Treasures

I happened to remember this story the other day, and decided to have my husband unearth it from the archive of an ancient website.  It is one I wrote 10 years ago.  It is based on actual events, but details have been added to make it more entertaining.   My family really did gather at my Uncle Dick and Aunt Clara's house every Christmas Eve until 1971.  That was the year we lost Uncle Dick, and Christmas was never quite the same without him.  He was such a sweet man, and I miss him AND my Pop every year about this time, more than usual.  
Family memories are a true treasure.  
The broken bottle of liquor I mention in the story was a real event, only it was a half-gallon of vodka that took the wax off the kitchen floor when Pop dropped it.  (My aunt and uncle were visiting, and Mom and Aunt Clara had been making vodka gimlets, I think maybe they got carried away a bit.)
This is my first Christmas without Mom.  I haven't spent Christmas with her or my family since about 1988, but she was always there to call and talk to.  (Though recently, it had been a challenge, as she had dementia.  She could remember the past quite well, though, and we shared many happy memories.)
There is a picture that I hope to find and include with this, of me with my dog in front of the Christmas tree, but I don't know if I'll have time to hunt it up!
Well, I couldn't find the photo. It is SOMEWHERE in the mess that is my office file cabinet.
Today we will share time with friends and with our St. Paul's family,  
Our wish for you is all the peace, light, joy, love, and hope of the season, and health, happiness, and prosperity in the year to come!
Please enjoy my little story. 




One Crazy Mixed Up Christmas
By Carolyn Kay Armistead, 1996

It started off like any other Christmas Eve. Mom made me wash my hair first thing in the morning, so it would be curled by time to go to Aunt Clara and Uncle Dick's house that evening. She set it for me as soon as I got it dry enough with my sister Susie's old hair dryer. I had to play all day with rollers in my hair. Not fun. They itched, and sometimes even pulled my hair and hurt me. But, Mom wanted me to have curly hair, so I wore them. (Why couldn't she ever accept the fact that all of us, except Walt, had straight hair just like Pop's? Walt never let his get curly, he kept it slicked down with "greasy kid stuff" as Pop called it.)
Anyway, things started off OK, like I said. Pop came home from work early, bringing the usual turkey AND a ham, and a bottle of liquor of some kind that would join the unopened multitudes on our highest kitchen shelf. (Someone at Pop's job always gave everybody a bottle of "holiday cheer". My parents weren't drinkers, so every year, the stockpile got bigger.) Mom then got after me to get dressed, she brushed out my hair, looked disappointed with its insistence on remaining fairly straight, and told me not to get into anything while she finished getting ready.
Walt showed up with his girlfriend, and we all got ready to go. That is when things started going nuts. We were going to ALL pile into Walt's Fairlane. Me, Mom, Pop, Walt, and his girlfriend. Well, theoretically, there was plenty of room. We loaded up the trunk with the presents for Aunt Clara, Uncle Dick, my cousins and their kids, and all piled in and got ready to go. The car started, no problem. Walt went to put it in gear, and the gearshift came off in his hand. I don't mean the knob came off, I mean the entire gearshift came loose from the floor of the car. Ooops.
Well, Pop said, we'll just have to take Mom's car. No, Mom said, there's not enough gas in her car, and besides, its been making that funny noise again. We all groaned. You couldn't go anywhere with Mom in a car making a "funny noise." She would spend the entire trip with her eyes clamped shut, whispering prayers under her breath. By the time you got where you were going, everybody in the car would be nervous.
So, we had no choice. Mom and Pop and I, and as many of our presents as would fit, scrunched into Pop's 1963 Volkswagen Beetle. Walt and his girlfriend had to take his Ranchero, which ran OK, but didn't have a heater that worked at the moment. Mom gave them an afgan or two, and told them to be careful. We started out in our weird caravan, down the crazy freeways from Compton to Placentia. We made it just fine, much to Mom's great relief. (Pop's driving in the VW always made Mom really, really nervous. She was always sure we were going to get squashed.)
There we were, at Aunt Clara and Uncle Dick's house, and already all the cousins were there. (I was hoping there would be some food left for us, until I remembered that Aunt Clara wouldn't let ANYBODY eat until everybody she expected showed up. Besides, with Aunt Clara around, you NEVER went hungry!) Uncle Dick met us at the door with his usual big smile and warm hugs for everybody. I usually didn't like huggy grownups, but Uncle Dick was different. He kind of looked like Santa without the beard and white hair. He was always laughing and joking, too. His eyes twinkled and his mouth was "drawn up like a bow" just like the Santa in "A Visit From St. Nicholas". (Which he read to us kids every Christmas Eve, by the way. ) Aunt Clara greeted everyone from the kitchen, where she was, as usual up to her elbows in wonderful smelling food preparations. Mom went in as always to try to help, and as always, Clara got her a cup of punch and shooed her out to the living room and told her to relax. ("After all, Sarah Gene, you'll have all that work tomorrow when we all come to your house." That's what she always used to get Mom out of her tiny kitchen on Christmas Eve. It always worked, too.) The usual round of cousins asking where Susie and Jim were came then, and they were answered as always: "They have Christmas Eve at Jim's folks' house." ( My sister and her husband didn't know what they were missing this year!)
Well, the cousins and I were just about done comparing Christmas lists, and getting ready to start bugging the grownups with the usual "When do we eat?" "Can we open presents yet?" litany that we observed every year, when there was a knock at the door. We were puzzled, the whole family was present, who could possibly be at the door? Aunt Clara thought perhaps one of the neighbors needed to borrow something, so imagine her surprise when she found Santa Claus on the front porch. Seems he'd been making the rounds of the neighborhood, "doing last minute checks for my naughty and nice list" as he put it. Well, Aunt Clara decided to be nice and let him in, she gave him some punch, and all us kids took turns sitting on his lap to have our picture made, and tell him what we wanted most of all for Christmas.
When my turn came, I noticed that "Santa" smelled a lot like that bottle of booze that got broken on its way home with Pop one year. I played along so as not to upset the littler kids, who really thought this was Santa. Once I had a chance, I went over and told Uncle Dick what I noticed about "Santa." About that time, "Santa" started singing German drinking songs, and my older brother Butch was about to join in because he knew the song. (Much to his wife's displeasure.)
Uncle Dick then suggested maybe Santa had better hurry on his way, after all, he had a lot of homes to visit that night. Uncle Dick offered to walk him out to his sleigh. He told all us kids to stay in the house, it was too cold to go out anyway. Uncle Dick left with Santa and was gone quite a while. When he came back, I heard him talking to Aunt Clara in the kitchen. "Yes, I got Hans home all right. Greta was worried that this might happen. At least they live right next door, so he wasn't out driving anywhere."
Aha! I knew that Santa had to be a phony. It was fun, though, to watch the littler kids get so quiet, and so determined to be on their best behavior. For the first year in ages, Kimberly and Joey didn't try to dismantle each other. The only bad effect was that Butch kept starting up that drinking song again. Oh well, Anne had a little talk with him and he was OK after that.
We had our usual wonderful Christmas Eve dinner with the whole family, and after dessert, Uncle Dick read to us "A Visit From Saint Nicholas", and we each got to open one gift. I got a really nice stuffed dog from Uncle Dick and Aunt Clara. I always liked stuffed animals. I held him all the way home. That trip home was pretty normal until we passed Walt's Ranchero pulled over by the side of the road. Seems the headlights had joined the heater in deciding not to work. Well, we just made sure they were following us all the way home, and Pop had his emergency flashers on so people would see us both. There wasn't much traffic at all at that time of night on Christmas Eve, anyway.
Every time I think about that crazy year, I remember how much fun it all was in spite of all the crazy things that happened. Christmas Day was almost a let down after all the excitement that Christmas Eve. Our Christmases were always a lot of fun. Mostly because of my Mom and Pop, and Aunt Clara and Uncle Dick and all the neat things they did for all us kids.
So my dear family, wherever you are, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! I miss you all very much.