Growing up in a big family made holidays a lot of fun, especially Christmas. With 5 sisters and 2 brothers, there was always something going on. It really was a blast and I have some great memories of Christmas as a kid.

Here we all are, Christmas 1967. Well not all of us. I was born that August so my little sister, The Warden, was three years away. We were/are just what you’d expect. A big Italian, Catholic family.

My Grandmother (dad’s/Italian side) usually stayed with us for a few weeks over Christmas before she eventually moved in. That always made for some fun in the kitchen as she would try to teach my older sisters how to bake. I remember a few older great Uncles or cousins around too.

The house was jumpin from early December right through New Year’s day. It stayed that way even after we all started to move out.

Here is a shot from 2004. Seven again as The Warden is here but my oldest brother is missing from this picture. Don’t ask. I’d have to start an entirely different blog to deal with that.

No matter, Christmas is always at the house.

Until now. I live in Knoxville TN, some 660 miles away. Christmas is still at the house in Jersey, I just attend by Skype. The place is mobbed too. A whole new generation sprang up. My new generation sprang up in Knoxville. Both kids born and likely will be raised in the south, hundreds of miles from the house where I grew up. Light years from all the memories.

One of the conditions of having children was they would do holidays in their own house. I was hoping Christmas would be fun for Frank, that he would get something similar to what I had. It’s been fun. I mean, he’s just one kid, he plays quietly for the most part. He’s a little weird. Goes very slowly with the opening of presents. Any candy he gets he passes around the room before he takes one. Freak.

But still, he was an only child. The effect of not having siblings became obvious when he started pre-school at the age of two. Something I was completely against, and consequently completely wrong about. The boy needs to be around kids his own age more than he needs to hang with me all day.

Here he is at the school Christmas program. That big smile is the norm. The goofy dress with the bow isn’t the norm, regardless of what the Sac moms say.

Anyway, it looks like the memories will be a bit better this year. In fact they already are. He has a sister now, a sister who can run and yell and tear up his stuff. Christmas morning should be a lot more fun this year.

The school program was just the start. AM got to come to that and for the first visit to a church since her baptism she did great. Literally sat quiet for the whole program, about 30 minutes total.

Mrs Frank’s Place has also had them in the kitchen baking. They really look like they know what they’re doing. Frank only kicked AM off the step stool once. That’s a win folks.

They did pretty well for their first attempts at a pie made from scratch. While they bake like their mother, dirtying every freaking baking utensil, pan, measuring apparatus, etc…, the overall mess was much less than I expected.

Crucial, because I’m clean up crew.

We’ve even been to this fantasy of trees thing-a-ma-bob at the convention center in Knoxville. Snowed like crazy that day too. Really got the old Christmas blood pumping.

Frank wasn’t a fan, but Anne Marie was.

The place looked a lot like a hotel lobby until you got into the main hall. That caused Frank to go looking for the pool. We’ve taken him to Jersey quite a few times. He knows hotels have pools and he gets to swim in them.

So he was a little out of sorts for a bit, once he accepted our hard truth about the pool, or lack there-of.  He warmed up eventually, but AM was eyeballing the place from start to finish.

We were feeling pretty good about the convention center thing. We decided to tempt fate and let them both help put the tree up.

The reality is this, it could go 99 different ways and only one of those ways is good.

So it was either dumb luck or a Christmas miracle that both kids played nice and obeyed almost the entire time and the tree never went horizontal. I handed them an ornament, they ran to the tree to put it on. Then they ran back for another one. Tracy was at ground zero making sure all the ornaments didn’t end up on the bottom foot and a half of the tree, but for the most part they did it all themselves.

I’m not kidding. I have pictures.

Look.

The traditional pre-tree trimming pizza.

 

After a quick wardrobe change to their jammies it’s on to the tree!

 

After the hip check incident of 2013 it was oddly civilized the rest of the night.

Mrs Frank’s Place threw on some music and we were all moving like a well oiled machine.

Well they were, I was just laying by the ornament bin like it was the company water cooler. My traditional position when work is occurring. Someone has to be the anchor.

 

So the second midget has been a much needed addition to the Christmas festivities. The first midget may push her down a lot, but he’s awful glad she’s here.

It will be interesting to see if Frank picks up the pace unwrapping gifts when he sees the Tasmanian Devil shredding hers.

And she will. She already found one by complete happenstance. I only know because I heard the ripping of paper.

It’s not an official time, I think it was wind aided. It was laying near the vent and the heat was blowing on it. But she skinned that cat somewhere in the 4.6-5.1 sec time frame.

Christmas morning should be a lot more fun when she finishes her stuff and goes to work on Frank’s.

This is feeling dangerously close to “Careful what you wish for” territory.

Ah well, here’s to memories in the making.