Nana and the Magic of Christmas

I must say there is not one thing that I don't like about the holidays...religion, traditions, spending time with friends and family, eating, entertaining, presents, Christmas carols, decorating, even wrapping presents. I love this time of year! My love of Christmas has always been inspired by one special person in my life, my Nana.

Christmas was one of the days each year that my family spent together. Not only would my divorced parents spend the day together, but the entire family would go to Nana’s house. It didn’t matter who you were as a person, or where you were in life, everyone was welcome and everyone was on their best behavior. This was Nana’s day, and you didn’t mess with my Nana! 

Nana spent the entire year shopping for everyone on her list. She started shopping for Christmas on December 26th the previous year. Every month, she put a few hundred dollars into her Christmas club savings account at the credit union to buy all the last-minute gifts she needed come November. She braved the 80s Cabbage Patch Kid doll craze to ensure all her granddaughters had one. One year, she took the time to assemble the My Little Pony castle for me and put a big red bow on it. When I was 13, she bought me a holiday edition Barbie. I fell in love with the Barbie. It made me start collecting dolls again long after I had stopped playing with toys. When I was in high school, I was obsessed with collectible shoe figurines. She filled an entire hat box with them. It must have cost a fortune. My mom begged me one year to not tell her I wanted a monkey. She was terrified that Nana would buy me a real monkey. We settled on a stuffed monkey with Velcro paws that I could wear around my neck.

As an adult, she bought me jewelry and a new purse every year. In 2017, she shipped our presents to Houston and called to inform me that our Christmas presents were on the way. She also mentioned she used some household items as packing material...and that if the cat was in the box to send him back. The presents arrived with half a shoebox, two towels, three trash bags, and a bathroom rug....happy to report no cat.

I moved in with my Nana when I was 12. Every year, I watched all the trouble and hassle she went through to make that one day special. She decorated the most magnificent Christmas trees. When I was 15, I pretended to be sick so I could skip school and help decorate the tree. She caught on to the fact I was not sick fairly quickly, and from that day forward, we decorated the tree together. She taught me all of her tips and tricks. There were years we had to take the Christmas tree down because we would use a real tree, and by the time Christmas rolled around, we were pretty sure we were risking setting the house on fire. Christmas lights before LEDs were extremely hot. I eventually took over entirely. When I relocated to Texas, she would pay to fly me home the first week in December to decorate her tree.

I was also her little elf and would wrap all her presents. There were so many gifts! I wrapped presents for days while we watched the movie Arthur with Dudley Moore and laughed until we cried. And then there were the deliveries we had to make! Once, we drove five hours, one way, to take my cousins their Christmas gifts. We slept on a mattress on the floor that night and woke up in the morning with a cat sleeping on Nana's head. She wouldn't have had it any other way.

She also made the best Christmas dinner. A dinner we all try to replicate. And the fudge! No one makes it quite like she did. I called her every Thanksgiving and Christmas to ask for her recipes. I probably have 20 copies of her fudge recipe, but it was always my way to reconnect with her long after I had moved out of state.

After she passed away, I was going through her room  and she had a bag with my name on it, “For Holly.” In the bag, I found three new purses, and in one of the purses a new ring. When I opened the ring box, I gasped. The ring box had a light in it and made the ring look extra sparkly …the last little bit of Christmas magic from my Nana. 

She is the reason I started this blog. Everyone should have a day they look forward to every year. A way to create special memories for their family and friends. And, since we are so busy these days, a way to create some of these special moments without spending a lot of mental energy, time and money, or a little insight on how much it's really going to cost. Hopefully, you will find some of my Nana's Christmas magic helpful and fun!