Christmas 2015

Ta-Dah! The Year I Saved Christmas

/ animar64 / 2 Comments

Holidailies 2015

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One year my Dad’s cousin put a Wine Cellar into his basement.

He put wine, lots and lots of wine into it too, much to the delight of my family.

So that Christmas was pretty Merry for the adults.

Shortly after we got to my Aunt’s house every single adult headed down to the Wine Cellar and after a while you could hear the Christmas Spirit all over the house.

After awhile I went downstairs and asked my Mom if I could have a taste. She said no, because per tradition I got a taste of sherry with my desert.

I asked when was dinner.

My Aunt said soon and then everyone laughed.

I went back upstairs and to amuse myself I went into the dinning room- my Aunt set a super elegant table.

I went to each place setting and moved the salad fork and dessert fork. And then while I as at it I figured I might as well take the salt shakers and hide them in the sideboard.

I went out to the living room and pitched half the bourbon balls into the fireplace and I got into the checkers set and  shorted the boards one checker each.

I was only nine years old at the time and I knew those silly pranks were lame.

This, I thought was the worst Christmas ever.

So  after a bit

I  found myself standing at the top of the stairs to the Wine Cellar feeling neglected and left out.

I walked slowly down the steps and hoped an idea would come to me when I got back to the cellar.

And praise be to Baby Jesus it did.

” Are you guys done yet?” I asked.

” Go upstairs.” my Dad said.

 ” Are you sure I can’t have a taste of wine?”

My Mom shot me the evil eye.

” Can someone play me a game of checkers?”

” Yes, but after dinner. ” My Grandpa said. “Now go upstairs.”

” But Grandpa “I said, ” I wanted to say something.”

” What?” he asked

” Um. I forgot.”

” Jesus. Go upstairs Anita.” My Dad halfway yelled.

” I remembered.”

” Remembered what my Dad asked.

” What I was going to say.”

 “What were you going to say?”

I moved to the left of the doorway. ” The Turkey is burning . But I don’t know how much is burning because of all the smoke”

” Why didn’t you say so? ” Everyone ran out of that room like something was on fire.

Which they thought it was.

I could hear them running up the stairs and into the kitchen.

And then I heard someone yelling my name.

I crawled up on one of the chairs and sniffed what was in the wine glass.

Then i poked my finger in and took a taste.

Ugh.

I couldn’t believe anyone would give up a minute of Christmas to drink that nasty stuff.

Good thing they had me  save them all and  set them all back on the track to Christmas.

Minus the Bourbon Balls of course.

costume girl

You’re Really Pushing It Here Anita

/ animar64 / 1 Comment

Holidailies Prompt

The holidays usually involves gatherings with friends and/or family. Are there any favorite games you always play at these gatherings

vict1

Of course my family played games at Christmas- I think one year we played dominos.

I don’t know who thought it would be more fun to set them up in patterns  and knock them over, but I’m pretty sure nobody knew how to play them anyway.

If they did, they weren’t sharing that info.

We also played checkers

 We’d cheat like crazy and it was fun. In fact if you didn’t cheat and make it amusing nobody wanted to play you. I mean, come on it was checkers- not high stakes Poker.

But by far we loved a game I actually got for my birthday when I was six.

I’m not sure whose idea it was to get it for me, but I think I asked for one and said it would help me learn my spelling.

ouji

Yes.

We played with my Ouija board.

Now before we jump off the tracks and talk about it being evil and opening doors to Hell, I should say we all went into locked and loaded and ready to have some fun with each other.

We’d ask questions about dead people who never existed, I asked where I had lost my car keys ( I was six years old at the time ) amd I got an answer, we also asked who the witches in the family were ( and in our family witch  was slang for being mean  o that meant most of us were accused of being witches ) and I think one year we asked the spirits to give us a sign by making the phone ring.

Which sad to say they  did not, but the doorbell rang and it was a cab driver who showed up at the wrong house.

The hard part was sliding the planchette ( I’ve heard it refered to as a mouse…I kid you not) around and not being obvious about it. My Aunt was good at it- I wasn’t. But I knew if I asked weird questions everyone would laugh and I could slide that thing around the board like an out of control ice skater.

vict2

Later on, when I had kids of my own we played Nintendo games at Christmas- Zelda was the house favorite.

I wasn’t into it but my sons and nephews had fun so that was ok.

But after watching that little green elf run around looking for heart containers I’d start thinking about the fun I had at their age- and I’m sorry they missed out on that.

I guess I could have busted out the board games, the dominos the Ouija board- but maybe what made those games fun were the personalities that sat around the table at that time.

It wouldn’t have been the same without my Aunt and Grandpa who were the best at egging me on and encouraged me to jump out of the box and let my imagination run riot when we played those games.

All in all, it was a great memory from the past and I’m glad it’s there for me to reflect on all of these years later.

Ho Ho… Oh NO …. Anita NO!

/ animar64 / 4 Comments

:::Holidailies Prompt:::

The best homemade holiday gifts to give or get

When I was a kid, I used to ask for the usual stuff- a bike, dolls, games, crayons. I loved crayons. Unfortunately I used to love to go into my closet and draw on the walls so I hardly ever got them.

So crayons were like the Holy Grail of Christmas gifts to me.

On the occasional Christmas morning there they’d be- they came in these little buckets and there’d be a hundred different colors.

I’d pop the lid off and breathe in that waxy crayon smell and set them down right next to me in a place of honor as I opened my other gifts.

” She can’t draw” various members of my family would say when they saw that bucket of crayons.

Now in defense of my family- I couldn’t draw. I sucked on epic levels at drawing. I could almost manage color books- but I always colored outside of the lines and the colors I chose never worked together so the pictures would look like a disjointed mess.

My Mom would be giving me the hairy eyeball. We had this deal. Santa would bring me crayons if I didn’t go into the closets and draw on the walls.

I thought I kept that promise for weeks- my Mom insists it was more like hours.

Anyway,  it was my Aunt who pointed out that it was sort of funny the way I’d take my crayons, go into the closet and draw on the walls in the dark.

Before the air ran out.

” That’s dedication to art.” my Aunt said.

I guess that’s one way to look at it.

crayon

I think I was around eight when I asked for my first homemade gift.

I asked for a Shrunken Head kit.

 I had heard loads of stories from my family about Head Hunters in the South Pacific- in fact to this day I find it interesting how vast their knowledge of Headhunting and cannibalism was.

All I know is that to this day the knowledge turned out to be solid and I’ve used it in my writing.

Yeah. I know. Weird.

So at this point it shouldn’t surprise you I got Vincent Price Shrunken Head kit from my parents- as you can see on the box, it was sold as a craft for the whole family.

I loved Vincent Price and his movies- my entire family did right along with Liberace, Elvis, Wayne Newton and Little Richard.

My  parents thought they’d scored big time with this gift.

vpshrunkenhead

” Oh” I said in genuine surprise. ” You make them from apples.”

My Dad leaned down and said right into my face.

 ” That’s right Anita- YOU make them from apples.”

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One Christmas Eve I learned about Krampus from my Grandpa Bert.

He told me Krampus was this Devilish creature with horns and cat’s eyes. He had pointy teeth and carried around chains, sticks and he visited bad kids at Christmas.

When he was done, all I could manage when I could speak was:

” Oh Boy! I’m going to meet Krampus!” I cried out in sheer joy.

My Grandpa Bert laughed and laughed and my Dad ignored him for the rest of the evening.

I stayed up for hours waiting for Krampus.

When I woke up I had a new bike, the mumps and it was snowing.

After that, I wrote letters to Krampus for Christmas.

And he never let me down.

krampus4

Homemade gifts for Christmas are great.

My family  gave me a wonderful homemade gifts every year. They just didn’t realize it at the time.

They gave me wonderful stories to tell.

I can’t thank them enough for that.

I love them all.

amm

Dear Holiday Buzzzzz Killerz

/ animar64 / 4 Comments

Straight up, I want to make it clear the ‘WAR ON CHRISTMAS’ is a bunch of hooey.

But there is an attitude out there that needs to be called out and I’m here to  do it:

 I would dearly appreciate if those among us who have appointed themselves the “Keepers of The Calendars” would just step back and let people enjoy the holiday in whichever way the Spirit moves them.

If people want to put up their Christmas Trees on Thanksgiving, STFU and let them put up their tree and keep your bony fingers OUT from under their noses.

If they want to Deck the Halls before December 1st how’s about YOU just letting them make things a little more cheerful for themselves and THEIR friends and family without YOU shooting your mouth off and ruining their fun?

In case you haven’t noticed- times are hard people have a lot to be sad about for different reasons, especially at this time of the year. So if they’ve found a way to celebrate would you FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS THAT SPARKLE LET THEM.

And before you go on a screed about when people should go shopping and why they’re working on YOUR HOLIDAY SCHEDULE  may I suggest you take a look at their bank accounts or ask then what’s going on in their lives before you slam ” shaming posts” all over social media about their bad behavior.

Some of you would make Scrooge blush and Dickens would probably sit there with his pen in hand and his brain would short-circuit because how do you capture a mean spirited Holiday shamer in ink? Hell. You’d have Stephen King and Clive Barker in tears and NOT in a good way.

So dammit, read a Christmas Carol, watch the movie the cartoon whatever- but I think that  Scrooge is alive and well in your heart and I’m pretty sure he’d rather NOT be.

Even Scrooge learned to have fun during the holidays-

Word.

amm

scrooge