by Laura Farnsworth

Created on: February 18, 2009   Last Updated: February 19, 2009

Holidays

As a child growing up, holidays were so simple and always exciting. As a child we couldn't wait for Easter, the 4th, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. The thoughts of seeing family you didn't see on a daily basis, food, cookies, cakes and pies, just made it near impossible to sit still. I can still smell the fresh baked pound cake! Ahhhh! The memory...

Easter meant your Sunday dress, baked ham and an Easter Egg hunt. As little kids we always got up to a delivery from the Easter bunny. It meant an Easter basked full of candy and chocolate and usually a stuffed animal of some kind. One year I remember pink and blue chicks. We always had rabbits so new bunnies were not unusual. The other thing about Easter was that my birthday usually fell a week or so before. One year, my birthday was actually one Easter, I think I was two.

The 4th of July was just as exciting. Barbecues, picnics, swimming, family and fireworks! My cousins used to have a huge barbecue, with barbecued goat as the main course. It was absolutely delicious! It was hot summer time and it was when children would rather play outside instead of inside in front of the TV. There were games like chase, tag and hide n' seek, and out and out races. There was tons of laughter and there was always home-made ice cream. After dark, there were fireworks. Whether we stayed at my cousins or walked the short distance home, there would light up the night sky. Bottle rockets, roman candles and big star burst of many colors.

Halloween was always fun for the kids. I grew up in the country when it was safe to walk the streets by your self or with your sisters and brothers to go trick or treat. Besides where we lived, it was all relative, literally except maybe a couple of houses, and even those couple of homes, the people had lived there forever. I remember one Halloween after I was a teenager and too big to trick or treat, my grandfather sat and told us ghost stories. Later that evening, my best friend and I were sitting outside. It was eerily dark that night and the moon seemed to be huge and sitting on the horizon. I don't remember why but my best friend got mad and was going to walk home. She was already on the road, when I heard the gate beside the house squeak. I started around the corner and a flying sheet met me. I screamed and tried to run, but it had me in its clutches. My heart was pounding and my feet wouldn't move. Only then did I realized the ghost was laughing. It was my mother, they laughed for

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