Do you have any clear memories of any specific childhood Christmases? I don't. No "oh, that was the year I got the EasyBake Oven..." misty watercolor nostalgia. They all blend together into a general impression of being sick with excitement and anticipation of gifts, and of my mother's exasperation over having to decorate the tree along with her insistence that the tinsel be hung one freakin strand at a time and her inevitable sadness when yet another of the incredibly fragile glass ornaments she still had from her own childhood bit the dust no matter how careful we were being with them. I do remember pretending to believe in Santa long after I'd figured out he was an impossibility, just because I felt my parents would be disappointed if I didn't. (Um, yeah, that feeling responsible for other people's happiness thing? Goes back a ways, huh?)
Oh, yeah, and I must say, I do specifically remember that it was the year I was in third grade that I came home from school (at lunchtime, because it was the half day at the beginning of vacation) to find the demon spawn cat we had at the time, who made Evil Kitty on her worst day seem calm and well-behaved, with the entire Christmas tree on top of her on the floor, and herself completely entangled in the lights. So there is one specific, datable memory. That'd be 1970. But mostly they're just a undifferentiated blur until high school.
Oh, but do I have a horrific story about New Year's Eve 1972/73, though. Ahahaha. Probably that was the start of my distaste for the whole occasion. They've ranged in hideousness since then, from getting so drunk my senior year in high school that in work the next morning (housekeeping!) I threw up in 25% of the bathrooms I cleaned, to the exasperation of spending the stroke of midnight in the ER with my ex-husband getting stitches (intoxicated shenanigans to blame, of course), to dragging cranky children through First Night, to freezing my ass off for fireworks I couldn't care less about, to getting drunk by myself while crying and watching tapes of the X-Files and contemplating suicide, to the sheer comedy of waiting 4 hours for our Chinese takeout to be delivered (with periodic phone calls from the restaurant promising it was on its way so that I didn't just give up and cook). But the dawn of 1973? That was the one that probably scarred me for life.
xoxo
8 comments:
How could one so young at the time have remembered anything? That must have been a serious doozy.
My favorite horror story isn't even mine--it's throwing over my first love in favor of a hot date with a college senior. (She looked like Princess Di even before we knew who Princess Di was, and, double bonus, I was a sophomore at the time, so yay for me). If my math has it correctly, that was also the New Years that the first love in question contracted a nasty little (and incurable) venereal disease from her second choice in new years companionship, so at least I'm possibly not the worst guy she's ever known.
Such a happy little holiday!
It was the first year my mom let me stay up till midnight in honor of the occasion, so it was, in effect, my first New Years Eve. It kinda set the trend in the wrong direction, lemme tell ya. :-P
So..what happened to traumatize you so much? LOL
Lets see, Xmas memories....one year, I think I was about 4 or 5...I heard sleigh bells outside my bedroom window in the middle of the night...I swear I did..I know I did..and no..we did not own any sleigh bells so it wasnt my parents. It was Santa, dammit! And Rudolph!
Xmas 1975...we had moved to Missouri...I got my first radio..an old GE clock radio with the lighted numbers that you turned the dial and they flipped around (and eventually got broken from me flipping them too fast or so my dad said) I remember that radio...and all the great music it brought into my life. I also got a bike that year...we got it at the store downtown owned by Mr and Mrs Green, one of the first people in Tipton to welcome us, who made us kids feel special everytime we went to their store. Always had a bit of candy or some little thing for us.
Im not sure what year it was, but I remember Mom gave us all 20 to buy gifts for her and Dad and our siblings...and taking that money to Coast to Coast and the Greens store and getting little things...chocolate covered cherries and a wallet for Dad...some little trinket for mom...my brother and I combined our money for those purchases...then we each got something for the other. I just recall feeling so happy when mom and dad opened their gifts, that wed spent *our* money on.
And the monkey bread mom always made on Xmas morning while we opened our presents. Yummmm
Ah, big fight between my parents. Just a typical episode in that dysfunctional circus that I fondly call "my childhood."
(You don't grow up to have the long series of failed relationships that I've had without the proper role models, you know :-P
People whose parents actually a.) loved each other *and* b.) were capable of getting along with each other do *not* end up at the age of 46 contemplating trolling for the grandfather of their future step-grandchildren in the aisles of Home Depot, hahaha. That's my theory, anyway.)
What is monkey bread???
Monkey bread is a wunnerful sugar and brown sugar encrusted creation...heres the recipe http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Monkey-Bread-I/Detail.aspx
...very simple to make..very easy to eat all of. LOL Mom made hers without raisins or walnuts.
OK..I apparently have a sugar fixation...lol. That was supposed to be a "wunnerful cinnamon and brown sugar encrusted creation"
It really is yummy.
Thanks, I never heard of that! I thought monkey bread would have to have bananas in it :-)
Post a Comment