The days and weeks leading up to Christmas at my house during my childhood years pretty much consisted of the same routine. We'd always be involved in the church play, we would be busy trying to be on our best behavior for fear that Santa wouldn't bring us anything, my mother would be busy baking various goodies, and my father would make the trek to the woods in search of the perfect cedar Christmas tree. On Christmas eve, we would make the short drive to my grandma's house for a breif visit and then promptly return home.
My father always referred to Grandma's house as, "up home", which was much to my mother's chagrin. She always thought that dad's home was where he, she, and us kids resided. Grandma's house is where he grew up, which was no longer his home. I think he sensed that those two little words irked her, so he threw them around often.
"I'm taking the kids up home for a bit to see mom," dad would say to our mother, who was busy in the kitchen scurrying around trying to finish up whatever tasty treat she was creating at that moment.
"Ok. Fine. I'll be here when you get back," she would answer with an ominous scowl on her face.
Dad, Jarrett, Carla and I would pile into our old 1962 Ford Falcon and make the short drive to "up home." Grandma would greet us at the door with a huge smile and a gentle hug. We usually arrived at her house in the vicinity of four o'clock or so, due to the fact that she went to bed in the vicinity of five o'clock or so. "Oh, my. Just look at how these kids have grown! Jarrett is almost as big as you, and Neil isn't far behind. Carla's hair is so beautiful!" she'd say, as she had done every single year since my birth.
We would then take a seat in her living room and I would survey the place, always amazed at how CLEAN everything was. When I say clean, I mean you could eat a meal off the commode seat and never think another thing about it. She would enter soon after with a jug of cranberry juice and a pack of cookies. When everyone had a cookie and a cup of juice, the generic conversation would ensue.
"Yeah, the kids are really growing," dad would say.
"Yes they are," grandma would answer.
"Yep, they're growing up," dad would say.
"They sure are. Really growing," grandma would answer.
"It's amazing how much they've grown," dad would say.
"Truly amazing, they're growing like weeds," grandma would again answer.
"Do you think we'll get a while Christmas?" grandma would ask, changing the subject.
"Oh, you never know what this weather is going to do," dad would answer. They would continue for at least another ten minutes about the chances of a white Christmas. Finally, after grandma noticed that the time was getting dangerously close to her bedtime, she would scurry to the next room and return with a brown grocery bag which contained our gifts.
"Jarrett, I got you and Neil the same thing, only a different color," she said, handing each of us a trinket wrapped in white tissue paper. "Carla, this is yours. It's not like the boy's gifts. It's something special just for you. I just can't get over how you've grown, and maybe we'll have a white Christmas," she finished.
We sat quietly with our tissue paper wrapped gifts in our laps when dad spoke. "Well? aren't you going to open your gifts? Go on, what are you waiting for?"
We carefully removed the tissue paper from our gifts and to be honest, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Eleven and eight-year-old boys don't sit around dreaming of getting ceramic birds for Christmas. But, that's what we received that year. I got a fire engine red ceramic cardinal, and Jarrett got a rather frail looking ceramic blue jay. Jarrett turned and looked at me with a face that only God himself could love. He was hoping for a gun, or knife, or maybe something that pertained to the outdoors. But a ceramic blue jay? No way. I wasn't especially enthused with my ceramic cardinal either, but I was a bit more successful at hiding my disappointment. I observed that our father sensed our disapproval based on the ominous slits his eyes had become. "Carla, why don't you unwrap your gift?" dad said, while taking a sip of his cranberry juice and a bite of his cookie. Apparently he didn't like the cookie because he would nibble on the thing and then stare at it briefly while shaking his head. Carla was only five years old, so she hadn't been alive long enough to understand true disappointment. "Oh grandma, I just love it! What is it?!" the child chirped with bright eyes.
"Why it's an Elvis Pressley plate! Isn't is lovely?" grandma asked excitedly. It was an Elvis Pressley plate indeed. The edges of the plate were made up of words from his recent hit songs, while the middle of it was comprised of a huge Elvis head complete with gold rimmed sunglasses. I began to chuckle slightly, thinking of Carla eating Christmas dinner while having "the king" himself staring up at her through the mashed potatoes.
Jarrett had begun to squirm, surely ready to go. I was too, and finally we set off for home so grandma could get to bed before the sun set.
We arrived at our house to find mom still baking and scurrying around the kitchen. "Well!? How'd it go at grandma's house? Did you get something nice?" mom asked, with a slight grin creeping onto her face.
"A damn ceramic bird. I'm going to shoot mine with my bb gun," Jarrett said, while slumping low on the coach and trying to remove his bird from his coat pocket. "Wow, I broke his leg off," he continued. My mom suddenly went into some sort of fit. She began coughing and shaking violently and had to use a tissue to wipe tears from her cheeks. Jarrett and I stared at each other unsure of what was happening. I was shocked that mom had let my older brother's profanity pass, but she was in no shape to hand up discipline. I hoped she wasn't getting sick on Christmas eve.
Suddenly Carla burst into the kitchen with her Elvis plate and proudly held it up for mom to see. "Look mommy! I got a plate with some guy on it. Jarrett said he was a hound dog," the pitiful little girl squealed. Mom's tremors got worse. This time she covered her entire face with a dish rag and the convulsions continued. Yep, I was sure that she was having a medical emergency of some sort.
Dad entered with a block of wood for the fire and he too wondered if my mother was having a life altering problem. "What's wrong with her?" he asked, while discovering that Jarrett's bird was now a one legged blue jay. "I see that you've already torn your bird up. Fine with me, but don't think you're going to play with Neil's bird. You broke yours, so live with it."
I noticed that my mom was still facing away from us and shaking violently. "I'm not sure what's wrong with her. She's been doing that ever since she saw our birds and Carla's Elvis plate. Heck if I know," I said.
My mom finally regained her composure. She wasn't sick at all. We later surmised that the woman simply found it incredibly funny that two rambunctious boys received ceramic birds for Christmas and a five-year-old girl had received a plate dedicated to Elvis Pressley. We continued to go "up home" on Christmas eve, and we continued to receive gifts my grandma had found lying around her house. We also drank lots of cranberry juice and ate a few less than fresh cookies. To my knowledge, the birds disappeared shortly after Christmas and the Elvis plate also went the way of the birds.
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