Xmas at Gramps’, mid 70s: me, Gramps, Uncle Norman, Uncle Connie, my father

While cleaning out my computer files (see last post), I came across this paper I had written for an English Composition class back in ’93. Every time I read it my mind is flooded with wonderful childhood holiday memories. I want to share this with you and hope you have similar holiday memories.

An Old-Fashioned Christmas

Christmas at Nana and Gramps’ – this was the one bright spot of the frigid New England winter season. I’d always looked forward to that one day a year, when all of my mother’s family gathered to celebrate. It seemed like a hundred people were stuffed into that three-story Victorian house, when actually there were only around forty at a given time, since people came and went most of the day. Us kids just liked all the food and places to play and hide in that big, old house scented with roasted turkey and all its trimmings.

Gramps

I can remember as if it were yesterday: Upon arrival, we stepped into a small but clean hallway entrance, where it was ten degrees colder than the rest of the house because it wasn’t heated (neither were any of the bedrooms or the bathroom upstairs, for that matter). We were greeted by the warm face of my Nana or an aunt as the aromas of all-day cooking filled my nostrils. On a small antique wooden side table to the right of the main door rested a black vintage telephone dated from the 1940s; it was one of many items in the house from another time.

Opposite that table was a tall coat rack, where what seemed like hundreds of coats piled up toward the ceiling and finding yours at the end of the day was like searching for a needle in a haystack. From there we would disperse – the kids (me and my cousins) to the living room to play (they had no TV), women (mom and my aunts) to the kitchen, and the men (father and uncles) to the large adjoining dining room, where they would collapse into the same chairs as they did every year. Mom would head straight to the kitchen where she placed her famous California Eggnog Cake on the stove top. She would then help Nana and her sisters prepare the cold turkey and stuffing sandwiches and various pies/cakes to be served later as a light dinner/dessert.

My father and Uncle Connie would take their appointed seats in armchairs located at either end of the steam heater set below the expansive dining room window. Uncle Normand, one of my mother’s older brothers, stood nearby, injecting the occasional teasing remark that got everybody laughing. They all sat in the same chairs every year, regardless of what time they arrived – it was understood. The men laughed and talked and drank cheerily all night long. Gramps sat in his rocking chair on the opposite side of the room, by the kitchen door, listening to all the commotion, not uttering a word, just enjoying being surrounded by his large family.

Nana, Mom, and the rest of my aunts gathered in the kitchen, mulling over the leftovers of roast turkey, three different kinds of homemade stuffing, and various cakes and pies, all made from scratch. My personal favorites were mom’s California Walnut Eggnog Cake and Nana’s cinnamon pie, a decadent pie also known as “piquin” (pronounced pitch-you-anh) pie, made only from cinnamon, sugar and butter. Aunt Vic would be busy mixing and perfecting her fruit cup made of bananas, strawberries, and other fruits. She carefully monitored the servings – we were each allowed one small Dixie cupful and had to sneak into the kitchen when she wasn’t looking for seconds. 

My cousin Danielle and I picked through the huge bowl of fruit cup to find our favorites (mine were the bananas and strawberries). Later, around six o’clock, the cold turkey and stuffing sandwiches came out and we all ate until we thought we couldn’t eat another bite. Stomachs were bursting by the time my mother would start slicing her special Christmas cake. It was a sponge cake filled with fresh whipped cream, walnuts and brandy, topped with whipped cream and maraschino cherries. She made it only at Christmastime and we all made room for the measly slice she handed each of us. She would stand guard over it to make sure no one took more than one slice – there were too many mouths to feed.

Aunts in the kitchen; Xmas circa 1970

While the adults were busy eating, my cousin Danielle and I would run off to the frosty hallway, find a spot on the stairs and for the next few hours, rummage through old family albums kept on a long side table beside the stairs. They contained pictures of family members we’d never known and pictures of my aunts and uncles throughout their lives before we came along. Ours was a past rich in history and ancestry and we were mesmerized by the old photos. (Mom’s family is so large I still joke that instead of having a family tree we have an orchard!)

Then came time to open presents. A small number of gifts were exchanged between my mother and her siblings, and the rest were given to us kids from our respective godparents or favorite aunt/uncle. My godmother always gave me socks. Every year. And they were some of the ugliest socks I’d ever seen. The only cool socks I ever got from her were the multicolored “toe socks” she gave me in the 70s when they were the “in” socks to wear. Some kids got toys. I always got socks – except for one year when I was in my late teens, she gave me a key chain with my name engraved on a silver medallion. I still have it.

Christmas at Nana and Gramps’ circa 1963

Afterwards, a bunch of us kids would head for Gramps’ small barbershop adjoining the dining room. All the vintage furnishings were intact, right down to the leather strap he used for sharpening his straight blades, and barber’s brushes and mugs he used for applying the fresh whipped shaving cream. Here we played in the stuffy but worn barber’s chair, bouncing up and down again and again, releasing air that made a whooshing sound every time we landed on the jagged tear in the center of the bulging black leather seat. There were old comic books in the magazine rack attached to the chair that we must’ve read a hundred times. Then it was back to the kitchen for one more helping of fruit cup before heading outside into six-foot snowdrifts to frolic until our snowsuits were wet and we were cold to the bone. The temperature was always twenty degrees colder at my grandparents’ house but the air seemed so much clearer and crisper up there.

Late into the night, after we had all filled ourselves with food and drink and fatigue filled our sleepy eyes, our parents would load us, the presents, and leftovers into the cars and head home, with yet another year of happy holiday memories at Nana and Gramps’.

Happy Holidays to one and all!

#Christmas #family #holidaycelebration #shortstory #nonfiction #memoir