I don't really have one specific childhood memory. Rather, they're tidbits of little memories of things that happened every holiday. It has been fun remembering all of these little details.
When I was young, we moved from Toronto to a small town in northern Ontario to help take over my grandfather's business - a restaurant. I remember that year quite vividly because we moved around the Christmas holidays. I remember the snow coming down and the snowbanks being as tall as the Rockies. Of course, they were really just ordinary snowbanks that were a few feet high. Everything seems tall when you're 7. My grandfather passed away from cancer and my parents soon found themselves to be the head of a household that consisted of two great-grandparents, my grandmother, an older aunt who was a nurse and 9 young kids [my sister, brother and my aunts and uncles].
Christmas didn't seem as crazy as it is today but it meant something. Even though we had a few generations living under one roof, we always felt loved and together as one big family. My aunt was smart whenever she did the holiday shopping. Everything was also done fairly. All of the girls got the same things and the boys got the same on their side.
My Dad's great-uncle and his family lived about 3 hours away. Every Christmas my sister, brother and I anxiously awaited the Greyhound bus to pull into town because there was always a special delivery for us. We were excited to get that lovely wooden jewelry box, the twist-pop curling iron or the make-up mirror.
Our restaurant was open most of the year but it was closed on Christmas day. Our customers couldn't come in to see what we were going to eat. Sometimes one or two customers would come and try the door to see if we were open. The kids thought that it was fun because we were in the restaurant by ourselves and cooking "exotic" food for ourselves. Funny thing though, the food was only exotic because you couldn't normally get it in a small town in northern Ontario and you had to order it in advance. We didn't do the traditional turkey thing. We had seafood, roast chicken and BBQ pork. Yum! Yum! I still don't eat turkey on any holiday to this day. I did try to make it once for my husband's sake. It tasted delicious but we both agreed that turkey wasn't our thing.
Check back tomorrow for Day 2 of our Designer Blog Hop. There are more free designs and giveaways happening each day.
xo, L
