Christmas Memories

I have been sitting here this evening reading some different blogs and one of them got me thinking about Christmas as a kid. I was the youngest child in our family, so on Christmas Eve we always had our family Christmas. My Dad's parents and my Great Aunt would always come to our house for Christmas. Mother would make Oyster Stew (Uck) so she would always make me bar-b-qued hamburgers. Then after dinner was over we would go to the living room to open presents. Presents were never under the tree until Christmas Eve. When I was still supposed to believe in Santa that meant getting me out of the house so the presents could be retrieved from the Attic. So since my Grandfather was a farmer and had chickens laying eggs. We had a neighbor who only purchased 1 dozen eggs a year. Yeah you guessed it Christmas Eve. Duh? So I always had to be the one to take the eggs to her house. I would needless to say be in a hurry and she was always so slow in finding the money to pay for the eggs. Finally my Mother would call asking what was taking me so long and they would finally send me on my way. For me to find out that I had once again missed the fat old man in the red suit. So we would all sit down in the living room and my Mother would pass out all of the presents and we would all have out separate pile of presents. Because I was the baby of the family I got to open my presents first. Now I know that sounds like a great deal. WRONG! Because after opening my presents I then had to wait to actually play with anything until both my sisters, my Mother, my Dad, my Grandparents and my Great Aunt had opened theirs. Then it was free reign with my presents. Then on Christmas day we always went to the same Grandmother's house for Christmas dinner. We never spent any holiday's with my Mothers family just my Dad's. I never knew why except that was just the way it was. I remember one year when I was probably about 12 or 13 I no longer believed in Santa and knew that presents were kept in the Attic until Christmas Eve so while my parents were gone for the day. I went to the attic and slit the tape on the end of every one of my presents and checked everything out. I even tried a dress on from one of the packages. Needless to say Christmas Eve was a bummer, I had to act very surprised about every present and pretend they were all such a surprise. My Mother never knew about that because I never told her even when I was an adult she would have been very hurt to have learned that. Christmas was always a big thing for my Parents. After my sisters and I were married and had children the Christmas procedure never changed. Plus my Mother was a stickler that if she spent $151.50 on one Grandchild she would spend $151.50 on every Grandchild even if it meant she had to buy a pack of gum to make things even. I was never that accurate with my girls but I always made sure they had exactly the same number of presents. If one had 23 presents the other needed to have 23 presents too. That is the way I am now with the Grandchildren too.