Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

Christmas Memories

Normally when I blog over here I talk about writing or books or something related to those subjects, but all I can think about in December is Christmas and my birthday (which is next week, but I honestly don’t want to think about it because the number is freaking me out). (That sentence was way too long. Don’t tell Deborah Nemeth…)

This is my favorite time of the year – from now until New Year’s I’m in a happy, mellow mood. Not even Christmas shopping can freak me out this year, in part because we’re doing so much less of it.

So instead of talking about books or writing, I thought I’d share a couple of my favorite recent Christmas memories and ask for yours as well. Post them in the comments – anything funny, embarrassing, heartwarming, whatever. I don’t think you can post pictures in the comments but if you want to share them, leave a link to your webpage or Twitpic page. (I love looking at other peoples’ pictures, and I assume they love looking at mine, but…no, sometimes they don’t.)

Ok, I’ll go first:

Christmas 1999

Our house has a large building in the backyard – 900 s.f., electricity, air conditioning, a loft. The Hub put a bid on the house without setting foot inside, based solely on the Barn’s potential as manspace. (It didn’t earn the initial capital till after the addition of a fridge, a poker table, a crapload of power tools, and so on).

When we moved in, we found the folks who’d lived here for 50+ years (they wouldn’t sell us their vintage 70s VW bus, BTW) had left a bunch of stuff in the loft, including a sad, ancient aluminum Christmas tree that Charlie Brown couldn’t love.

Come December, I was so excited. I went off to do shopping, and the Hub and the Brother-In-Law went off to buy Christmas trees.

I came home to find Hub and Bro-In-Law sawing off the bottom of a beautiful tree, doing all the stuff guys do to get a Christmas tree ready for installation. (I think they make that crap up, BTW).

I squeed over my first Christmas tree in my first home. But the Hub & Bro-in-law said no, that’s the Brother-in-Law and Sister-in-Law’s tree.

Hub says, “Trees were so expensive this year. We just bought a house, baby. We need to save our money.” And he stepped aside to show me…the aluminum tree. I stared in dismay, tears pooling in my eyes while the Hub chuckled and said, “Oh come on, baby. It’s not that bad. I can fix it up, and everyone will think it’s funny.”

In my defense, he’s got one hell of a poker face. That’s why he had me going for thirty minutes – it wasn’t because I was gullible…

When I started to cry, he folded and showed me the real tree in the back yard – it was beautiful. Ten years later, Hub and the Bro-In-Law still go get the Christmas trees together every year. He can’t wind me up quite so much after all this time, but that’s okay. He’s got Diva to pick on now, and she falls for anything he says.

Christmas 2004

Diva was 3 and just about old enough to get really excited about Christmas. She kept asking when it would start snowing. I explained (over and over) that we don’t get snow very often in Houston. We get it about every ten years, and when we do, it comes in January or February. I told her she’d be seven or eight before it snowed again here.

It started snowing on Christmas Eve – unheard of around here and absolutely magical. Driving home from Hub’s grandmother’s house, it started coming down heavily (or heavily for here). It wasn’t fun to drive in, but it was gorgeous. When we got home we played in the backyard. We got more than an inch, which is a lot for us, and Diva made snow angels on the trampoline.

I’ve looked everywhere and I can’t find the pictures from that magical snowfall. So here’s a picture of Diva in the snow in Colorado in December of 2006.

Now – what are some of your favorite Christmas memories so far?