Christmas memories

Cheesehead has been posting a Christmas memory every day this month; I don't have one for each day, but I like the idea, so here goes:

Until I was almost nine we lived in the same town as my paternal grandparents. My grandmother doted on us; my father was an only child, but my grandmother apparently had a least one stillborn child and a number of miscarriages, and I think she always hoped for a big family. At any rate, we four grandchildren were the light of her life and we spent a lot of time with her.

I don't think my grandmother was ever the Martha Stewart type, but by the time we'd come along she had pretty much given up on much housekeeping--she cooked and cleaned of course, but she kept things simple, and she and Grandaddy lived in a small simple house. She thought Christmas trees were a lot of trouble, but to appease us she would go and cut a small cedar from her woods and set it up with a few lights and a few ornaments. It was never a big deal--probably because they would come to our house on Christmas morning anyway.

We always had strict instructions to say in bed on Christmas morning until at least 7:30, but the Christmas I'm remembering the doorbell rang about 6:00 am. And there stood my grandparents, ready and waiting for us to open our Christmas gifts. That Christmas I got a set of dress up accessories, including a "mink stole" and I remember this goofy picture of me modeling it with my grandmother in the background.

I'm sure my grandparents must've come to our house on Christmas morning every year while we lived in the same town, but all my memories are conflated into that one year. My grandmother had terrible motion sickness. She literally could not go anywhere without taking Dramamine, and so she didn't travel much. After we moved away when I was in third grade I don't think we ever had Christmas morning together again.