Christmas, New Years Eve, and all holidays always bring a large sting to me. Instead of enjoying family and just being together, everyone sat around and just drank beer after beer until they were totally plastered. As I little kid, and an only child, I thought this was how everyone lived; I later found out that was not so. A lot of families spent the day together, enjoying being with each other, sharing gifts, and just appreciating what the real meaning of Christmas was. My "fondest" (not) memory was when I was about 8 ..... my mother never got up to get me breakfast .... that was up to my Dad and I. But on Christmas morning she did. I don't know what happened, but she got furious at him and from one side of the dining room over to the other, she threw a plate of waffles at him covered with syrup. One of the waffles stuck, and very slowly slid down to the floor, with the plate falling and breaking. I can still see a picture of .... where we were sitting, what we all were wearing, and most of all ..... that waffle slowly sliding down the wall. Another Christmas, when I was a bit younger, my father got me a train set, which I loved ... all sorts of houses, little people, cars, road signs, bridges .... I'd spend hours there. Well, I guess he didn't like that I moved the items around so he glued them down. I was very sad, but not surprised. Only kids raised in that kind of home, learn to let things run off their backs (so they think), and just go on and find something else do do.
abby