Surprises!

Some members of our family love surprises. In fact most of us do. I think that the tradition started a long time ago with my parents. Those two people loved to spring surprise parties and surprise, somewhat extravagant gifts, on each other and their children. One of my special memories was the Christmas that Daddy bought Mother a new car. He was about the to "bust" with excitement when he told me how we were going to pull off the surprise. The plan involved a fairly complicated hiding of the new wheels in a garage that belonged to the church two doors away from our house. Daddy hid the car, a sporty yellow Chevy, in the garage a few days before Christmas and gave my sister and me the ribbon to decorate it. Janet and I sneaked over there and pulled the ribbon around it and attached a big red bow on the roof. On Christmas morning, Daddy snuck out of the house in the dark and drove the car into the driveway beyond the front porch and past the dining room windows so that Mom couldn't see it. As was our custom, Daddy would always go into the living room to "check and see if Santa had come" while we slept. Daddy would always say, "No, he hasn't come yet, so go back to bed." We knew he was joking! We'd storm into the room and exclaim over all the loot and then we'd settle down to open presents. Mom would always be the last to open hers. That Christmas, Janet and I could hardly contain our excitement as she opened the usual stuff; clothes, new pjs and so on. The last gift was handed to her by Daddy and as she opened a box of silky panties a set of keys on a shiny new keyring fell out. Mom held them up and asked Daddy what they were for. Daddy just laughed his deep chuckle and told her that maybe she ought to check outside for what Santa had left for her. Mom did and was beside herself with excitement. In our pjs, we took the new car for a spin around the block! Daddy was grinning from ear to ear because no one enjoyed surprising his loved ones more than my Daddy.

The tradition continued well into our adulthood. Once, a month after our move to North Carolina, over six hundred miles away from home, my parents decided to surprise us with a weekend visit. Gene was working late and I had had an especially trying day. The move and getting everyone settled into our new home far away from our friends and family, had left me very lonely and unsettled. After getting the three children fed, bathed and into their pajamas, I told them that they could watch a little TV before bedtime. They were happily watching TV in the den, so I told the oldest child to keep the two younger ones quiet just long enough for me to take a quick shower. A promise of buttered popcorn sealed that deal and on my way to the shower, I casually reminded him to not open the door for anyone, except of course Mimi and Papaw! ESP? You guessed it! When I got out of the shower, there they were on our front porch. Happy Birthday to me, for a few days later it really was my birthday. Surprise!

Next month is my husband's birthday. For months I've been contemplating what I could give him that would really please him. Racking my brain for the perfect gift became an obsession. I finally decided on something that I hope he will love. He doesn't have a hobby or at least one that he spends time doing because between coaching baseball, working and raising four kids with me, there never seemed to be enough time nor money to devote to a hobby. His family _is_ his hobby. Time spent with us is what he loves best, so I'm giving him time. With my trusty laptop I've booked time for us. We can't take the whole gang along for this time, but maybe next year we will.

My parents are both gone from me, but their tradition of surprising each other lives on. They taught me a lot about spending "date" time without kids and enjoying each other, so for his birthday this year, I've planned a weekend in New Orleans followed by a cruise. I hope he likes it. I have been daydreaming for weeks about strolling hand and hand with him through the French Quarter, as we did many years ago before we had children. He loves to "people watch", so I'm sure we'll do a lot of that during that week too. We don't have to be anywhere in order to spend time together, but a trip together is a reminder of the time before the race began. Time is the most important gift I can give him. Our daughter jokes that he gets out of sorts when he doesn't get enough "Linda time", so I hope that this gift will give him what he wants most! I'm crossing my fingers and hoping !

Happy Birthday, Honey. I love you more today than I did over forty years ago when I first saw you on that hot summer night. You out-shone all the stars then and you still do. Even with all the craziness, I'd do it all over again. May you have many more birthdays and always with me!
 XOXOXOXO always,
L

Thanksgiving

We once had a priest at St. Paul's who did a sermon on giving thanks and remembering those for whom we were thankful. I always think about that sermon when we set the table for Thanksgiving, using the best our china cabinet has to offer. He said that it isn't about the beautiful china or the silver but it's about thanking as well as missing those who used to be at the table with us. Looking at the faces around our table this Thanksgiving, I couldn't help but get that awful catch in my throat and the knot in my gut when I remembered those we now miss. Our parents are gone as well as most of our aunts and uncles. We are now on the front line. We are the ones who will be missed one day.

In my parents' home, there was always a revolving door of relatives on Thanksgiving Day. My Uncle Robert, my grandfather's bachelor brother, showed up from time to time for a holiday meal with us. Where he lived from holiday to holiday, I never knew, although once when I was very little, I went with my grandparents to get him out of a "flop house" right before Thanksgiving. That year he stayed with us, sleeping on the back porch, until he sobered up and moved on. It's too late now to ask where he went because the people who could have filled in those blanks are long gone. I wish I'd asked at the time instead of just wondering. Adults back then didn't talk of those matters to children.

We never spent a Thanksgiving with my father's mother at her house. Sometimes Daddy would would make the long drive to her house in the country and bring her back to have dinner with us and my mother's parents. She was not a happy nor loving grandmother at all. I remember her finding fault and sniffing (yes, sniffing) at everything as if she were displeased by the vast amount of food and goodies we had. Her existence was fairly austere and her own hard scrapple life had made her an unhappy old woman by the time my sister and I were born. Daddy was the youngest of her surviving children. The baby of the family had been killed and my dad almost killed in a horrible school bus wreck when they were youngsters. That and a raging alcoholic for a husband had done her in, I guess. At any rate, she was no fun what so ever and we didn't look forward to her presence at the holiday table. I do wish now that I hadn't been so scared of her and had known her better. My daughter now lives in Arkansas, where my dad's mother was born. Each time I've crossed the Mississippi river going from Memphis into Arkansas, I've wondered about her life in the backwoods on a farm. As the story goes, my grandfather, who was on the run (rumor was that he'd killed a black man in a logging camp)saw her "hanging up wash" . She was thirteen and he fell in love with her and soon they married and moved to rural Tennessee. The rest of that story was, according to my father, a sad and humble existence as the wife of an artistic, but alcoholic man.

My other grandparents were the good guys! Mom was an only child, so we had no cousins to steel our thunder. We were the alpha and omega in their eyes. Thanksgiving and all other holidays were spent being loved and adored. My grandmother really didn't cook much, but she could make great gravy, so Mom let her do just that. Mom cooked all the rest of the meals, holidays included.

Now, I am the "mom' who cooks. My happiest days were/are cooking for my family. Being a true southern woman, you can't be in my house for more than a minute before I offer a drink or food or both. Making no apologies, it's just the way I am.

Last weekend our oldest grand-daughter came over for a sugar cookie baking session. Her hands worked the dough, rolled and cut it and then, after baking the cookies, she carefully decorated each one. Never mind that they are not "Martha Stewart' beautiful; to me they are just the prettiest goodies ever. Each sprinkle, each dribble of icing, represents a frozen minute of time when the rest of the hurry-up mode of the holidays stopped for us! Like the cookie-baking with my mom, she will, hopefully, remember the sweet smells and the shared time with me.

In a couple of days, our God-daughter will come over for an afternoon of baking and decorating cookies too. She is all grown-up, well almost if you count being a senior in college. We have repeated our Christmas tradition each year since she was two years old. How the time has flown! She tells me that after graduation in May she will go to grad school next year. Huh? Do grad students bake cookies with their Godmothers? I pray that they do and that she will carve out a tiny bit of time to do just that with me. Getting out the cookie cutters this year, I found a paper cutout that years ago was a pattern of her hand. the year we made those cookies she painted rings on the tiny fingers and we laughed about them. Will a real ring be on her finger soon? I don't know why I saved that pattern, but I' m glad that I did. One day I hope to show it to her daughter while we bake.

Time is the best gift anyone can give as well as receive.