The Ghost of Christmas Past

As Christmas draws near and the house it quiet, I am in a reflective mood. I have lots of old friends on Facebook that remind me of the old days. I am thinking about my top 10 Christmas memories. I will try to narrow it down a bit or this post will go on forever and my readers will be snoring on their keyboards.
My first real memory and happy one at that is when I was very young, probably three or four. We always went to church and came back to my grandparent's house. While at church Santa would drop off my gifts. I was the first and only grandchild til I was three so you can imagine the gifts. I had an ironing board, iron, vacuum, etc. all my small size and they "worked". I blame those gifts on the domestic guilt I carry around to this day. My next standout Christmas was when I was 11. I wont go into any details but let's suffice to say that money and Christmas decor was tight that year. My mom, sister and I made ornaments. We strung cranberries and popcorn and bought ribbon to tie bows. It was actually a pretty cute tree. It is the tree in the picture above. That Christmas I got my hamster. He promptly bit me and died about a week later, lucky for me I got a replacement. I forget what else I got because I got such an awesome big gift that year, better than the hamster even. I got a Dad. Just what I wanted? I don't know if I knew I wanted one or needed one but now I realize I did both. Dad says he got a beautiful wife and two daughters that year. Well, we were pretty broke so that's about all he got. The Christmas' after that were all pretty dang good and filled with lots of great memories. We split the eve and day at my grandparent's house and our house, luckily we lived close to one another. There was always a house full. My next memories were of being a teenager. I have pictures of me with my friends in high school and having our gift exchange. After the family Christmas we would all get together and park somewhere in the remote desert and have our own celebration. You could do that back then without getting into much trouble. From there my next great memories of the holidays were when I became a parent. Christmas had lost it's luster due to getting older and realizing that Christmas was more a giant pain filled with adult emotions, mental anguish, anger, seeing the worst in people and all the family issues that come to a head. The adults kept that under wraps for us kids I am sure.Plus having to work in retail at a large hardware store that sold real and fake trees and all things Christmas. Don't forget the Christmas MUZAK that played over and over and over. When I had Sid, that stuff didn't go away and in some ways got worse due to me wanting to be protective. But seeing Christmas through her was magic. The videos are hilarious in that all you can hear are my parents, Bob, myself and my sister saying "Sidney, Sid, Sidney, Bird, Birdie, Sid" a million times over. We were all fighting for her attention and wanting her to love what we were pointing out to her. "look at the lights Sid" and on and on. My next best Christmas was when I got a baby. No,not fun to be giving birth around Christmas but it was only the 23rd so we still had time to regroup. Riley was the little tiny baby that slept through Christmas and all of it's madness. She was so precious. Then we got to do the attention grabbing all over again as she got old enough. Then Kenzie, the wonder niece came along and that made Christmas exciting again as well as us adults saying, "Kenzie look, Kenz, kenzie, miss k, look over here." Here are some Christmas disasters that stand out, I will be brief. The year I got pancreatitis and almost died on Christmas night. That whole holiday season was spent on Demoral and Vicodan until I turned yellow and had to have emergency gall bladder surgery. I was in the hospital from Dec. 25th to Jan.1st. Not fun. Then there was the year when we lived in Chino. 150 mile per hour winds and blew the living room window in and onto the 9 ft. Christmas tree. Glass and broken ornaments everywhere. It could have been worse but I broke the tree's fall with my body. Nothing says happy holidays like a giant piece of plywood nailed to your house. Then there was the time that we lived in Chino and my parents took the girls up to Victorville on Christmas eve. On the way home, what should have been a 45 min. trip turned into a 3 hour trip. Some poor soul decided that since his estranged wife was giving him grief about his kids, that he would get a Uhaul truck and blow himself up on the freeway overpass near the outlet mall. So there they sat, a 5 yr old and a 2 yr old in a car with Papa and Grammy. Good times...