2020 Dec. Goat Daily Rant 08
6Daily Rant: Stolen Theme. Mehmory Lane.
Thanks for the theme, @Jaybird. Yoink!
In keeping with the season, this will be a Christmas mehmory, of an outstanding Christmas past.
This was our first Christmas in the new house. Gosh, I want to say it was 1981? I’ll fix that in post if it’s not right. Our parents (I have 3 siblings) told us they planned a big Christmas this year, and not to get used to it. I was a little afraid of how undersold future Christmases were, but this year was clearing going to be outstanding. For starters, we got a 16-foot-tall tree set up in the Living Room (two-story room with high ceilings). They piled gifts at the foot of the thing high, too, and we knew to expect “Santa” (well, we were old enough to know better by then) to bring more. He did, as I remember. Christmas eve, we took part in the tradition of opening one single gift each (does your family do that?).
Come Christmas morning, we found that Dad had put on a Santa hat and red thermal underwear (it was the only thing he had to wear that was red from head to toe) and jumped onto the Honda ATC (!) three-wheeler, a brand new toy for everybody. It had a trailer full of toys, too! We watched as he wound the long way up the driveway to the house. Once right out front, he jumped off and raced for the front door! Those jammies did nothing against the unseasonably cold weather (well, it was the season, but Florida… ungeographically cold?).
Funny thing is, I remember the ATC and Dad freezing in his jammies and that gigantic tree, but for the life of me, not one present under the tree.
This year we will have our first Christmas without him, and we all miss him terribly. We might even have to Zoom Christmas with Mom, instead of converging on that old house like we have every year since the start (with a couple exceptions for my deployment).
How many and how often do you guys get together for Christmas?
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These days, of course, I can buy whatever I want with the money I earn, and if somebody in the family asks what I want, I just tell them hand me a cookie and scratch my back and I’ll be good.
Xmas is extended family and all the blended families.
If we do it without cousins it’s Perhaps 40.
If we (a few years) add in all the cousins and their extended families we can bribe to show up, it goes to well over 100.
This year it will be tiny pod xmases.
Poignant and sad, even if we all talk to each other remotely.
My favorite Christmas story is of my grandmother, who would give each of the grandkids (all pre-teens then) cash in those money envelopes with an oval cutout for the portrait to show through. If you knew your money, you could tell the denomination as soon as you lifted the outer cover.
That one Christmas, however, my grandmother was just smiling ear to ear and chuckling as she handed out the envelopes on Christmas morning (after the presents were done). The oldest grandkids went first, and after handing them out, she announced that we should not get our hopes up, explaining that “It was going to be a thin Christmas”. We all winked and thought she’s sandbagging us and the envelopes were thin because there was a bigger denomination in them.
Could it be Ulysses S Grant’s portrait we would see? An astounding amount for a 12 year old.
My cousin, the oldest, peeked at his, and
then didn’t say anything, but smiled. I thought he just didn’t want to spoil the surprise for the rest of us (six in all).
Then it was my turn. I peeked at mine. I struggled to not fall out of my chair. All I could manage was to echo our grandmother’s proclamation: “Yep, it’s gonna be a thin Christmas.”
We all lost it at my brother’s turn (third in line) when he too, saw exactly how “thin” that Christmas would be.
Instead of putting some bills in the envelope, and getting some spending/splurge money for Christmas, my grandmother had instead, carefully placed a wallet-size portrait photo of herself into the cutout where the dollar bill would be.
A thin Christmas indeed!
I still have that photo of her.
RIP, Granny.
Love your memories of your grandma.
Also love your memories of goats past by honoring their themes.
P.s. kinda waiting to see if you do my goathood