Wednesday, December 24, 2025
Time: 9:10 PM
Song: That Spirit of Christmas
Artist: Ray Charles
Mode of Consumption: Watching National Lampoon’s “Christmas Vacation.”
Link to song: https://open.spotify.com/track/4WzyRXz0L8nCKGI8fisADh?si=62a6c794d7d34e4c
We used to go to my Grandmother’s house during the day on Christmas Eve to setup the house for the next day’s festivities.
She had an old dropleaf table that she kept in the corner of what I guess technically was their living room, but to me it was just always an extra room. It had a couch and a couple recliners, but no TV. So, it never reconciled in my mind as the living room.
The TV was in the room where we needed to move the table into for Christmas. I don’t know if that room was technically the dining room. It was always a trick fitting the table through the old farm house door frame and around the cabinet TV that sat in the corner just inside the door.
The table extended out so that we could fit Grandma and Grandpa, my family consisting of five people, and then Mom’s brother’s family, also five. Gradually that number increased as my cousins and siblings began to bring significant others along, I think all of whom eventually became spouses. Then another generation started to spring up.
We’d set the table on Christmas Eve. I suspect my mom might have also helped with early preparations for the next day’s meal.
There were probably other tasks, but I mainly remember helping with the table.
One year, I don’t know if I was in high school yet, it started snowing while we were there, and the drive home was a little sketchy. It might be the last time that we had a white Christmas. I’m probably wrong on that, but it seems like most years since there hasn’t been much snowfall before Christmas.
This year we’ve had quite a bit snowfall already, but the last week has been warm, and all that remains is where the snow either drifted a lot or it was pushed into piles.
At night, we usually went to church on Christmas Eve. Some of those years it was still late. I am not sure it was midnight, but maybe it started at 11. I don’t remember.
Oftentimes we’d get to open one gift when we came home, leaving the rest for Christmas morning.
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