The year was 1975, I was in the 8th grade and Christmas was coming.  I had been babysitting, making pretty decent money between the two families who fought for my services since I was 10.  It was this year that I decided I was going to buy my dad a really nice Christmas present.

My Dad was a lineman for Commonwealth Edison, the Chicago based power company and for all the years I could remember up until this particular year, my Dad worked.  He would drop in at the Rouses’ Christmas Eve dinner in his CarHart coveralls and grab some dinner (if there wasn’t a storm going on) and work all night.  On Christmas morning, he would park his truck in our driveway within eyeshot through the window so he could see the orange light on the dashboard.   If the light shone, it meant he had a call on the radio.  This was high technology in 1975.

This year, however, my dad was going to be home because on December 26th, we were packing up our Pop Up Camper, throwing suitcases on the roof rack of the 1972 Ford Station Wagon – the kind with the fake wood paneling on the sides – and heading off the Florida for a 2 week vacation.  We were even taking Neal’s girlfriend Robin with us.

Christmas Eve we went to the Rouse’s house for the Christmas Eve dinner party.  As always, a great time was had by all and we came home to ready ourselves for Christmas morning and leaving on vacation the next day.

It was Christmas morning.  I was so excited to give my Dad his gift.  My Dad was a HUGE fishing fan.  He and my mother went fishing every year I can remember with my Aunt Marg, her daughter Marylou and Marylou’s husband Kent.  In addition to that, my dad would take the boys almost every summer for a long weekend or a week.  His ultimate favorite fish to catch was a Northern or a Walleye.  Not for the meat, so much as the fight.  His eyes would sparkle when he would talk about landing a Northern.  With this in mind, I had gotten myself up to Montgomery Wards and bought him the best Filet Knife I could afford.  It was the perfect size, with a carved leather sheath and a pearled handle.

It was pretty early in the morning as we were opening gifts.  I am pretty sure we had to wake my dad up so we could start opening, so he was a little groggy.  When he got to my gift, I sat on the edge of the couch to watch.  He opened the package and saw what it was.  He looked closely at the sheath, admiring the carving in the leather, then he unsnapped the strap around the handle, grabbed the sheath and pulled the knife out.  As he did, he sliced open the palm of his hand…….

There was blood everywhere!  He ran into the bathroom, put his hand under the water and tried to stop the bleeding.  After some time, he finally tore up a t-shirt and wrapped it around his hand.  He held it that way until we finished unwrapping gifts, then drove up to the hospital for stitched.   I don’t know how many stitches he received, but I do know it was a lot – and in such an unfortunate part of his hand.

I felt horrible.  Here we were leaving for vacation the next day down to Florida where my Dad could do all kinds of fishing.  We went deep sea fishing, snorkeling, to the beach and he couldn’t participate in any of it because of the wound on his hand.   All that driving, hand-cranking the pop-up camper up and down, building fires at the campgrounds.  I could only imagine how awful it was for my dad.

I have told this story of our trip to Florida a million times.  Every time I told it, I would include the part of ruining my dads vacation with my gift of a filet knife.

Fast Forward to 1994.  My mother had passed away.  All my sister in laws and myself went up to my Dad’s to help him go through some of my mom’s things.   We stayed the night and went out to my parent’s favorite Pizza place for dinner.  As we were sitting there talking and sharing stories, this one came up.  Only this time, it was my Dad telling the story.  As he began, he started talking about the Christmas Eve party at the Rouses’ and how he had too much to drink and how hung over he was the next morning……..and how being hung over is what caused him to draw the filet knife from the sheath wrong and slice open his hand.

It took me a few minutes to figure out what he was saying.  I’m pretty sure I was in shock at what I heard.  “WHAT???”  I said. ” You were HUNG OVER??? ”  “All these years I thought it was my fault!”  I felt redeemed.

We all had a good laugh and chalked that one up to another fun filled evening at the Rouses and my families rotten communication skills.

I still tell that story.  Its a fond, crazy memory and one day my kids will be telling it as well.  My family may not be the best communicators, but we sure make for some good stories.

Merry Christmas!

When I was a little girl, and frankly, until the time I moved away from home (the 2^nd time), I would look forward to the month of December, not JUST for Christmas, but for the annual Christmas Eve party at the Rouses’ and the annual Christmas Cookie Decorating party that preceded it .

Imagine if you will, a small 3 bedroom, 1 bath ranch style house with a front door that opened directly into the living room and a side door that opened into a small hallway between the living room and the kitchen. The only reason for this small hallway was to house the door to the basement. The kitchen was about 10 x 10, had only a small counter space in the corner of the kitchen and an even smaller space between the sink and the cabinets to work with. The rest of the room was filled with the table and chairs where the family of 6 ate all their meals. It was in this tiny kitchen, kids from families of 3 different neighborhoods would gather one Saturday afternoon in December to decorate cut out sugar cookies.

Each year, Lisa Rouse would cut out and bake what seemed like hundreds of Christmas cookies. She would make the frosting from scratch using powdered sugar with milk, vanilla and food coloring. She would fill bowls or tea cups with the frosting and give us the food coloring to mix our own colors. There would also be all different kinds of sprinkles and baubles and all the fun other trinkets we may want to bedazzle the cookies with. Lisa would let us eat one or two, but for the most part, as they came off the kid assembly line, they would be stored away for the annual Christmas Eve Dinner. Each kid usually would pick one cookie that would be their “feature” cookie for their parents for the dinner.

I would look forward to this Christmas dinner with such anticipation each year! I couldn’t wait to get down to the Rouse’s house to find my special cookie. This Christmas Dinner was typically for 40 – 50 people. As you can imagine in this small house, there were people everywhere and Lisa would have plates scattered all throughout the house with frosted Christmas cookies on them. You had to get there early if you were going to find your special cookie and be able to give it to your parents before someone ate it. All the kids were doing the same thing. Not unlike a scavenger hunt, we would all be rushing to find our cookie and once found, would run it to our parents so they could save it for their dessert after dinner.

Now I have my own kids and I still love nothing more than to bake cut out sugar cookies and frost them together. We have a big party every year where all the neighbors come by and I always have our frosted cookies out for everyone to enjoy. We eat, drink, and are merry together to ring in the Christmas season, just like at the Rouses house.

I thank Lisa Rouse for all the years she hosted the most wonderful Christmas cookie decorating parties and Christmas Eve parties ever. A Christmas will never go by without me thinking of the wonderful times decorating cookies and spending Christmas eve with all the neighborhood families to walk home late at night with the crunch of snow under our feet, sleep and wake up to surprises left by Santa.

If you have ever seen the movie A Christmas Story, you know what I mean when I say:  “Every family has their own version of a leg-lamp”.  It just may not actually BE a leg-lamp.  For some people, its the creepy shelf elf, or some Christmas cookie platter your distant aunt gave you from her attic, something you put out out of obligation, not because you really like it.  For my family, ours was an Aluminum Christmas tree.

I grew up just down the street from my mothers parents.  To give a bit of background, my mom was a middle daughter of 4 daughters.  One of them passed away at age 12 (my mom will forever say she was the favorite) and the other two married people who my grandfather did not approve of and ended up quickly divorced.  While my grandfather didn’t approve of my father initially, he grew to love my father and helped my parents out when they were first married.  Ocoassionally, he would gift my parents things to help make their house a home.  A beautiful Cherry hutch, a Cherry dresser and one time, it was an Aluminum Christmas tree.

The tree was made up of an aluminum pole that stood about 5 1/2 feet tall and had holes all up and down the pole.  In each of these holes, an aluminum branch would fit in, the longer ones on the bottom and moving up to the smaller ones on the top (similar to the modern day artificial trees).  The tree itself sat in a stand that not only rotated the tree, but it played music too.  The tree with the stand was placed on a 2-piece mirror  that was about 6 feet in diameter.  And to top it off, my grandfather had also given us Pink and Blue ornaments to decorate the tree.  Why Pink and Blue?  Why, to go with the Pink and Blue spotlights that shone on the tree, of course!

This was a tree that you simply could not hide.  If you were to stand out in front of our house at Christmastime and looked at our picture window, there would be our own personal “Leg Lamp.  A Silver Aluminum Christmas Tree, decorated with only large Pink and Blue ornaments, lit only by a Pink spotlight on one side and a Blue spotlight on the other side, rotating on a musical stand.

As I think about it now, I imagine what this gift meant to my grandfather.  A man who raised his kids during the depression, and  pulled himself out of it to have a comfortable living, this was like buying her a Cadillac.

I applaud my mother for continuing to try to make that tree special for our family.  She tried to honor him by putting it up each year even though I knew she secretly hated it.

Its now 50 years later and as I walk through some of the stores at Christmas, there are trees in all kinds of colors.  Pink, Blue, Green, White.  But never Silver……….you never see Silver…….