were chased by our mother who wielded a large object.  Any object.  She wasn't picky.  We learned to be quick.  When party season came, we were never invited to be a part of the festivities.  We weren't marched out and paraded around to show the friends how lovely and well mannered we were.  "STAY IN YOUR ROOMS AND DO NOT COME OUT.  I DO NOT WANT TO SEE YOUR FACES!!!!"  On party nights, my sister and I learned to entertain each other - mostly she would flip matches, and I would pray the house wouldn't catch fire.  And one of us would sneak in the kitchen when everyone was downstairs in the rec room and steal treats.   Our mother had spent a lot of time and money cooking and mixing for her friends and she didn't want it spoiled by having her kids hanging around while they were enjoying themselves.  Our dad was only expected to put on a suit and show up.  This was the holiday season!  This was the time to bring out the good stuff -  the cheese puffs, pinwheel sandwiches, creamcheese ball, pronto pups, celery sticks, chex mix, nuts, olives, and hundreds of other canapés Mom had slaved over for days. And musn't forget the mixed drinks.  The mixed drinks made these parties legend.  We had an uncle who was a bandleader.  When he got a few drinks in him, he also became a singer.  And after a few more drinks, he became drunk.  And when he became drunk, he would begin a sneezing fit that would last for about an hour.  At one of these parties, my mother threw him out of her party for "trying to ruin" it by sneezing.  Sadly, he was too drunk to know he had been thrown out, and he slept it off in a bedroom.  Wow, did she let him have it the next day.  Fortunately, he knew her and her temper and with blue air hanging above his head, he left as quickly as he could.  These parties had lots of spirit for sure and I remember lots and lots of laughing and that made me want to be there.  I've said many times that humor was the only way to survive that household and I do believe that.  I also like to think that even though she made herself miserable preparing for these parites, my mother found some fun entertaining her friends.  But, seriously, how was that possible??  How could any of them have any fun?  After all, my sister and I weren't there!