I guess I can’t quit. Now it’s the Tuesday before Christmas and some more thoughts come to mind. I hope this isn’t tedious reading, but there are some anecdotes that you might get a kick out of.
Earlier I mentioned that we often gazed at a picture of my Aunt Nellie that hung in the hallway of my grandmother’s house. She was beautiful. Not so of Aunt Angie and Aunt Hazel. Once the two of them had an afternoon party that my mother was invited to, I was the only kid there so I think I was five years old. Don must have been in school, and maybe Babe was at Grandma Doucette’s. He was their pet so I wouldn’t be surprised if he were there. Anyway, I was dressed in short summer pants, sitting in a chair on their glassed in porch, bored to death. Both Aunt Hazel and Aunt Angie came over to me and asked me which one I thought was the prettiest. I remember cringing in the chair, looking up at one face and then the other, studying their expressions, wondering if this were some kind of joke. I kept silent. They tugged at my arm, repeated their question, and insisted I answer. I kept silent. They refused to accept my reluctance to answer such an impossible question and continued their badgering. I guess I sensed they meant business so I shyly pointed my finger at one. It’s still a mystery to me which one I picked since neither one could have been called pretty. On the way home my mother scolded me and said that I should have called them equally pretty. I remember thinking,” Now you tell me. Where were you when I needed you?”
Some Christmas thoughts. My mother worked like a dog over the holidays. For years she made rosettes, futemon, and sunbuckles, (I spelled the last two phonetically). These two were Norwegian sweets of a sort so I don’t know why they became a tradition at our house. My mother also made cream puffs for every Christmas when I was young. Christmas dinner, of course was a feast, often with company. Uncle Joe, Aunt Leah, and Grandpa Doucette were there for many years, and Aunt Mae, Uncle Art and their two kids were often there. My mother made the entire meal with little help. No little task when you think that she was up most of the night, wrapping presents and filling stockings. When we were older, we often had Christmas dinner at Aunt Hazel’s.
Christmas morning when I was a youngster was hectic, of course. I guess we’d wake up about five o’clock, not long after my parents got to bed. Once I remember my mother telling my dad that a man was pacing back and forth in front of our house. It turned out to be my Uncle Joe who lived down the block. He didn’t want to miss those first few minutes when we rushed to the tree.
My dad always insisted that we had to line up on the stairs, oldest first, and wait there until he got the fire started. Uncle Joe was guard at the door, holding us back until Dad decided that it was warm enough to begin the onslot. It was his way of heightening the excitement; we didn’t care about icy air.
Each of us kids had our own spot to hang our stocking. My dad actually pounded nails in the woodwork around the doors. He kept track of our growth that way. Each year he’d remark how much higher he’d have to put the nail. The socks were filled with candy, nuts, an orange and an apple. it never changed.
When were older, Grandpa Doucette always gave each one of us a dollar. We always gave him two dollars. He had a 100% return on his investment. His hands actually shook with excitement when he opened his envelopes. Never a surprise but always a thrill,
Up at Aunt Hazel’s house, Christmas was more sedate, almost rigid. We were older but still missed the joy of Christmas afternoon at home. The tree was always in the corner near the fire place, and the gifts were always wrapped in red tissue, It looked attractive, but we knew that tissue paper was also cheap. Aunt Hazel was frugal. Gifts HAD to be opened one at a time, and each person was given a long agonizing minute or two to respond. Uncle Otto’s gift was usually something he got from the hardware store. Once my mother got poker chips even though she seldom played poker, and another time she got a dish without the cover. We knew that the cover was broken in shipment so the set couldn’t be sold.
One time, when we were quite young, Aunt Hazel gave us old toys that she had around the house for us to play with when we came to visit. She suggested that we leave the toys there for future playtime I took mine home because I was afraid I’d get them again for a later Christmas. Eventually Aunt Hazel became more generous, and we looked forward to the $20.00 that she gave each of us.
Now I’m not going to write anymore. This is Christmas 1995. I wish each of my kids, their spouses and their children, a very Merry Christmas, one filled with happy memories. TIMBER!
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