Decembers Remembered

14 Qawl 162 B.E. December 5 - 6, 2005 A.D.

December is here and my birthday is on the 24th. Yes, I was born the day before Christamas. Normally when someone ask me about my birthday, I tell them that I was my mother's Christmas present. This year, 2005, has brought about a lot of changes in my life and a lot of soul searching. This time of year the memories of past December's have come to the surface of my mind.

My Grandmother put up a Christmas Tree every year. When we were small it was a live tree, but as we grew up the tree became an artifical tree. My Grandmother never put up the Christmas tree before Thanksgiving. The day after Thanksgiving the tree usually went up and we began decorating it.

What I find most intriguing about Christmas this year is the lights on the houses. I do not remember lights on houses when I was small. There were lights in window and inside houses on the trees, but I do not think there were lights on the outside, at least I never saw any in the town we lived in (which does not mean there were not light, I just never saw them).

Any way back to the memories. My Grandmother enjoyed cooking. So every year she would start several days before Christmas and New Years baking pies. She always fixed a turkey for Christmas and do a lot of cooking. Then on Christmas we would have in family and friends. We never had very much left over Turkey on Thanksgiving or Christmas.

Another thing my Grandmother did was start several days before New Year's Day and clean the house. There was only a certain amount of work allowed on New Year's Day because my Grandmother said: "What you do on New Year's Day, you will be doing the rest of the year." The only work allow on New Year's Day was necessary chores, such as making the bed (because if we left the bed unmade on New Year's Day it would go unmade the rest of the year). Another necessary chore was the dishes, for my Grandmother the washing the dishes was a part of doing the cooking (besides if the dishes remained unwashed on New Year's Day ... well you know the rest of the story). Laundry did not get done on new year's day, if it was not done by December 31 at midnight it had to wait until January 2 at 12:01 to get done.