Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen Things about my Christmas Memories 1. I used to absolutely love Christmas when I was a child. I would look forward to it all year, the decorating, the food, the family gatherings. Now, I still love Christmas, but the decorating, the food, the gatherings all seem like an awful lot of work. 2. I just realized this year how incredibly awful our collection of Christmas music is. I will have to purchase some new CDs to replace "Christmas with the Stars, 1997", which I believe my mother bought at a grocery store for $5. 3. I really miss my mom's cooking at Christmas. We always had a huge Christmas brunch that included scrambled eggs, brunch cake, cinnamon rolls, fruit and cheese trays, even oysters (yuck) for my Paw-Paw. For dinner we would have roast beef with Yorkshire pudding (my absolute favorite). But now we usually celebrate with other family and they make boring old turkeys. 4. Christmas was also the only time of year my sister and I could have pre-sweetened cereal. For years and years, stockings and Cookie Crisp went hand in hand. 5. I don't remember when I stopped believing in Santa. 6. My sister and I knew that we were never, ever permitted to go downstairs and look at the presents on Christmas morning until Mom and Dad were awake. We spent a lot of time huddled on the top step of the staircase at 5 a.m., just outside of the master bedroom door. We thought we were being quiet, but I imagine it was an effective wake up call for my parents. 7. Our family almost always gets sick on Christmas. One year, we all had a terrible stomach bug, and we had 7 people all fighting over the use of two toilets. Gross, but true. 8. My husband and I never, ever spent Christmas together before we were married, even though we dated for 5 years. 9. Someday I would actually like to celebrate Christmas at my house. I think. Maybe. 10. This year we are flying across the country for the holidays, and I am terrified that Tom's ears will bother him and the flight will be hell for everyone with a screaming 4 month old aboard. 11. At 2 a.m. I sometimes awaken terrified that I will not make the right kind of holiday traditions and memories for my son. 12. Last year our dog ate a bunch of burnt out Christmas bulbs and I didn't even call the vet. Our dog eats everything. He also got a few of our decorations last year, like the candy Christmas trees my mother insisted on making. I caught him climbing atop the table to lick the candy like a lollipop. This year, however, he is doing much better. No destroyed decorations, yet, but he did eat one of Tom's bibs. The whole thing. Except for the velcro. 13. My family is big on stockings. In fact, we're so big on stockings, we don't stuff them ... we stuff shopping bags. The big paper ones with handles. I always end up with a lot of little stuff I don't want and can't use, but it's a big deal to my other family members so I can't really do anything about it. And it is fun. But really. Shopping bags?!? Links to other Thursday Thirteens! 1. (leave your link in comments, I'll add you here!)