Antici………pation
It was about this time of year, back in the years after Santa and before graduation, that I’d begin to think about the end of the year. I was never the type to daydream of material things very often, but my mind would wander during boring classes, about what would appear under the tree.
My family would usually wait until the middle of the month to get the tree, but it was about this time that my dad would be securing the permit allowing us to tromp into the woods and procure ourselves a conifer carcas later in the month.
It was about this time each year that my mom would request my dad to get the decorations out of the attic, and shove them into the front closet, awaiting that day we got the tree. My mom would begin to ban my sister and me from helping with groceries, there’d be something somewhere we weren’t meant to see.
The air would get bitterly cold, and I would begin to anticipate snow. It was an infrequent happenstance, but every few years the schools would be shut down for a couple days due to significant accumulation of more than two inches. There were a couple memorable years that the snow storm would deposit more than a foot. But that didn’t happen often, and more often than not arrived after the new year had. My mom made sure we had warm boots that still fit, just in case.
Around this time each year, we’d start ironing out when we’d make three-day trips to the grandparents. As soon as my mom had her work schedule, the grandparents would start bickering about who got overnight custody of the family, and who got to host dinner. Usually my maternal side of the family would house us overnight, and we’d make a trip out to the paternal relatives to terrorize them for the day. Every year, whether it was ON December 25, or a few days after, we made the pilgrimage back to the homes of our parents’ parents.
After many years away from my family, I have three people who live with me that I can anticipate the holidays with. We’re trying desperately to scrounge up enough money for lights, if not a living tree. I daydream of painting the windows with festive things. My aunt once gave me a large set of window paints for such a thing, I never did it but always wanted to deface the living room window with something or another. The geeky roommate would probably not like that, and so that will remain in my head.
I’m actually anticipating enjoying the end of this year.
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Challenge yourself to Holidailies 2009 by writing one entry each day in December.
I enjoyed your stroll down memory lane. Something about he holidays causes us to remember more vividly than other times of the year.
Thank for sharing…