What Christmas Meant to Me

AS a grown up the holidays do not hold the same excitement and fun as when I was a child. As a child, Christmas was always at my grandparent's house. My grandmother loved family gatherings. A few days before the actual holiday, my grandma would start cooking cakes, pies, and the other desserts that would be devoured within seconds of it being set in front of her family and store them in either the fridge or freezer.

The actual holiday, started Christmas eve with a simple dinner. The relatives who traveled a long distance would be my grandparents guests whether they stayed in the bedroom or the couch. Before long it became a family tradition that family stay over Christmas eve. When morning came the rest of the family started coming over filling up the country kitchen quickly. Before long everyone was around the tree opening presents.
My grandma took great pleasure watching us all open the gifts from her because she took great joy picking them out all year.

After the gifts were opened and the gift wrap thrown away, the grown ups chatted or watched football, while the kids either ran around the house or in the back yard. When it was time for dinner the kids would sit at the card table while the grown ups sat at the big table. They would talk about work politics things that impacted their lives while us children talked about things that we cared about. Our classes at school we hated , video games, kids that bullied us.

Unfortunately when my grandparents died, so did the family tradition. No one wanted to carry the torch my grandma set because no one could do it quite the same way she did. Its hard to explain except to say my grandma , her home and her life was filled with love that no one else could match or replace. My grandma was one of a kind and she is missed. But the memories of her live in everyone she ever met.