Christmas with the Crafts

So like most families we have our standard Christmas traditions. We have been doing these things for as long as I can remember. We always got our Christmas tree at Lowe's. The best part of a Lowe's tree is that you get free apple cider while you look. Then, I love how they send the tree through the little shoot that bundles it up. I am sure that they do this at every Christmas tree place, but I always thought it was special. Next, we would decorate the tree as a family. Sarah Margaret, Dennis, and I would choose which ornaments we wanted to hang. Our tree was, and still is, an eclectic mess. We definitely do not have a theme tree, or only pretty ornaments. Our ornaments are all the glitter explosion ones we made in elementary school. We also had some very nice ones that we constructed at McDonalds one year. The coveted ornament was a Rudolph whose mouth could open like a puppet. We would fight over who could hang it. Sometimes even after one of us had hung Rudolph, someone else would come along and move him.

Grandmama Ruth would come a few days before Christmas to celebrate with us. She was a staple in the leather recliner just sitting there crocheting for days. She would also help mom cook. Since I am the youngest child I always had to give up my bed. Aunt Diane would come for Christmas Eve so she would sleep in Sarah Margaret's bed. This meant that all three of us were in Dennis's room. We had a pretty sizeable collection of beanie babies, which are all for sale if you are reading this and are interested. So the three of us would go to bed and wait for Santa to come, which we knew was Dad all along, and we would hold our annual Beanie Baby Club meetings. We even had a theme song. It was to the tune of "We're From the Country and We Like it That Way." Usually we would get all thousand of the beanie babies set up for the meeting and then we would fall asleep before the actual meeting. I really don't know what we would have discussed.

Christmas morning was super exciting! We woke up usually before the sun came up and ran to get Mom and Dad. They would look at the clock and tell us to wait a little longer. Then, when it was time we had to gather at the top of the stairs. Mom would always make sure that we all had socks on. For some reason it was a family rule that we could not open presents unless we had socks on. I'm not sure what the correlation between covered feet and opening presents is. Once we all had socks and we waiting at the top of the stairs Dad would go make sure Santa came. He had already told us Santa is not real (if this is news for you, I am sorry that I ruined Christmas for you). Once Dad got downstairs and turned on Christmas music he would call us to come down. This is when the real excitement started. We would all sit on the stairs and race down on our butts. I never won. Then we would open our stockings and rip into our presents.

For breakfast every year we had waffles, eggs, grits, country ham, and orange danish. It was so delicious every time. The Craft family Christmas traditions are pretty standard, but they are part of who we are. This year all our traditions have been thrown out the window since Sarah Margaret got married. We are going to initiate Jonathan into the Beanie Baby Club next week, but I'm not sure all four of our butts will fit down the stairs at once. I think the race will be interesting.

Shout out

This is a shout out for Brigi Varley!! Thanks for being my dedicated reader :)
Love,
Carol

Trampoline Olympics

One summer after watching the Olympics on TV Sarah Margaret decided that we should start doing Trampoline Olympics. All three of us would compete and at the end a judge would decided who deserved gold, silver, and bronze. So the three of us each went to the "Barney Bag" (our craft closet, yes we do still call it that) and we got paper and marker and laminating sheets to make the medals. We cut out little circles and colored them appropriately then covered them in laminate to make them durable, and because we were in a phase where we laminated everything. Then we went out to the trampoline to commence the ceremonies. Once we started the Trampoline Olympics Dennis and I realized a little problem with our system: Sarah Margaret was both a competitor and the judge. A pattern was starting to form. Sarah Margaret would announce the next event or stunt it would be one that she was good at, then we would all give it our best shot. She would always get gold, Dennis always got silver, and I always got bronze. We did butt bounces, which I am an expert at. I mean I am so good at bouncing up, landing on my butt and landing back on my feet. We did front flip, which I am not so good at. I usually just flop onto the trampoline and tuck at the last minute so I don't break my neck. There were a number of other jumps and stunts that we had to do, but the order and the medals never changed.. At the time I didn't get too upset. I was too ignorant to realize her scheme until later. Then of course later when it hit me what had happened and how I had been taken advantage of by one of my older siblings again.

Now that I am older and I have some perspective I realize that Trampoline Olympics were not completely unfair. Granted, Sarah Margaret probably should not have been allowed to compete and be the judge. On the other hand, if I am honest with myself I know that she probably did deserve gold in every category. She has always been good at doing tricks on the trampoline. Dennis was always second best, so he deserved gold. My pathetic flops definitely deserved the bronze medal. So it should not have bothered me. Also looking back I remember that my favorite part of Trampoline Olympics was cutting out, coloring, and laminating the medals. I also realize that Marg had me make all the bronze ones, Dennis made silver, and she made the gold ones. If I had been smarter I would have known her plan from the start. But overall we had fun playing together that day. I guess Trampoline Olympics was a success after all.

Craft Family Dictionary

Like most families we have made up our own words and terms over the years. Here are a few:

1. Volo- this is what we called the symbol on the handicap sign. I think Sarah Margaret started it.
2. Bidawee- the term used for those antennae with the flashing red lights on them. We would always look for them out the car window. I think Dennis also used this term for spiders...
3. Wet- pee, or urine. "Dad, I need to wet." I still think this sounds weird and gross, and Dad still uses it.
4. Badjob- poop; whenever our baby sitter was changing diapers she would say, "This is a bad job" consequently, we thought this was the word for poop and my parents used it to so that just confirmed it. It took me a few years in elementary school to realize that no one else called poop bad job.
5. Spider spittin'- sprinkling rain. A Wanda special
6.Back Back- the trunk of the car. It was always exciting to be able to ride in the back back if we had too many people in the car. because there were no seat belts back there. We liked to live life on the edge.
7. Skin a Rabbit- Mom would say this when she was helping us get dressed. It meant that we needed to put our arms over our heads so she could take off our shirt and put a different one on.
8. Herpentile- Christmas lights that blink and look like they are moving
9. Deesh- a nickname for Dennis
10. Marg, Margwad, Sissen, Smarg, Margalicious, Smaft, Smaggot-all nicknames for Sarah Margaret
11. Sheeshapeesha- to be used instead of "goodness gracious" or "good grief"

These are just some of the things that the Crafts have picked up over the years. Marg and Deesh, feel free to add some, even though you never write on our blog.