The Ghost of Christmas Past

I'm confessing that I’ve always been a little obsessed with Christmas (but you probably would have guessed that anyway if you read my posts from the last couple of weeks). Not only did I like to have own little live tree in my bedroom when I was a kid, I liked to be in charge. This completely irritated my dad who also had a huge desire to run the show…hmmm…we must be related! I thought it would be fun to link up with Shell today while I pour my heart out about holidays past.

I would work for weeks planning our Christmas Eve program for our family. Sometimes we could get Grandma and Grandpa to come over, but Grandpa usually preferred his own comfortable chair is his own little house to the chaos and confusion at ours.

I guess I was a little bossy back then because I convinced my oldest sister to play the piano while I led the singing. Sometimes I could get my oldest brother to pull out his guitar and play something too. I always assigned myself a solo, generally O Holy Night. Not exactly like angels, but I loved singing in front of a captive audience. I typed everything out in program format on my mom’s old manual typewriter but since those were still the days of carbon paper, I typed each person their own copy. Since I had to henpeck them, it took me several hours and many ruined sheets of paper before I was satisfied. But it was worth it! I loved Christmas and like Clark (from Christmas Vacation), I wanted everything to be perfect.
One of the highlights was coercing my dad and my two oldest brothers to sing “We Three Kings.” The whole family looked forward to this because my dad wasn’t much into singing, so it was a treat. They sang the first verse together, then Dad sang the “Gold” verse, New Zealand sang “Frankincense” and Japan finish up with “Myrrh.”

Then my three youngest siblings became Mary and Joseph and Baby Jesus. Sometimes we used a doll and one of them had to be the donkey. My two oldest brothers are my only two siblings that live out of state. Sadly, when Dad led the singing at the Christmas party on Sunday, he might have been able to sing his verse, but when he pointed to my youngest brother to cue him up, he had a totally blank look on his face. He was only twelve when I got married so his days as Joseph didn’t adequately prepare him to sing about Frankincense or Myrrh. Dad looked confused until I reminded him that I have been married for 28 years now.

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The years slip by so quickly and I still love Christmas! I love the parties and the presents, the love and kindness that seems to manifest itself everywhere you look…the silly sappy Christmas movies that my sweetie watches EVERY night while he exercises to keep off the yummy treats that are always a part of every celebration. Thanks for letting me share my Christmases, both past and present with you! That’s the only thing that could possibly make them better.