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Archiver > PADUTCH-LIFE > 2002-12 > 1040623372


From: "Vee L. Housman" <>
Subject: [PD-LIFE] Countdown to Christmas Eve
Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2002 01:02:52 -0500


Dear Group,

I've just sat myself down and I'm pooped from wrapping Christmas presents. Every year I keep forgetting what a job it is. And this year I couldn't even find the name tags to put on the gifts.

So at the last minute I'll have to go to the store tomorrow and buy what I forgot to buy. Oranges and nuts for the stockings and name tags for the presents.

Tomorrow night my sister Norma and my niece Deb will come over and help decorate my tree. I called Norma this evening and asked her if she ever remembered helping me decorate my tree. No she couldn't. However, she remembered one Christmas when she and Mother lived in Youngstown, NY, back in the late 1960s, and I lived in Oakland, CA, and between the two of them they decided to call me and beg me to come home for Christmas. I was so excited with the possibility of being home for Christmas that I booked a flight for the next day.

However, let me back up a bit. At the time I was dating a fella by the name of Bob and the two of us had gone out and picked out the perfect Christmas tree. Bob helped me set it up in my living room and we looked forward to decorating it together the next day. However, I had to call him to let him know that I wasn't going to be home the next day in that I was flying home for Christmas. Somehow I feel that Bob never forgave me for doing that! I don't know why!! :-)

Nonetheless, my tree will be put up tomorrow and I'm certain that Norma and I will enjoy the very old Christmas tree ornaments that I have that she remembers from our childhood. Mother divided the old ornaments between us years before she died.

So let me think a bit. OK, tomorrow is Monday, December 23. By Monday night I should be in the best holiday spirit and all day Tuesday I'll be preparing for our family Christmas Eve get together at my house. Deb and the kids will bring over all of the food for a grand buffet, we'll stuff ourselves silly and then we'll all go into my living room where the Christmas tree will be by then.

Also by then, the kids will have taken all of the gifts into the living room and sorted them out by who they're for in anticipation of the "grand opening of the Christmas gifts."

After we're all seated in chairs or on the floor, the gift-giving begins. For the past number of years our family has decided that there will be no wild dash for the presents with screaming and squealing. No, we've decided to unwrap the gifts in an orderly fashion and the youngest family member gets to unwrap his/her gift first and then the next oldest. But dag gone it, it seems that we get more younger family members in our family as the years go by and I have to wait my turn longer and longer! Oh well, at least this year my older sister Norma will be last in line!

There will be oranges and nuts in the stockings and the last present that will be unwrapped wiil be the box of clear toy candy that Rich Nornhold has sent our family for the past five years. And as the kids unwrap each exquisite piece, I'll tell them once again the history of them and the memories of them was I was a little girl. It's always such a joy to see how they wonder over them when they hold them up to the light. It's like looking through a stained glass window.

It will be a four-generation Christmas Eve together (Norma is a great-grandmother) and the kids will have to listen to the stories that Norma and I remember about Christmas (including the above). Hopefully they'll repeat the stories about what they remember about Christmas Eve at Auntie Vee's house for years to come (Including the story about Auntie Vee's bottle of catsup that they knew was REALLY old because they could still read the price tag of 79 cents!)

Such is the anticipation of Christmas Eve with the family.

Merry, Merry Chrismas.

vee







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