In honor of the holiday season, I thought I would pay a little homage to Dickens by sharing a memory from a Christmas past. When I was a girl, there was a local television show that we used to watch called Boomtown. Well, one year, one of the characters from the show talked about how he would tear the corners off the wrapping on his presents to try and figure out what was inside. And from this my older brother and older sister got the bright idea to try it themselves. And of course they roped me into it, too, because they figured they wouldn't get into as much trouble if they had the "good" child doing it with them.
Well, unable to resist the temptation, I allowed them to convince me to go along with them and we invaded my parents' closet to peek at our gifts. You know what happened, don't you? Oh, yes, we got caught. My mother was so livid, she threatened not to give us presents that year. I don't know about my siblings, but I was devastated by the possibility because I just knew that I was going to get what I wanted that year, which was painting supplies from Artex (the paint came in tubes with special tips to paint right onto the canvas, which was made of pellon). I spent hours in my room after that, crying because I wasn't going to get Christmas and mad at myself for going along with my siblings.
I don't know what calmed my mother down and made her decide to give us the gifts anyway, but I'm glad she did because I was right. I got the present I had wished for and I treasured it.
What are your fondest memories from past holidays?
You're going to laugh, but my fondest memory is when we woke up Christmas Day, already in Florida, and it was WARM! No snow, and we didn't have to travel anywhere. The day was nice and relaxing, and yes, we even went to the beach for an hour or so.
ReplyDeleteMy most vivid memory, however, is quite the opposite. The car broke down on Christmas as we were traveling, and a Good Samaritan helped us out. The next day, my sis and I spent a wonderful day in the truck stop while Dad fixed the car. We played video games, read the magazines, and ate meals that WEREN't leftovers:) And yes, there was snow on the ground, and very cold outside.
Hey girls...you've been tagged! Check my blog for details:) I tagged Gracen, but all of you can play!
Molly, those are wonderful memories (although the car breaking down probably didn't seem so wonderful then). Thanks for sharing them with us!
ReplyDeleteMargay
I wish I had fond memories, but other than just missing time with my grandmother, I don't. Most of my fond memories are from times that aren't the holidays.
ReplyDeleteThe memory I will go with is from two years ago, when we were trying to leave for our big family trip to Cancun. My mother-in-law enjoyed the family cruise so much that she wanted to have another big family moment like that. So, we went down to Cancun for Christmas.
The adventure was getting there. First, my brother-in-law's van was acting up, so we couldn't take it, we had to resort to two cars instead of one and didn't get to the airport as early as we were supposed to, but that turned out ok in the end, but not for good reasons.
See, weather rolled in and the fog was so thick you could barely see an inch in front of you, much less a foot. The fog was so thick that all you could see when you looked out the airport windows was white fluffy something. So, the flight was delayed. It turns out, the flight was delayed for 12 hours! Once we knew we were going to be delayed more than a couple of hours, we decided to leave the airport and wait at my other brother-in-law's house.
We were lucky that there were friends willing to come pick us all up and make return trip to the airport. We had pizza for dinner. I'm not sure if the airport gave us a call when they knew the flight would be taking off, or if we kept calling in, but eventually, we did find out that yes, we would get to leave.
Yes, we lost a day, but we still had 6 left. There were others who were only going down for the weekend and well, they lost a third of their trip that day!
We did have a decent time down there and it only rained once, but even though it rained, it was warm rain. I would really like to go back to the place we stayed at because it was a nice resort. All inclusive is definitely the way to go because then you do not have to worry about money because you've already paid for it, including tips!
Wow, Carrie, that's some story! I'm glad that you ended up having a good time, though, and I hope you get your chance to go back.
ReplyDeleteMargay
Carrie, that brought back memories of our trip to Ottowa in '04. Bad weather, luggage getting lost, me trapped in the Detroit airport with two pre-teens and a 10-month old for 3 hours! We did get to enjoy an extra day, because of the flight being canelled on Jan 1st, and my luggage showed up! I was able to pass out presents FINALLY on New Year's:)
ReplyDeleteMolly
Hey Molly - We did not bring presents because the trip was our present from my mother-in-law.
ReplyDeleteGlad you're presents finally showed up! Next time, just mail them to yourself at the place you're staying. They'll probably get there faster....lol!
Thanks Margay!