Holiday Memories:

Heather's photo of her girls with Santa inspired today's post (and because I'm scraping the bottom of the holiday barrel), so here's a blog from last year, along with some photos.  See if you can pick me out of the crowd ...

None of these photos are dated (they're actually prints of scans), but I'm guessing I was about 3 or so in this one.  My sister Beth is in red and we're coloring with our dad.  (I get my dashing good looks and unibrow from him!)  Oh, and if you look closely in front of me, you'll see a little paper fairy.  She's wearing a white dress and hat with red polka dots.  I still have her!  She's showing her age, alas ...

We always spent Christmas eve at Nana's (my dad's mom) house.  From left to right, cousin Amy, Beth (she doesn't always look like such a goober, I swear!), cousin Jeni, and me.  I remember the monkey puppet I'm holding.  The face part was made of rubber and it smelled funky.  Not sure how old I was here - maybe 5?

My sister has the misfortune of sharing her birthday with JC, so her cake was always a hodgepodge of icing that was left over from making cut-out cookies.  She hated it but I was secretly jealous of those patchwork cakes.  Funny, huh?  (I swear, my sister is NOT a goober!  She looks so frail in this photo.  Not at all like the bully she really was.) 

 Do you see me here?  I'm the one in front, silly!  (I'm short; I'm always in the front in group photos!)

And now, the blog:

When I was a child, my cousins, my sister, and I spent quite a bit of time at my Nana's house. It was a great place for a kid. Her basement was filled with dress-up clothes, shoes, purses, books ... she even had a swing and a teeter-totter for us! Her garage held a fleet of assorted bicycles - each of us had our own. My sister's had a banana seat and butterfly handlebars. How I envied her that bike! Mine, naturally, was the tiniest of the lot. I hated it.

Nana would ride bikes with us, too, taking us to the blackberry bushes, where we'd stuff ourselves but never manage to take any berries home. She'd also take us to the house with the footbridge and the sign that read "Beware of trolls". Once we went on a picnic at Ye Olde Mill in Utica, where Velvet ice cream is made. We tied our lunches up in bandannas and hung them on sticks. She made us march around the grounds before we could eat. We pretended we were hobos, which earned Nana the nickname of "Nappy", short for Knapsack.

One of our favorite things to do was to make up plays. We'd spend hours in the basement working on dialogue and costumes. Regardless of the storyline, we'd always work a drunken bum into the story because it drove Nana crazy. At Christmas, Nana would have the whole family over for tons of food and carol sing-alongs and the kids would always do some sort of holiday themed play.

Being the youngest, I always got the supporting roles. Apparently one year, I was scheduled to be a sheep. Everything was fine until it was time to perform and then I balked. "I not no sheepie!" I loudly protested. Nothing would convince me to be a sheep. I don't really remember this myself, so I don't know how the story ended, but my dad loved to tell me that story and sometimes called me "Sheepie". I think he told it to me every time I saw him. I also think he was proud of my mutiny - he always rooted for the underdog.

Funny the things one reflects on during the holidays, huh?