Christmas Past - Pt. 2

Christmas morning I would wake up (late, thanks to the service that kept me out until 1am) and I would open a few presents and my stockings with my mom and step dad Ron. There was always the 4 presents I wasnt allowed to open right away. These ones would be saved for Grandma's house (usually these were little things to keep me occupied that could easily be packed back into the car for the return home at the end of the night... though one year it was a keyboard that was taller than me - I'm still trying to figure out the logic behind that one).

Along with those 4 presents, there was always a fifth. The one present my dad got me that I wasnt allowed to open until christmas day.

Then we would make the 30min drive to grandma's house, where we'd eat breakfast with the aunts and cousins who'd made the journey down from the northern part of the state. on good years (no snow in the portland/pendleton areas) there would be 11 of us. Bad years, 5.

Breakfast always involved something delisciously fattening and then we would move into the living room to open gifts.

Each year the grand kids were alternated through to decide who would open the presents... and invariably, every year I would end up (on the years I was selected to to distribute) invariably, accidentally opening  one of my grandmother's presents - Arley and Amy do look very similar to an eight year old.

As we kids got older, the tradition changed to gifts between the family needing to be made, in fact, one of my favorite presents from those years was a fleece blanket (the ones where you cut the edges into strips and knot two pieces of fleece together.) from my mom's sister and her kids in Pendleton. It's in on the bed right now.

From then until dinner, was the point at which those 4 present (plus anything else I got) were meant to keep me occupied. Of course, here, on this grandma's farm, there was also time spent looking at soggy cows eating soggy grass.

And then it was time for dinner.

My mom's mom didn't make quite the feast my dad's mom did... but then again, my paternal grandmother had a dozen more people to cook for.

Dinner was always finished off with pie (my mom's favorite part of any dinner) and wipped cream (my favorite part of any pie) and then we kids would go back to occupying ourself and the grown-ups would go back to talking about things... and then it would be time to go home.

And Christmas would end with the long drive down the river home.


MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!