Thirteen Christmas Memories
1. Christmas Eve Mass with my sister at St. Hilary’s and St. Vincent’s. Their choirs are fantastic, and help me get in the Christmas spirit.
2. Driving to Mass Christmas morning and almost driving off the road because of the snow.
3. Christmas cookies. There are 7 of us, so we’d make at least 20 dozen batches of cookies. We weren’t allowed to eat them till Christmas Eve, though. My mom would get really mad when she realized that someone had eaten a few.
4. Decorating the house. We go all out, at least inside the house. We’re not really big into decorating the outside of the house, but inside, there are decorations everywhere. My parents are uber-Catholic, so there are about 100 Nativity scenes. Okay, 100 might be an exaggeration, but I’d say there are at least 50. My sister puts the lights on the tree, and it takes her 2-3 hours. She doesn’t like to see the actual strand holding the light; just the light.
5. Christmas stockings. I still get a stocking, even though I don’t live at home. We put one up for my sister last year even though she wasn’t there and wouldn’t be coming home. My mom buys her own stocking present, which cracks me up. She buys something she really wants but can’t justify in the budget. And my dad always gets her something.
6. Driving around Canton…maybe north Canton…with Michelle looking at the houses and their light display. Staring at the woman who got in an accident in front of one of the houses. Wondering what could possibly possess people to allow people to use their driveway to see the light display better. Seriously, this woman opened up her semi-circle driveway so that we could see the entire display. Who does that?
7. Week-long Spiritual Exercises in Rhode Island. Being silent for a week. One of the best weeks of my life. Of course, the highlight for me was seeing my sister.
8. My grandmother’s Christmas tree. She never had a “real” Christmas tree. Or a “real fake” one. She had a ceramic tree with lights. I thought it was the cutest thing. I think my aunt owns it now. I’ll look for it Sunday.
9. The grade school Christmas Program. Kindergarten sings Up On the Housetop and we ended the program with Must be Santa. I just saw it this evening and it brought back so many memories.
10. The look on my grandmother’s face when I gave her a 12-month calendar. She loved it. It was probably the best feeling, watching her open her present.
11. Christmas celebration at Warwick House in Pittsburgh. That house is beautiful. For some reason I associate eggnog with that day. It’s kinda an odd association, but that’s what comes to mind.
12. Eggnog. We drink eggnog every Christmas Eve. I’ve never had “real” (spiked) eggnog, but I love the virgin eggnog. Delicious.
13. Fighting over who gets to put Jesus in the manger scene. It was a big deal to be the kid that got to put him in the main one. We didn’t care about the rest of them; just the main one everyone could see.
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