The Ghost of Christmas Present

When I was a kid, Grandma worked in a Furniture and Hardware store. I know, that might seem like a strange combination, but I did grow up in small-town Utah and we all wore many hats. Her store was so awesome! You could find almost anything you needed there…fishing tackle, appliances, carpeting, furniture, hammers and tools, batteries, clocks and even a few toys.

We loved seeing the new furniture when it came in! But our favorite thing to do was play on the huge rolls of carpet and the stacks of samples. Mom made us a doll house that used carpet and wallpaper samples, but I digress…


As part of Grandma’s job, she was responsible for wrapping gifts. They had several huge rolls of paper there and she could always find the right-sized box for anything! She made amazing curls with their gold curling ribbon and her packages always looked just right.

So at Christmas time we went to Grandma’s house to wrap our gifts. Grandma was a saver, so she always had paper and ribbon and huge rolls of tape. The real Christmas paper was generally nicely folded and reused from the previous year…and the year before that…(at Grandma’s we were never allowed to rip and tear). But my favorite way to wrap gifts at Grandma’s was with the huge books of discontinued wallpaper samples.

We would flip through them for hours, selecting just the right piece to match the personality of the receiver. Then when a decision was finally made, Grandma would use a razor blade to remove the piece from the book. The pieces were about 24 inches square so one sheet would wrap most gifts. I loved the ones with flocking on them or texturing. The best part was that the paper was so thick it was really hard to rip. And if you found a pattern you liked, usually the next half a dozen pages were the same pattern in different colors.

Grandma would sit with us and make sure we did the corners just right. If your piece was too small, she would show you how to turn the paper sideways and still make it work with straight corners and seams. She was amazing! She could wrap anything.

I love wrapping gifts, but now that Grandma isn’t looking over my shoulder, I’m not always so perfect with the corners. I guess over the years I’ve learned that with so many kids I have to wrap quickly. When my sweetie and I wrap, he carefully cuts the paper to exactly the right size (he is an engineer, remember), then he makes the edges and corners perfect.

Not me…I can wrap ten gifts to one of his. And we gave up on bows and ribbons decades ago. They just get smashed in the fray anyway. Unless I want to turn a gift into a giant cracker, of course.

I spent an hour this morning and wrapped about 30 presents. (It took me a little longer because I had to change the tape in the dispenser…) Teach is also a wrapper. She loves to help the little kids with their gifts. All of my kids still give to everyone. Yeah, do the math. Twelve kids times eleven pretty packages…we are well over a hundred gifts before we even begin. How about you? Do you like to wrap? Are you a perfectionist or just a get ‘er-done?

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.

source

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.

THE Christmas Party

My parents had 8 kids and I’m number 4. Six of us live here in Utah, within about ½ an hour of each other. So every Christmas we get together at my house for revelry and celebration. The party started at 6:00 and Grandpa showed up about half an hour early with some of the other grandkids.

My sweetie slaved over 2 huge pots of chili and everyone brought potluck salads to share. After dinner we moved all the food back to the kitchen and set up the tables for cookie decorating. I told you already that Princess baked 10 batches of sugar cookies on Saturday and I ended up making 8 batches of frosting instead of six.

Some people were more creative than others...

Everyone participated in this sticky sweet activity and they made some pretty awesome designs! Unfortunately, most of them were eaten before Teach managed to grab her camera. (She was too busy frosting cookies of her own…)

Nice cookie, Gym Rat!

After cookies, we headed for the basement so Princess and Prima Donna could serenade us with their amazing clarinet skills. About halfway through Santa Claus is Coming to Town, the jolly old elf (aka my sweetie) showed up in all his Christmas finery. The kids sat on his lap and everyone got a bag of candy and had their pictures taken by Teach.

Then Grandpa led the somewhat irreverent sing-along of Christmas songs. He seemed a bit offended when my little brother couldn’t remember the words to “We Three Kings.” Tomorrow I’ll explain that whole story to you…

Then it was time for gifts. My siblings all still exchange gifts although most of them have gone to family gifts. We love choosing gifts for the nieces and nephews since most of them are very grateful and excited to receive them. The little Christmas trains were a huge hit with the little ones and the girls loved the Webkinz, but the biggest deal was the Nerf pistols.

As the guys started opening them up, my sweetie came charging down the stairs with two huge repeater guns and opened fire! That started a huge Nerf war that lasted for nearly half an hour. The kids had so much fun! But I think the ones that enjoyed it the most were my little brother and my sisters’ husbands. They were at it long after the kids had given up and moved on. (There are no pics of the battle...Teach wasn't taking any chances on her camera being a casualty of war.)

Then my sweetie and I raced back upstairs to make eggnog shakes, a tradition for all Christmas parties. As people were heading out the door, they each chose a candy cane from the garland that encircles our kitchen. Despite the fact that a few family members were missing (and this was the first one without Grandma), I think it was the best Christmas party we have had in the last decade. Three hours just flew by…and so did dozens of Nerf bullets.

Merry Christmas to All and to All a Goodnight!

Christmas Parties

How are you all doing? Are you ready for Christmas yet? I can't believe we are down to less than a week! We have a huge family party at my house this evening, so I don't have much time to put together a post for you. My sweetie is making a pot of chili big enough to feed 50 people and the smell of the peppers sent me running from the kitchen. I know I'm a baby about the burning of my eyes and the choking in my throat, but his chili is amazing! I'm still trying to get him to give me a recipe so I can share it with you. The problem is that it changes every time he makes it.

Santa and Scout

Princess spent all day yesterday making sugar cookies so that we could decorate them at the party. Last year we did gingerbread houses and the year before that we made tiny salt dough ornaments to hang on 8-inch trees. Usually we do one per family, but this year she made about 150 cookies and now I get to make six batches of frosting.

Santa and Baby Doll

Drama Queen and Curly and I made 45 paper sacks filled with candy, peanuts and oranges for my sweetie to deliver in his Santa suit. The younger cousins love seeing him come in! He has real sleigh bells and he does a fantastic job with the little ones.

We also wrapped gifts for everyone last night after we got back from Kohl's at midnight. Yeah, a little tired. Here are some pics from past Christmas parties, and I'll update you tomorrow on how this year's turned out. Time to go make frosting...