Tag: family

My Christmas Story

farm barn in winter
Yesterday

It’s Christmas Eve day and the snow is coming later in the day so hubby has been working in the barn finishing up his outside work on our 50 acres while I have been baking like mad for the big family gathering tomorrow.

All four kids live close by and come to our farmhouse, with their families for Christmas dinner. The farm has been in the family for generations and over the years we’ve enjoyed many happy holidays together at the long, wooden table in front of the big fireplace.

We are lucky to have a beautiful view from the big windows along the side of the house and can see the distant mountains quite clearly this time of year. After the snowfall tonight, we will all be able to go outside tobogganing at some point tomorrow. All the grandkids are old enough to enjoy playing in the snow and going sledding and we have the perfect hill that slopes down to the big garden area.

I’m almost done baking the pies, the Christmas tree is decorated with loads of presents heaped underneath and the extra bedrooms are ready for the ones who will spend the night tomorrow. Hubby will come in soon and sit with me by the tree and we’ll watch the snow fall. We’ll have some spiked eggnog or a glass of wine and talk about the day and look forward to tomorrow when the whole family will be together – it will be hectic, but it’s what life is all about.

There are bloggers who will write stories like this and they will be true, but my story is not.  I used to think that having dreams that never came true meant I had failed at life somehow, but now I know better.  I no longer dream expecting to one day have it happen, but it doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy the thought.  I am blessed to have all that I DO have and I know that.

So what does your Christmas dream look like?  Or is it reality?

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Summer With The Siblings

My firefighter son always comes north (from Florida) to visit at least once a year. He arrived this week, which means that three of my kids and myself are sharing space in this small house. We are on top of each other inside, but the weather has been fairly good – if you call 80’s and humid good! – so we go outside a lot and sit around my new table (that only seats two – first come first serve) or the kids go to the beach and swim. I am not so much into doing that. Crowds of summer people and local kids are not my thing. I prefer the lake in any season but summer.

midori
A glass of Midori while I grill

It also means that I am spending large amounts of money on food and large amounts of time in the kitchen and at the grill. I always have a hard time remembering which kid likes what food. None of them are horribly picky, except the 12 year old, but I always have to ask, mostly about onions. One likes them cooked and one likes them raw. No tomatoes for either. One loves seafood, like his mom, and the other doesn’t. One loves mushrooms….and so forth. I eat just about everything, so I grill and bake around their likes.

My oldest son lives in Kentucky and we have been trying to convince him to come up too and he called the other night to tell me he is coming!! I am so excited. I haven’t seen him in over 3 years and it will be the first time in that long that all my kids have been together too. My oldest was 20 when my youngest was born so they have never all lived together. It’s very odd, but the way it turned out.

He is driving here in his Porsche and bringing an old guitar of his for my youngest son who seems to have inherited the musical talent that my other boys have. The kids are just as excited at the thoughts of spending time together. I’ve warned my landlady that it could get loud next door.

He is on his way… and they will be heading into Boston for the weekend to see the Red Sox play and just enjoy the city. Maybe they will share their photos for me to post.

I have been trying to find an air conditioner – just a small one for the front room where the sun beats in every afternoon – but there are none to be found. I hope the humidity stays reasonable, but it won’t matter really. I’ll have all my kids together, which is a rare thing for sure. I imagine they will all get on each other’s nerves and we’ll see if the oldest will actually stay the whole week or hop in his car and head back to the quiet life in Kentucky!

My Grandfather

I didn’t grow up in a family that did a lot of talking to each other.  In fact it saddens me that I know so little about the history of my grandparents.

My grandmother’s mother (and maybe her father?) came from Denmark.  My grandmother worked in the mill and my grandfather was a mailman.  He also wasn’t a very good driver judging by the dents on the side of his car from all the mailboxes he’d hit over the years.   I remember him showing off the gifts he’d get from his customers at Christmas.

He was a selectman for his little town in Massachusetts and he walked in the local parades.  I remember that one time he was able take his grand-kids along with him and I had my one and only chance to be in a parade.  It was great!

They’d had a son who was killed in the war – World War 2 I think- and his photo was in an oval frame hanging in the living room of their little farm house.  He died before I was born and I was suppose to be a boy so I could be named after him (according to my parents.)  Oh well.

I remember taking a hike with my sister and my grandfather up to Mill Hill, which was a place in the woods up behind my house.  It was the coolest place with two steep hills of grass and a valley between .  One side dropped down to the Mill -the reason for the name- and the other side, past the stone wall, sloped to a cow pasture and sand pit.  It was my favorite place to be and I hiked there often in my childhood.

Anyway, we hiked up there one time and my grandfather was looking for a tree to use to make a cane.  It had to be just the right size and shape at the root for making a handle and the tree had to be fairly straight of course as well.

He did find one and cut the tree and took the part home that he needed for the cane.   I thought it was pretty cool (I was probably 8 years old) that my grandfather knew how to do that.  I don’t remember him ever using a cane so I don’t know what he wanted it for except that he liked to work with wood and had a shop area in the upstairs of the big, old barn behind their house.  I imagine that he gave it to a friend.

He was also a gardener.  That is an understatement because his garden was huge.  I can still picture him out there with his rottotiller going up and down the rows.  My house was on a hill behind my grandparents house so we had a view of the entire garden at the foot of the hill.  I grew up eating fresh vegetables of all kinds.  How lucky was I?  I didn’t know it of course.

My grandfather also liked to talk to us kids in rhymes.  One I remember is:

“A dillar a dollar a ten-o’clock scholar,
what makes you come so soon. 
You used to come at ten 0’clock
and now you come at noon.”

It didn’t make sense, but we’d laugh.  He had others too, but I can’t remember them. 


He’s been gone for a long time now, I grew up in the 60’s, and I regret not knowing more about him and my grandmother. I no longer have parents I can ask either. I am grateful for having them in my life as a child and my love of gardening and working with my hands comes from their influence I’m sure.

Do you have a special Grandpa?