Melancholy Memories
(This was written last week in hopes that I would want to continue it... I didn't, but I prefer that now.)
With the holidays fast approaching my thoughts turn to holidays past with my family. Up until a year before I moved to the East Coast family holidays had always been something I could look forward to. We would often go to Big Bear to my grandparents’ house and be joined by all of the proper aunts and uncles and cousins. When I was a kid I remember it always being so fun. There were plenty of people to play with and keep my sister and me amused while letting my parents relax. There would always be a huge tree that magically filled up with presents to the underneath of it was overflowing on Christmas day. Stockings lined the fifteen foot hearth and the kids always had the biggest ones.
I remember the fire blazing in the fire place as presents were passed around and the snow fell outside of the picture windows behind the tree, which was lit up with strands of light and that light reflected in the many glass ornaments decorating it. The ornaments that stand out to me though are the ones made by my grandmother, clay and shaped with cookie cutters then painted by hand, and the ones picked up at church sales which were made by others out of wood. Bells and trees and Santa Clauses and sleighs and reindeers and nutcrackers. The colors stand out to me, too, red and green and the pale white of the bulbs on the light strands.
Even after my grandparents moved into small houses the set up was still the same for decorations and so was the feel, just that overall warmth of the heart that can stay with you for years after, and it has.
It was after my grandmother passed that things began to change. Before she had a rule was made that all of their adult children, meaning the children they had (not grandchildren), would no longer receive stockings. This verdict was understandable as they had five children between the two of them and each with a spouse, and filling that number of stockings becomes very pricy. However, this was never transferred to any of the adult grandchildren, at least not until I turned eighteen.
I see this happening for a few reasons though I’m not sure which is correct. I was eighteen, but I wasn’t yet married nor was I out of high school. At the time, I was fine with this because it made sense. I was an adult and when you’re eighteen, still in school, and still living at home any time you’re called an adult is a good one because it feels like there’s something to prove. However, in hindsight, I have realized some things. My uncle ended up having children, making it so my sister and I were not the youngest cousins anymore, but I don’t have qualms with this and I never did. My uncle is the biological child of my grandfather while my mother is not, meaning his kids would be directly blood related to my grandfather and my sister and I are not. Stockings much bigger than the ones we ever received were purchased after my grandmother’s passing, she being the blood relation to me, and always filled with more expensive toys than ours ever were. Of course, the presents were the same, more expensive and in a much larger quantity than ours or any of the other cousins that weren’t blood related to my grandfather.
It could be I’m reading too much into this, but I think an act of favoritism robbed me of something I had always looked forward to. I admit that I shouldn’t have expected this, shouldn’t have counted on this and there were many children with much less privilege than I had in the world, and I seem very spoiled and ungrateful right now. But there’s a small piece of me that feels cheated somehow. The following Christmas didn’t help any, as I received only one gift from anyone besides my immediate family, the excuse being the rest didn’t know I would be coming.
I just can’t imagine doing that to anyone, especially as there had been no talk from anyone that I wouldn’t be coming, and I know my mother had told family members I would be coming with them for Christmas. It was just utterly heartbreaking, and it still is even now when I don’t feel completely numb to it.
With the holidays fast approaching my thoughts turn to holidays past with my family. Up until a year before I moved to the East Coast family holidays had always been something I could look forward to. We would often go to Big Bear to my grandparents’ house and be joined by all of the proper aunts and uncles and cousins. When I was a kid I remember it always being so fun. There were plenty of people to play with and keep my sister and me amused while letting my parents relax. There would always be a huge tree that magically filled up with presents to the underneath of it was overflowing on Christmas day. Stockings lined the fifteen foot hearth and the kids always had the biggest ones.
I remember the fire blazing in the fire place as presents were passed around and the snow fell outside of the picture windows behind the tree, which was lit up with strands of light and that light reflected in the many glass ornaments decorating it. The ornaments that stand out to me though are the ones made by my grandmother, clay and shaped with cookie cutters then painted by hand, and the ones picked up at church sales which were made by others out of wood. Bells and trees and Santa Clauses and sleighs and reindeers and nutcrackers. The colors stand out to me, too, red and green and the pale white of the bulbs on the light strands.
Even after my grandparents moved into small houses the set up was still the same for decorations and so was the feel, just that overall warmth of the heart that can stay with you for years after, and it has.
It was after my grandmother passed that things began to change. Before she had a rule was made that all of their adult children, meaning the children they had (not grandchildren), would no longer receive stockings. This verdict was understandable as they had five children between the two of them and each with a spouse, and filling that number of stockings becomes very pricy. However, this was never transferred to any of the adult grandchildren, at least not until I turned eighteen.
I see this happening for a few reasons though I’m not sure which is correct. I was eighteen, but I wasn’t yet married nor was I out of high school. At the time, I was fine with this because it made sense. I was an adult and when you’re eighteen, still in school, and still living at home any time you’re called an adult is a good one because it feels like there’s something to prove. However, in hindsight, I have realized some things. My uncle ended up having children, making it so my sister and I were not the youngest cousins anymore, but I don’t have qualms with this and I never did. My uncle is the biological child of my grandfather while my mother is not, meaning his kids would be directly blood related to my grandfather and my sister and I are not. Stockings much bigger than the ones we ever received were purchased after my grandmother’s passing, she being the blood relation to me, and always filled with more expensive toys than ours ever were. Of course, the presents were the same, more expensive and in a much larger quantity than ours or any of the other cousins that weren’t blood related to my grandfather.
It could be I’m reading too much into this, but I think an act of favoritism robbed me of something I had always looked forward to. I admit that I shouldn’t have expected this, shouldn’t have counted on this and there were many children with much less privilege than I had in the world, and I seem very spoiled and ungrateful right now. But there’s a small piece of me that feels cheated somehow. The following Christmas didn’t help any, as I received only one gift from anyone besides my immediate family, the excuse being the rest didn’t know I would be coming.
I just can’t imagine doing that to anyone, especially as there had been no talk from anyone that I wouldn’t be coming, and I know my mother had told family members I would be coming with them for Christmas. It was just utterly heartbreaking, and it still is even now when I don’t feel completely numb to it.