This blog originally appeared over at Rebel Reasoning earlier this month – but I thought I’d share it again as I get to see Leigh and family again tonight!

Thought I’d jot down some of those memories of Christmases when I was little. Family is the word that immediately comes up for me. We were a three-generation home, so in addition to my sister (my first real memory is bringing her home the day before Christmas X-years ago – don’t want her to come after me), and my parents, my maternal grandmother lived with us. 

Down the road about twenty miles was Grandmother, Granddaddy, one of my many uncles and all of his family. Leigh is another sister though technically she’s a cousin and the person I guess I’ve known the longest–not counting the parents. So on Christmas morning Sis and I would run down the hall, past the formal living room (where we were never allowed except that one morning) to wake up the parents so we could check on what Santa brought. I never peeked–I swear, I ran past that door for 18+ years and never  once looked in before we got the parents up.

Then the flurry of presents and some sort of breakfast, but we had to hurry because Grandmother would not let Granddaddy open his presents until we got there. I’m not sure he ever called to hurry us up, but I feel like he could have. So we left our new things (we could only take one with us–many many years it was the doll) and raced down to their house. Leigh and family only had to walk across the yard.

Grandmother’s tree was always from the woods out back and while not pretty in the style you see on TV or photographs, it was real and it smelled good. She had glow-in-the-dark icicles on it (these were distributed among the grandkids when she was gone–I got four of them!)

Then there were the meals at Leigh’s house. There was more room there than at Grandmother’s. Yes, there was an adult table, but there was a children’s room (the glassed-in porch) where we got to eat and it was always better than the adult table. Seems like some people even ate in my uncle’s bedroom off the dining area. Hey Sis, am I imagining that? Anyway, Momma couldn’t kick me from that far away. It was always a buffet–turkey, dressing, cranberry sauce, casseroles and tons of desserts. Even I could get filled up at those banquets and back then I could eat a lot and it never showed. (Ahh, one the best memories). Then the men would sit around the adult table and talk while the women cleaned up–really.

That changed when my generation got married. Hubby took his own plate into the kitchen and shamed the other men into doing the same. Then the women got to sit around and talk too because cleanup was faster.  It’s kinda funny, but the last time I remember having one of these dinners, my generation still went out to the children’s room–never did want to graduate up. Wonder where my kids ate?  I don’t remember . . .

  Nowhere for Christmas – available now.  Will there be room at the inn this year for a stranger?