A Mommy Blog About Raising Men, Not Boys.

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Your Favorite Christmas Memory? You Go First....

I got that text today from my friend Emma who was killing time at a job that is killing her spirit.

I started to take a moment to text her back and then realized that it was too long to text plus - it wasn't a memory.

It's a story, in fact.

When I was very little my grandfather took me to get a Christmas tree.

We returned with our tree and everyone was horrified. It was a tiny short tree. His reason? He chose one that I could touch the top of.

That was my grandfather's last Christmas. And I have no memory of this event. It breaks my heart, but like all things in kid world - if it isn't IMPORTANT or if no one shakes you and says GRANDPA IS SICK REMEMBER EVERY SECOND OF THIS your little brain doesn't absorb the memories.

I remember the time he took me to work with him, when he was the county building inspector, and that we went to Just Rite for lunch and I had a chocolate shake with burger and fries. I remember the way his pipe smelled, and that he'd smoke cigarettes outside once in a while but not really that often in the house. I remember the smoked Dutch Masters because I'd use the boxes to hold crayons. I remember everything, sometimes it seems. But I do not remember that tree.

There are no pictures because it was the 70s and we didn't take pictures of every damn thing the way we do now. I wish we had. I would love to see such a short fat little tree.

You never know what holiday will be your last with someone who means everything to you. I suppose that IS why I take hundreds of pictures of everything carving them all into my mind - and recording them so that even when I am the one no longer here, someone can see them and know what they are.

My favorite Christmas memory is the one I've lost. I'm sorry Grandpa.


Christine (Kesseret) said...

bleh at friday cries at work when you work with a bunch of insensitive men.
Beautiful memory lots of hugs to you!


We would get in our station wagon on christmas eve after supper and drive to our grandparents house one time we were going out to our car and we saw a strange object passing overhead