Okay, Thanksgiving is over. I ate 4 different meals, one of which I cooked all by my lonesome (pictures may follow). I waited, respectfully, until yesterday before...Christmas music!

I do feel bad that all the other holidays get swallowed up by the Santa-candycane-tinsel maelstrom, but I have a shameless love of Christmas. I was shocked to hear my first carol of the season on the day after Halloween. I am a little disturbed by seeing twinkle lights while I still have leftover turkey. But. Burl Ives is like a sedative.

I was trying to explain to John the other day what Christmas was like for me as a kid. It reminded me of an episode of "The Golden Girls," where Rose is describing Christmas on the farm in St. Olaf and I think Dorothy asks something like, "Who was your father? Michael Landon?" Such were my idyllic childhood holidays.

I remember one year, I was probably 8 or 9, my mom's parents were visiting from LA. My dad's parents lived across the street from us, so all four grandparents were there. Because Grandpa Jack was just hanging out at our house, he always worked on little (and sometimes large) projects whenever they stayed with us. This particular visit, he made a large wooden star that he strung white lights on. We put colored lights along the porch railing and upstairs in my and Amy's windows. We opened our presents on Christmas day and it snowed. A beautiful snow. Deep and crisp. We all went outside that night to look at the lights in the snow. I wore my dad's size 14 shoes, so I practically skied down the hill. I think most of us made snow angels. I made snow angels with my grandparents, I remember that much. I can vividly remember, as we walked back to the house, my dad said it was the best Christmas he'd ever had.

I get teary-eyed every time I think about that. I also really miss my grandparents.

Labels: family., food., holiday.

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