Ramblings, Incoherent Thought and Family

I've heard it often since I was a kid. "Man you were born on Christmas? That must suck". Most times I smile and nod. I may make a statement like "Yeah...it sucked having only 1 day of presents as a kid. If I didn't get Laser Tag...then I had 364 days to go to try my luck again"...etc. What I don't tell people is how blessed I was to be born on Christmas...and how God ordained it not for me...but for my Grandfather (on my father's side). What I didn't know till I was older...is that my Grandpa Ed hated Christmas when my Dad was growing up. The reasoning was sound I guess. See my Great Grandmother (Grandpa's mother) I guess passed away at 10:02 AM on a Christmas Day when he was still a boy. For every Christmas after that...the holiday was tainted. My Grandpa Ed was a hard man to know. I learned that later with all the poems he wrote. I like to think that's where I got any talent for writing down my thoughts into words. He was able...

This will be the 18th Christmas eve. In 1990, we celebrated what we all knew would be our last Christmas eve with Gram...the woman who served to define it for us all of our lives. For those of you newer in my life...my Grandmother Short (on my Mother's side) had a lot of traditions...but the biggest was the open house on December 24. Grandma had 7 kids, but 6 with families...so you had 14 people to start (counting her and Gramp), add in 18 grandchildren (at the time) of various ages, then any NUMBER of drum corps, bingo, people who had Grandpa work on their cars, adopted family, and the Penguin...and you'd have a small two story house with a garage filled to the rafters with people. It served to DEFINE Christmas for me to this day. To be honest it's one of the most amazing and awesome memories I have. Should I ever develop Alzheimer's...it's one of the memories I pray I never lose. I hold these memories like precious stones in my heart...and to this day while the ho...