3 Christmas Stories

Merry Christmas everyone!  I hope that if you’re reading this right now that you’re either trying to find some way to distract yourself from snacking on too many Christmas goodies while waiting for the Christmas meal to be served, or you’re trying to find something to keep you from taking too long of a nap after all your festivities are done with.  Whatever the case may be, I hope you’re having a fabulous holiday with friends and family!

As I said on Sunday there haven’t been very many Christmas holidays that I’ve traveled outside of my little world here in Small Town, Kansas.  I may not have much experience in the ‘traveling for the holidays” area but I am quite refined at the “staying home and enjoying not doing a single productive thing” area.  I decided today would make for the perfect day to share three Christmas stories since today is Christmas day and all.

Before I jump into things, here's a photo of our Christmas tree this year, taken yesterday to get the full affect with all that snow outside the house. Sorry if you're a bit blinded by it all!

 

 

 

The Barbie Doll House

I can’t remember what year or how old I was but I definitely remember the year that I got my Barbie doll house.  It was the very last gift that I got to open, partially because it was the grand finale and partially because it was so large it got tucked in the corner behind the tree with a bunch of other stuff shoved in front of it.

My Ma helped me tear all of the paper off and there stood a blue plastic doll house.  It opened at the front and folded out with pink furniture accents.  The center part spun around, one side had a bedroom with a bunk bed that folded out and a little computer desk that was stuck in the wall.  On the flip side was the kitchen with a refrigerator, and oven and a little pantry that I used to get little dish ware stuck in.  To the left side there was a table that folded down and on the right side there was a bed that folded down.  If you flipped the top of the bed up it revealed…the shower and bathtub!

It was one cool doll house and I loved that thing.  I mean, sure the stickers were put on lopsided but I know now years later that my brother tried his hardest to put them all on straight.  I definitely played with that thing so much I’m surprised the hinges that held it together hadn’t been rusted or worn out.

Sleeping Under the Tree

The  last year we put up our large Christmas tree that stretched so tall that it nearly touched the ceiling at the tallest part of our house was the winter before our basement flooded in the spring and we lost all of the holiday stuff that my parents had collected over 20 years.  This tree had a mix of ornaments from the pretty and plain maroon and pink collection my Ma had bought the first Christmas in our house to match the burgundy carpet to the sparkly ornaments and glue adorned ornaments I had made all throughout my school years.

This Christmas I had spent most of the night previous baking cookies and hanging out with my dad watching tv.  I distinctly remember telling him when I grabbed a pillow and blanket that I was only going to lay on the floor to watch tv for another hour and then I was going to go crawl into bed.  That didn’t happen though.  I woke up on Christmas day under the tree.

Apparently from what my parents told me, I tossed and turned so much during the night that I just kind of rolled my way under the tree where I must have found it comfortable because I managed to not tear the tree down. 

Box Inside of a Box

The summer of 2012 I went shopping with one of my closet friends.  I ended up buying some things from Bath and Body Works at the mall one of which was one of those visor clips that you can put these smelly things in them and it makes your call smell wonderful.  Anyway, I had to take my Ma to go do something one day and she commented about how much she loved it

When my Dad and I went out to do Christmas shopping last year we went to Bath and Body Works to get stuff for my Ma because that is her absolutely favorite store.  It even trumps the book store, that’s how much she loves it.  I told my Dad that I wanted to get her one of those visor clips for her truck and we got the vanilla inserts for it since she loves all things that smells like vanilla.

I got creative with my wrapping last year and decided to pull a little prank on Ma.  I had saved the box to my friend’s mini fridge when I was at school.  I had also started gathering a lot of different boxes as the semester had gone on.  When it was time to wrap gifts I took my Ma’s visor clip that couldn’t have been more than two and a half inches in diameter and put it in a box and wrapped.  And then I continued to do it until I had about seven or eight boxes inside of each other inside the big box.  Ma didn’t exactly enjoy the mess when she opened them all up on Christmas day!