Milk and Cookies

Isn’t this how every family is?  Growing up as a kid you assume your family is completely normal and every other family is just like yours. It wasn’t till I started watching tv and movies that I realize that every family is not like mine.  My family is missing the cookie-making gene. When I go visit Grandma as I walk up the porch I am not overcome by the mouth-watering aroma of cookies baking in the over.  I now feel like a deprived child. How come my Grandma doesn’t make me cookies?  I love watching all those funny and feel good Christmas specials they run continuously on tv during the holiday, but they also make me kind of sad and remind me of what I am missing out on.  I’m an only child so there are no little kids running around during the Christmas holidays. No water gun fights in the middle of the living room. No sledding down the stairs. Not only does my Grandma not greet me with Milk and cookies we also don’t have any baking traditions for the holidays. It could be due to my mom was a bit of a health nut when I was a kid. I am happy to say that under her care I never had a cavity. I didn’t get one till I was in college and it was minor.

Our family had our own unique traditions.  My mom made all the holiday gifts for friends and family.  I love making gifts and have carried on this tradition.  It has become a yearlong activity for us so everything is done in time for Christmas.  Good think I started in January this year working on my Aunts gift because due to all the chaos this year she is the only one who got a gift from me.  She has no idea how special that makes her gift.  When I was growing up our tradition was to go to New York and stay at my Paternal Grandma’s house for a week.  Being a kid I loved it.  I got to spend a week Grandma’s.  Growing up in CA we never got snow for Christmas, but going to NY a few times we would be blessed with a White Christmas. I remember walking down to the Soda Shop with my dad and getting a Malt.  During the week we really packed in a lot. One night my Grandpa would take me to a Broadway show and the other nights we would spend visiting family and friends. When my best friend moved to NJ after our first year in High school we added visiting his family to the list.

Now that Grandma has passes away we no longer go to NY.  When she passes away our tradition changed to spending Christmas with my Maternal Grandma. Now that she has passed away our family is at a loss of what to do. When I was married we were spending it with my in-laws and his cousins and aunts and uncles and that was a lot of fun. I really loved spending time with his family they were so much. Now that we split up my parents and I are on our own for Christmas for the first time this year. It’s quite an adjustment. I’m working today, but will be leaving early so I can get down to my parents house for dinner and the plan is to play some games such as Clue. We all love playing games so that should be fun. I am happy to see that it has stopped raining.  Unfortunately my Dad works Christmas day so we won’t be seeing him so I’ll be coming back home in the afternoon in hopes to make it a safe drive back to my apartment in the rain.  And that will be that. Hopefully when I have my own family we will be able to incorporate some fun festive family traditions much like I have seen on all those Christmas Specials I love watching. Such as lots of baking of Christmas goodies. Building of Gingerbread houses. And making of home made ornaments.