When I wrote this in December 2018, I had not imagined it would be the last Christmas with my Granny. She passed in August of 2019 and while Christmas won’t be the same without her, I am committed to keeping our traditions alive and celebrating the holiday season with a full and gracious heart that I got to spend 29 Christmases with her and 25 with Papa.
A week from now we’ll be packing up the car in Granny’s driveway. Leftovers in Tupperware and a few gifts will be placed in the back floorboards and I’ll be thinking of something else, anything else, to say to Granny before finally committing to leaving.
Christmas Eve at Granny and Papa’s has always been magical. Granny’s tree has multicolor lights, the most beautiful vintage ornaments, and a pearl garland, but has never been huge or overstated. She has a small village but otherwise has always just decorated with the many Christmas cards that came to her and Papa.
Mom always leaves some rolls unbuttered for my brother. My aunt always asks for pepper before trying her cream corn and Granny gets on to her for not trying it first. After dinner we have pie...pineapple or chocolate...and they have those perfect “coca cola drops” on the fluffy meringue. Then we sit patiently while the dishes are washed because the presents don’t get opened until all the dishes are done (and Granny doesn’t have a dishwasher).
Opening Christmas presents is the one time of year we sit in Granny’s living room instead of the den. Her packages are always wrapped so beautifully with perfect bows. We slowly unwrap our presents, while passing around a pocketknife because my family tends to use too much Scotch tape…perfectly wrapped gifts start with well-taped boxes. The wrapping paper gets balled up and thrown at a trash bag in the center of the room, but the boxes and bows get slid to the coffee table as everyone knows you gotta save those. We probably still have 20+ year-old gift boxes in rotation.
Papa always gave Granny a piece of jewelry that Mom helped pick out, and it was always the last gift of the night.
I snapped the picture above in 2010. The lights reflected off the record player so beautifully....the new one that mom, my aunt and I searched hours and days for one Christmas as it had to meet Granny’s exact requirements. It was to replace the big ol’ record player cabinet that had gone out. Granny can be picky and the woman knows exactly what she wants. It makes her hard to buy for but some of my most vivid Christmas memories are searching high and low for something so particularly simple Granny had requested. I’ll never forget when we got her the George Foreman grill that sat on her dryer for the next 15 years because Granny wasn’t about to cook chicken in anything other than a skillet.
I’m glad I got this picture that day, as well as some of Papa and Granny in front of the unfinished Christmas tree. Papa loved Christmas. It was the only time other than church or funerals that I remember him wearing dress pants with his signature plaid shirts. The rest of the days it was Pointer brand overalls and his signature plaid shirts.
The crowd has gotten smaller and the presents fewer. We eat off Chinet plates now and the tree has downsized to a tabletop tree. But the love, y’all...the love is bigger and grander than ever. We’ll sit in that living room complaining about how high Granny has the thermostat and while it is no longer from Papa, Granny will still get the last gift of the night.
I don’t know how many more Christmas Eves we’ll have at Granny’s but I do know that on Christmas Eve night we’ll make more memories to add to our story. I can’t wait to cherish every minute of it.
PS: pray Granny likes my gift.
