Things you miss about Christmases gone by

I miss the huge tree at 30 Rock, and all of the fun and Christmas shopping in the city, that came with it.

There’s nothing like Christmas in Manhattan. At least back then.

Those were the days.

My mother.

I miss A Charlie Brown Christmas on CBS.

Starting with the "SPECIAL!" intro.

It was wonderful on CBS - once it was sent to ABC they hacked the shit out of it and took a few minutes away to shorten it for ads. And I know I can watch it uninterrupted in many places....but it was a nice event when it was broadcast, in the same way it's still fun today to watch The Sound of Music on ABC.

[quote] My mother.

Me too. *sighs*

I miss Mama dancing on the dining room table after one too many Sloe Gin fizzes....

Being a kid and anticipating Christmas. We’d get up and there would be toys and baskets full of fresh fruit, candy and nuts under the tree.

R2 ditto. She’d make an amazing dinner and played all kinds of Christmas and gospel music from Mahalia Jackson to Elvis. She was the heart of our family. That one day of year was magical.

My whingwhang.

aluminum type trees with those color wheels

The fights mama and daddy got into about the tinsel. Too much vs too little, and complaints about how expensive it was.

My parents, my grandmother, my great aunt...

I miss the comfort of being a young person who had loving parents, family members, and a home where Christmas was special.

I was extraordinarily privileged. Yes, I miss that, but I also want to give that to others.

Guess.

My innocent embrace of Christian hoo-ha, show busine$$$$$$ maudlin and treacly entertainment, and crass commercialism and consumption.

Granny’s homemade candy: cherry mash, peanut clusters, fudge, chocolate peanut butter squares.

My mom always bitched about (my paternal grandma) Granny hosting Christmas-- Granny worked as a nurse aide and she cooked her ass off every year-- the meal and the bread and the candy, drinks, a dessert, little house all decked out for Christmas-- no dishwasher, no fancy cookware. It was perfect.

Mom must have thought it would be easy to pull off-- after she pushed Granny out of hosting the family holidays, she tried to take over but can't hold a candle-- and she's retired. Granny and I laugh about it privately.

The taste of my grandpa’s dick.

R3 I totally agree. I would get excited when the "Special!" intro came on. I would need to be in my place on the sofa and would yell for everyone else what was coming on TV. I wanted them to get in their places too.

The big illuminated plastic choir singers, Santas, Snowmen and candles that used to be outdoors in front of everyones house in suburbia.

Looking forward for weeks to getting my black cha-cha heels AND THEN THE DIRTY FUCKERS DIDN'T GIVE ME MY FUCKING CHA CHA HEELS!

Yes, R15, blow mold decorations. Target had some small ones this year, but I wasn't fast enough for those. I did get a nice Halloween light up blow mold jack o lantern there, though.

It's crazy-- you see those things your whole life and you think they'll always be there, then they're just gone.

I loved the Christmas editions of department store catalogs that arrived in the mail a few weeks before Christmas. Looking through pages of new toys was even more exciting than getting one on two on Christmas Day.

I miss a hodgepodge of ornaments-- not this boring "theme" shit. When I was a kid, we had whatever had been scraped together over the years-- great grandma's lace snowflakes, some little wooden Christmas carolers, some cloth Christmas mice (my favorites), red satin balls, and glass bulbs. These trees where one or two colors are used-- blue and gray, for example-- and it's nothing but bulbs that color and ribbons that color-- I hate it.

Snow.

My mom, as well. I took for granted how well she knew us kids. She bought us records (vinyl) of stuff that she definitely did not enjoy, but her choices were correct. I'm not sure who she consulted. I remember getting the Jackson 5's greatest hits & Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (E. John). She also knew what kinds of clothes each of us would actually wear. She bought me some slightly crazy stuff b/c I would be the one to wear something like that. (E.g., purple bell bottom pants.)

She also made some good foods at Christmas-time, like Russian tea cookies, the little balls covered in powdered sugar.

Spiking the punch with Everclear.

I miss my family. I put up a small tree this evening, and it made me cry. My sister and I received a new ornament to add to the tree each year when we were growing up, so every ornament has memories of Christmases past. I even have a foil ornament, shaped like a bell, that my mother made in kindergarten for her mother. Everyone is gone now -it's just me and the memories.

No tree for me. No lights or decorations either. I'm pretending it's not happening. It's too painful. Everyone in my family is dead! DEAD! My Ma and father, my Aunts and uncles, most of my cousins. The traditions are dead. Christmas as I remember it is over. No point in depressing myself. I gift people on the staff in my building. I get my secretary a gift. I donate to the local food bank and Toys for Tots. I may even go to Church to hear some nice music instead of the shitmess at the malls. I will have a nice meal. I may go to ZBrunch with f riends during the week between. But I am not going to put up a lot of decorations and then take them all down two weeks later. Bullshit.

The magic that the media has tried to destroy.

Downtown department store window displays.

The quietness of Christmas. Today everything is LOUD. I would love if public spaces rediscovered Nat King Cole, Andy Williams, Bing Crosby, Judy Garland, Ella Fitzgerald and all those singers who made beautiful Christmas music without screaming.

Pulling out all the decorations and setting up the tree, lying on the couch in the dark watching the bubble lights. All the Christmas specials…I watched them all, couldn’t get enough. Watching the pile of presents under the tree get bigger as it got closer to Christmas Eve. Baking cookies (and smelling cookies, of course).

I miss making cookies and putting Christmas music on.....same with decorating the tree. I still do it now, but it was more fun with a few people.

It's not just family and childhood stuff.....people just don't get together now in a "hey, come over for an hour and hang out" sort of way. It has to be scheduled weeks or months in advance.

Merry Christmas to you, R24.

Awww, this thread is making me tear up.

Miss all the relatives we used to see on or around Christmas. Pretty soon my parents will be gone too and XMAS will really just seem like another day on the calendar

My parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles... being young and healthy myself, and never worrying if this would be the last Christmas for me or my remaining loved ones.

Even though most of us (extended family) couldn’ stand each other, come Xmas, we would all get together at my house and have a decent meal and a lot of laughs...everyone now has gone their own way.

I feel sad....

At the risk of sounding like a Pollyanna, make some new traditions that you can look forward to each year. Doesn't have to be "traditional" traditions. Maybe your tradition is to watch horror movies and order in. The goal is to not spend the whole time feeling sad. I make it fun with my dog and get her toys. She doesn't understand it all but she gets my excitement. Wishing all of you a better Christmas than you thought you'd have and a healthy and hopeful New Year.

[quote] Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (E. John).

You’re on a gay site and felt the need to let us know whose album that was?

[quote] I get my secretary a gift.

Are you typing from the 1960s?

Non LED Christmas lights with their soft warm glow.

The big glass Christmas tree light bulbs. The little LED chinese made lights I see everywhere are horrible.

Those LED Christmas lights are so bright I can hardly see my ornaments, just bright ass LEDs, not unlike the blinding LED headlights.

My parents. Their tree, their home decorated for Christmas. My mom's Christmas cookies and roast turkey and stuffing. My partner lost a parent this year so we're both feeling melancholy.

Is it Fox News in here? "Chinese LED lights?" Are you go to complain about gas prices and "sleepy Joe" next? Good lord.

Getting cash from grandparents and godparents.

Fuck off to Reddit where being obtuse is rewarded, R43.

Going to the Enchanted Village at Jordan Marsh. It took up a whole floor.

(r46) One of the most magical places in my memories. No picture or news story ever truly captured what it felt like to walk into Jordan Marsh and to be enveloped. For years our annual pilgrimage to Boston was not complete without the Enchanted Village.

That's so sweet r24. I can relate, regarding the annual Christmas ornaments. I have some of my mom's childhood handmade ornaments as well.

Peace be with you r25. I'll be thinking of you at the holidays, and others who have no immediate family left. That time is approaching for me, as well, in the coming years. Not looking forward to it :(.

[quote] I would get excited when the "Special!" intro came on. I would need to be in my place on the sofa and would yell for everyone else what was coming on TV. I wanted them to get in their places too.

R14, I was exactly like you. Everyone had their place and I wanted them to be in it.

I just don't like these CHINESE LIGHTS. Bring back the old lights! Where are my pills!?

[quote] so we're both feeling melancholy.

Oooooh. Who is he, luv?

Does he charge?

I say this every year, specially for my fellow gays.

If anyone has no family or friends and will be eating Christmas dinner alone, please let me know.

I need to borrow your chairs.

I never liked Christmas. My dad told me that when you're a kid, it's magical, but then you grow out of it, but when you have kids, you get to see it through their eyes and it's magic again. I never had kids.

My mother loved Christmas. She hung on until 2am the day after Christmas and then died.

Now I really hate Christmas.

My youth and my Mom.

My father’s old Lionel electric train sparking around the Christmas tree through tunnels made from presents.

I love Christmas and I don't have kids. I love the music, the lights and decorations, the food, baking, parties, time off. I always take a stay-cation for the week between Christmas and New Year's and it's just a time to do whatever I want without guilt. I get that it's not for everyone, and some of it can be a lot to take/deal with, especially if you have a big family. But I look forward to it every year.

My mum and dad.

I miss my lovely Aunt, so every Christmas I place a little ceramic Christmas Tree I place by her photo on my dresser; she loved the holiday so much.

I also miss receiving (and sending) Christmas cards!

I miss the windows, and Christmas Shop at Lord And Taylor's Department Store.

Ugh...I was tearing up as I wrote the above memory with extra misplaced words:

I miss my lovely Aunt, so every Christmas I place a little ceramic Christmas Tree by her photo on my dresser; she loved the holiday so much.

As a kid, I liked just sitting in the corner behind the Christmas tree with all the lights on it on and the color wheel going and all the presents by me on the floor. A magical time each year.

Well, those old Christmases, they were really special. Yes, the snow that I don't see anymore where I am now, the family that is gone, the tree that was so big 'cause we were so little, that star on top seemed so high up there, sigh.

Yep. Tearin' up.

How about the old tinsel that you threw up on live Christmas tree wonderfully scented pine or spruce tree branches. It was real metal and you had to be careful not to scrunch it up in your hand. It really seemed to mimic icicles The cookies mom made icing made by mom, not perfect but moms. Dad acting happy because he got yet another tie. The dog barking like crazy at the little toy train that went around the tree. The Ronco commercials that were endless and nobody bought their stuff that I ever knew. The old Christmas Carol on tv with Alistair Sim. The presents we ripped open so fast it didn't matter what they were but they were ours! The new Four Seasons album! The little record player for it! With all the expensive stuff these days I bet they do not look back on the expensive gadgets they get with as much sentimentality as we did on those simple items that dad and mom maybe could not afford but still got you cause they knew how much you wanted it and it was Christmas. Merry Christmas.

I too miss "A Charlie Brown Christmas" on tv. It was a special event for me as a child, as was watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!" I still love those specials.

Department stores. I get a little teary watching "A Christmas Story" when they show the department stores scene. It's a very funny scene but just seeing Christmas in a department store makes me so sad and nostalgic. THose days are gone.

Aluminum Christmas trees. As a child I remember a silver one; it was so easy to assemble, all you had to do was stick the branches in the holes on the pole. Then you put on the decorations and to finsih it off a color wheel provided blue, green, red and orange changing light. I wish I had had one of those retro trees but I think they stopped making them; I think you can get them some places but they're incredibly expensive.

[quote] stick the branches in the holes on the pole.

And that’s what made you gay!

[quote] I miss the windows, and Christmas Shop at Lord And Taylor's Department Store.

I miss Lord & Taylor’s. I shopped there all the time. 😭

Please don’t get me started on all the great stores that closed.

Canal Jeans. 😭

Unique Clothing Warehouse 😭

r18: I grew up in the '60s and '70s, and remember both the big heavy (and hot) strands of outdoor and indoor lights, and later the miniature colored lights that had reflectors, both clear and colored. A few years ago I went to buy some - and they were gone...now there are just the miniature lights and no reflectors.

Also...remember the figural novelty candles made by Gurley? The Choir Kids, the Santas, the snowmen. They cost only 15 cents or a quarter at Newberry's or Woolworths.

I said "making cookies" back at R30 but my brain now remembers some of the ones we'd make.

We made something called "potato candy" which was a mashed potato rolled out into dough. You'd put some kind of filling in it - we'd always do peanut butter - and then roll them into a roll. You'd slice off a little chunk when you wanted some.

We also did chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies and "no bake cookies" which I loved. And buckeyes! Going to try the buckeyes again this season.

Did anyone else do luminaries in their neighborhoods? I've asked others this and they had no idea what I meant.

Schools or churches would sell us little mini candles and a stack of lunch bags, and we'd get a dozen or so, light the candles and place them on the lawn, along our street, on Christmas Eve. (I think now it has to be a little battery light.)

On Christmas Eve we kids would leave out cookies and milk for Santa and some carrots for the reindeer. On Christmas morning we’d find only crumbs left and Santa’s boot marks in ash on the fireplace hearth.

This is one of the nicest threads on DL, ever. Definitely one of the most sentimental.

We do drop the sharp knives now and then and behave, R70.

R55 and the slightly acrid smell the sparks made. Completely forgot about that but now can practically smell it.

Can't get into it this year. My husband died in August and nothing seems joyous.

Usually in the first day of Christmas vacation from school, my father (a principal) and I would go make homemade caramel candy at his mother’s house. Grandma always had the pots filled with the ingredients by the time we arrived. Then came the interminable and hot stirring on the stove. Every year we fretted and made the same nervous jokes that our batches would or wouldn’t set up, were boiling too quickly or slowly, etc.

We’d pour the molten but fabulous brown mixture into buttered pans and set them out on the cold screened porch while we broke for lunch and some card games. Then we cut the caramels and wrapped each one in waxed paper (plastic wrap makes them taste of plastic).

These were wonderful, once-a-year-only treats. Grandma died in August of 2005, but Alzheimer’s limited her candy-making abilities a few years before that. I’ve made the candy several times since then, with and without my father, but the ritual was part of the magic and warmth of Christmas that’s lost forever.

My other grandmother also made unique cookies and lovely and loving cloth decor, like holiday accent pillows. She died at the age of 95 seven years ago.

I also miss the ecstasy of the huge pile of wrapped gifts under the tree for Christmas celebrations with grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. My cousins and I would be the ones who’d bring the gifts to each person from the tree. It was so much fun.

Also, I loved the packed, candle-lit, late-night Christmas Eve services at the United Church of Christ in the small Western Ohio town in which I grew up. We would each have a small white candle with a plastic piece around it to catch wax drippings, and we would light each other’s candles while singing “Silent Night” with 3 verses in English and then one in German. Our choir was filled with a lot of strong singers. Many of them are dead now, and mainline Protestant churches are rapidly dying out. Covid pretty much put an end to multiple services on the evening of Christmas Eve, which means most have done away with the enchanting midnight services.

I’m an only child who’s unlikely to have any kids. My parents are in great shape at 72, but, like many of you, I dread the years when I’m the last one left.

I wish you the magic of Christmas, DL!

Singing Christmas Carols at Midnight Mass.

Christmas shopping in snowy weather.

Department stores all beautifully decorated for the season.

A season when people were uncommonly kind and friendly and joyous and smiling, if only for a few weeks.

Wrapping Christmas presents my mother had bought for my sisters, because my mother used to be a "professional wrapper" at Christmas time at Martin's in NYC, and she was over the whole wrapping presents thing.

The Yule Log show on WPIX (channel 11 )television. It was a film loop of a yule log burning in a fireplace, with a soundtrack of classic Christmas music playing in the background, broadcast without commercial interruption.

The Feast of the Seven Fishes dinners on Christmas Eve.

"Some of our best arguments were whispered to each other while putting toys together at 3:00 in the morning, demanding back and forth 'give me those instructions!' "

- Mom's remark to me, well after I became an adult, about her and Dad and their very, very, early Christmas Day.

The image I see in my mind of that scene is priceless to me.

I have no memory of ever hearing my parents assemble toys; the scrape of "Place Slot A into Slot B".

They knew the 7 of us, especially us younger ones, were fighting heavy eyelids and they STILL managed to know just when we couldn't fight them anymore and had to give in to sleep.

I grew up in Milwaukee in the 60s and 70s, the waning days when a lower middle-class family could exist in a house where Dad and/or Mom went to work at low-skilled, yet, for those day "high" paying manufacturing job.

When, too excited, but well-behaved, for that one night, before Christmas, we'd be piled into the ultra-dangerous station wagon with the mini-seat facing the back windshield so Dad could steer it down Wisconsin Ave, past Boston Store and Gimbels to see their decorations

That type of era is never to be experienced again. I'm an Elder Hag and I realize how lucky I was to have been a child in that era.

Yes, the non-led light bulbs in different colors all through the tree, the pine smell of the tree and getting the other decorations out of an old box to scatter in the tree with an angel on the top.

R76 that all sounds lovely!

Thanks, r78.

This entire thread is lovely.

Reading this thread, it occurs to me that the marketing of this technology and social media era claimed that its existence will make your life simpler and easier, but then, why do I feel like current existence is complicated and anxiety-producing?

That what was actually uncomplicated and simple existed before the emergence of current technology and social media?

I miss having NO responsibilities at Christmastime—just having time off from school and the anticipation of getting PRESENTS.

Keeping fucking Christ out of Yule and Saturnalia.

lol, r81

[quote]We made something called "potato candy" which was a mashed potato rolled out into dough. You'd put some kind of filling in it - we'd always do peanut butter - and then roll them into a roll. You'd slice off a little chunk when you wanted some.

OMG, this sounds terrific!!

Mmmmmmm.

R83 Even the hyperactive chef/baking dude liked it.

It is seriously mashing the shit out of a potato, adding a fuckton of sugar and whatever filling.

I loved (and love) my mother and she had many talents, but cooking and baking were not among them. This was simple enough that we could all do this without fucking it up!

Glammed up gals posing by real trees.

Love that photo, especially the Christmas paperwhites standing tall.

R76 I grew up in Madison WI, and you captured my early childhood Christmas memories exactly. Some of our best Christmases were when all us kids were adults (or at least teens). We would open presents one by one on Christmas Eve and enjoy them together. Once my straight siblings started having kids, it turned into a free for all.

Elf gangbang orgies on Christmas day while Santa was out on business.

[quote] I miss having NO responsibilities at Christmastime—just having time off from school and the anticipation of getting PRESENTS.

Yes, probably the best part of Christmas was the entire two weeks off from school. I've always hated school.

r87, A Peaceful Holiday to you and everybody here on this thread.

One year, "Baby Secret" was under the tree for me.

I was too young to be afraid of it. Then, one day, when I pulled its string, it didn't talk back.

Of course, I now know why my parents deliberately didn't replace its battery.

That was one scary piece of plastic.

I did not grow up in Madison or Milwaukee but I could totally see both being Christmas paradise.

Wisconsin, rightfully so, comes in for a lot of political criticism, but still, it ain't all that bad.

Back at you R76!!!!

I miss the feeling of excitement on Christmas morning. Waking up at 5:30 and waiting for our parents to wake up at 7!

For a few years many decades ago when I was young we had strings of bubble lights on the tree, I really liked those as a kid. I recently bought a single light to plug in as a night light for the season.

Yes, r95, I remember those well.

Disney always released a movie at Christmas. Sometimes it was a new movie, but I remember the classics most of all.

Going to a grand, old movie theatre and seeing a Disney movie was always a highlight of Christmas vacation.

I still remember going to Radio City and seeing Bedknobs and Broomsticks, along with the Rockettes, like it was yesterday. I miss the truest feeling of wonder one has during the Christmas season before learning that Santa's not real.

Another vote for Christmas specials. I lost my shit when I saw this promo.

[quote]before learning that Santa's not real.

WHAT?!

Rum balls.

R100

Next time you could at least warn 'SPOILER'.

Geesh.

Sorry R100. Shoulda been noted that R98 ruined Christmas

Homemade fruitcake (made by Mom). It was quite a production and expensive, too, I think. Anyway, this fruitcake was actually good. My mom would pour brandy on the loaves for days in a row. Cake to fruit ratio was good.

[quote]Homemade fruitcake (made by Mom).

Isn’t that you?

Mid/late-70’s. Mom making actual Chex Mix the original way: several kinds of Chex cereal, peanuts, almonds and maybe other nuts, pretzel sticks and (what am I forgetting?) all mixed up with butter (margarine, probably) and salt and toasted in the oven on a metal cookie sheet. The pieces in the edges of the pan would brown. She only made it Christmas Eve. Poured into a giant ceramic bowl. I remember eating handfuls of the warm, crunchy, oily, salty stuff next to the warm brick fireplace, feeling the heat from the fire and smelling the wood burn.

I’ve tried making Chex Mix the original way but it never feels right. I swear they make Chex cereals different now.

The stuff in the bag now is so lame in comparison, and can’t have nuts of course.

R106 I can’t believe you forgot Worcestershire sauce! That’s the magic ingredient.

R107 OMG! Of course. No wonder it never tasted the same, LOL.

I grew up in New England. I miss going to my maternal grandmother's house for Christmas. She was the only grandparent I ever really knew. All my other grandparents were dead by the time I was five years old. We'd go to my grandmother's every Christmas in the evening. My mother's brother, his wife and kids would come for Christmas dinner. We always did Thanksgiving. My brother and I were close to our cousins as we were all pretty close in age. We'd go sledding then come back inside. Usually my mother's sister would come up from the D.C. area. She only missed a few Christmases over the years.

My grandmother would make a buffet with sandwiches, vegetable trays, relish trays, cheese balls and crackers, and lots of sweet treats. It was perfect because we'd all eaten Christmas dinner earlier, and after sledding we'd be hungry again. We'd open our gifts. One of us kids always played Santa and handed out the gifts, with another couple being Santa's elves and helping out. Then we'd all talk and catch up. One of my cousins was in the same grade as I was, so we'd make plans to hang out during the holiday break from school. My grandmother's tree was beautifully decorated, as was her whole house.

By the time I was in my mid-20s, my uncle, aunt and cousins had moved away, as had I. The last Christmas I had at my grandmother's was in the 1990s, the year my father passed away. It was only my mother, my grandmother, me, my brother and his wife and very young kids. It was fun, but it just wasn't the same.

All of us in the family still talk about our Christmases at Grandma's. They were such wonderful times. I'm really glad we have those memories.

IIRC, there was also some paprika in that homemade Chex mix.

Do any of you bitches know how to google?

I miss waiting for everyone to leave the living room after decorating the Christmas tree, so that I can carefully unscrew the colored light bulbs and rearrange them, so that the colors are evenly distributed and you don't have ghastly situations such as 2 blue lights next to each other.

I love you R112.

I know when you called your aunt's house to ask when Mother and Father were coming home, you dialed that phone with a pencil.

Knorr spinach dip in a hollowed out round of sourdough with festive flecks of pimento to make the red and green POP!

My Family, relatives, and friends who have passed away.

My Mom came from a family of twelve children, my Dad from a family of seven. Aunts, Uncles, and Cousins, everywhere. Big, loud, noisy Italian Christmases, I don't know how we ever managed to fit everyone in the house but we did, and it was heavenly. My aunts all making their special dishes, and my Grampa always made sauce, meatballs, and lasagna, no matter what else the main course was. We all ate too much, many drank too much. I never thought those days would end.

Now it's just my sister and I, the only surviving members of our immediate family, and a handful of cousins. Aunts and uncles all gone, along with several cousins and many lifetime friends from Little Italy. Now Christmas is a bittersweet holiday for those of us who remain.

Lord, some of you need to take a White Lotus type vacation for the month of December and enjoy yourselves.

[quote] Now Christmas is a bittersweet holiday for those of us who remain.

That's me, too, r115, but I kinda love it for that.

It's really true.

All Holidays are really about only one thing - the relentlessness of passing time, and how, every second, we're further away from who and what has been, and now gone, before.

I still love Thanksgiving and Christmas.

It's New Year's Eve and Memorial Day I dislike, because, all day and evening long I'm overwhelmed with memories of dead loved ones.

My brother married into a Phoenix-transplanted Italian family from Long Island. They always included me in their Thanksgiving and Christmas celebrations. So much fun! They were so loud, completely different from my family. Incredible Italian food on top of the traditionally American things. Always a loud argument between somebody. I really miss those get-togethers, now all the grandparents and aunts and uncles are gone. Cousins do their own thing. My sister-in-law still makes all the good food, though!

At Christmastime my aunt used to make delicious almond roca and ship to my family about two pounds of the stuff all packaged nicely in a repurposed Nordstrom gift box with gold foil paper doilies separating the layers of candy. We’d devour it all in a matter of days.

R118 I used to think that stereotype was exaggerated but I went to a friend's house for Easter - a big Italian family that was just.....never quiet or contemplative for even a second. It was fun to do once.....a bit exhausting to have that energy all the time!!

My father coming home drunk and falling into the tree. Makes me weepy just thinking about it.

The whole family would bundle into the car and drive all around the neighborhood, looking at the Christmas light, the we would go to Northern Heights where the rich people lived, and drive around there, looking at their lights. then we would have cocoa when we got home.