So nice to sit and relax with a cup of hot chocolate stirred with a Hershey kiss in the bottom and ponder and listen to the rain falling down. AND no running around getting pots and pans to catch the leaks! I’m really fortunate and I appreciate life more each day. I know all too well how you never know what tomorrow will bring. Chief always said, “Be grateful mama for breath when you wake up each day!” I am!

Getting things ready for my family’s Christmas dinner Saturday. We have such a delicious feast and lots of tall tale telling. My brothers laugh so heartedly one of them will choke! My son Thomas used to love to listen to their stories. Now he and his cousins are laughing at their stories. The Gran has dressed herself up for many dinners in the past. Were filling the house up now as our families keep growing. So, so many happy memories.

Been flooded with Christmas past today. Sitting in the the sun room I could see myself and my youngest brother checking the strands of Christmas tree lights. They were always tangled and we’d stretch them from the sun room all the way to the dining room and plug them in to see how many bulbs were burned out. These were big bulbs, and got hot! It’s a wonder cedar trees didn’t catch on fire from those bulbs.

I was a notorious thumb sucker. Nothing would keep me from putting my thumb in my mouth, not even hot pepper sauce. One Christmas Santa left me a message on the dining room mirror. Santa wrote with a red lipstick, “Lane, please quit sucking your thumb!” Nope, didn’t work…think I gave up the habit when I was 12 years old.

One of my favorite Christmases was when I got my unicycle! I rode that thing forever. Rode it to the library all the time speeding home with four books under each arm.

My daddy loved Christmas and was the best Santa. He always found the things on our lists. When I was a teenager I wanted a Lane brand hope chest. I cut a picture out of the Seventeen magazine and told daddy that’s the one I wanted. He looked forever and Mama told me later he drove to Thomaston, Georgia to buy the chest. Middle brother called it my hopeless chest.

My youngest brother and I shared a bedroom till I was in the fifth grade. We’d push our twin beds together on Christmas Eve and whisper about Santa Claus. My earliest memory of a Christmas morning was when I was about 7 years old and little brother was 3. We woke up to a dark house and snuck in the living room. I saw a little pink metal kitchen with a refrigerator and sink. Little brother saw a huge black and white teddy bear sitting on a red radio flyer tricycle!

That bear scared the bejesus out of him. He burst out crying and high tailed it back to bed. I ran behind him back to bed, too! Whenever little brother cried somebody usually got a whipping! Daddy always said, “He wouldn’t be crying if y’all didn’t do something to him!” I consoled him and we waited till older brothers came down the stairs.

I’ll never forget there was a case of Heinz ketchup from Santa under the tree that year. We all are ketchup addicts! Has to be Heinz. Don’t tell my McMurray clan but I can eat any brand of ketchup. I think they know. Last year somebody said, “Better have Heinz ketchup at the Christmas dinner, Aunt Lane.”

When my children were little I’d put store brand ketchup in the Heinz bottle but they always knew. Guess it’s inherited!