Hey Mom, the holidays are coming and I wish you were here. You loved holiday festivities, holiday decorating, holiday gift giving, holiday cooking...really, holiday anything. And, you didn't limit your enthusiasm for the "big" holidays. You'd be pleased to learn that Americans have embraced Halloween. It's second only to Christmas in the money spent these days. Remember the black cat costume Donna made for me.She stuffed the tail with Kapoc that wafted all over the house. I'm amazed and impressed you felt comfortable letting me take off in the dark of night to wander the neighborhood with my friends for Trick or Treating. I'm glad it was a less frightening world back then, and I"m glad you had confidence in me.
Not having children, you'd be sad to find that I've been hardly aware of the holidays. I think you'd have been sad I didn't have children, too, though you would have never told me. I have intentions of doing some decorating but have rarely gotten around to it. This weekend, though, I'm going to buy a large pumpkin and set it on the steps. No, I won't carve it. I know, that confounds you. If I remember there were no pumpkins adorning our house that hadn't been carved with triangle eyes and noses and a smile with missing teeth. Just like you felt that pictures needed to have people in them to be worth taking, you couldn't see a pumpkin without needing to give it a face.
I want you to know, Mom, that I have a friend who embraces and enjoys holidays in ways that remind me of you. She has boxes of holiday decorations like you did. She enjoys adorning her home with special holiday reminders of the past, like tree ornaments celebrating earlier years in her children's lives. She just began decorating for fall, the Halloween/Thanksgiving part of the year. The picture of her unusual wire and beaded pumpkin shape with votives surrounded by turkey's was creative, beautiful and something that would have lit up your eyes and convinced you that here was a person 'after your own heart'. You would have enjoyed her, Mom, and she would have appreciated you and understood your love of holidays.
I remember the year that the BIG Christmas gift to the whole family, plus Grandma and LD, was tickets and hotel accommodations to see the Ice Capades in Spokane. Wow, I remember staying in a hotel room for the first time in my life, how exciting and exotic it felt. I think I remember that treat more than the actual Ice Capades.
I loved the lights that always adorned our house at Christmas. I remember the year you bought a stuffable life sized plastic Santa from that little catalogue filled with odd and sundry things. Stuffed with newspaper, you sat him out on the bench in our yard. Then, as the story goes, Daddy came up with the idea of putting Santa's feet in a bucket with some dry ice. The Christmas-inspired humor made the neighbors laugh and won you third place in the town's home decorating contest. That began a tradition that, every year had the whole town driving past our house on the tour of decorated homes as you vied for top prize and won it a couple of times. I can still see the picture from the newspaper of you and Daddy holding up your first place trophy. You took holiday decorating more serious than most.
Be it Valentines Day, Fourth of July, or Halloween, our house did not go unadorned. Easter Baskets, well planned pranks on April Fool's Day, you loved it all. In honor of, and as an inspiration from you, when Donna's boys graduated college, as a present, I sent them each a large box filled with some beautiful holiday decorations and dishes to help them start their own holiday traditions as they began their adult lives.
As the holiday season approaches I think of you often, Mom, and that is good. How our lives have an impact on those left behind is through memory. Though I wish we could have built more memories together as adults, I treasure my memories of you, your kind heart and your festive spirit.
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