by trigger control

Created on: November 21, 2010

My cousins and I have a lot of family memories from growing up. I loved big family holidays together. We used to get together all the cousins, aunts, uncles, grandma and grandpa. The family always gathered at grandma and grandpa's house and it couldn't have been a better place. The house always smelled of hot food cooking and all the dishes each family brought to share. I remember the turkey cooking in the oven on Thanksgiving and the homemade stuffing that was grandma's speciality. There was always so much food that we would all want to burst at the end of the meal.

The pies, cookies and bars were enough to send you into a sugar high for a week but we loved it. Playing games was another favorite of my family. Someone would get out a board game and there would be a bunch of us all sitting around the table eager to play. The day always came and went all too fast. From the arrival to the end it seemed like it was gone in the blink of an eye. Then I would get excited because Christmas was around the corner. That meant not only the presents and food but more time with family and nothing could top that.

I loved Christmas just as much as Thanksgiving. The Christmas ham was just as good as the Thanksgiving turkey and the food that was brought by everyone to share was equally as good. Then came the presents and the older we got the more expensive they got which also ment the less we got. It didn't bother me because grandma and grandpa always did a wonderful job getting each child just what they wanted. I couldn't wait to see what we got them that my mom just happened to put my name on that I knew nothing about.

After we began to get older, my grandparents began doing a white elephant exchange with things they had laying around the house they no longer wanted. They found some really interesting things. I remember getting something my grandpa made out of wood that he didn't even know what it was. They had a tradition that when each grandchild graduated high school they received their stocking as their present as a symbol of their final present from grandma and grandpa because it was getting too expensive to keep buying for the grand kids. Those stockings were awesome as well. They were some animal or doll that had a pocket in them of which you don't find much anymore.

I remember spending a lot of time in the bathroom looking down my grandparents laundry shoot throwing things down to whomever would be near the hamper. Who could forget the rides on my grandpa's Nordic track skies and spinning around in his office chair getting dizzy. I don't know what I enjoyed most about the holidays. The people, the food or the things we did together as a family. I will never forget those precious times because I want to share them with the people I love most. I hope my children will appreciate my stories as much as I enjoyed being there to experience them.

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