This is just like I remember

Christmas always brings back some of the most sweet memories for me. I remember Christmas in Southern Idaho always involved lots of cousins and time at my grandparents houses. In a way I am a little sad for my children because the excitement and chaos that flash in my memories are so different from what theirs will be. We don't hang out with Tom's family because their lifestyles and habits are so very different from ours (that would have to be covered in an entirely different blog) and my family is close in spirit but live farther away. It is a different time for all of us.

First memory - my Grandpa and Grandma Schlund lived in a little home on a big farm about thirty minutes from my home. We went there at least once a month and spent about every third Christmas or so at their home. My grandmother was an excellent cook and always made the foods that my dad liked. She was a really happy lady or at least she seemed so when we were around. My grandfather was a quiet, subdued man. He didn't have much to say and seemed kind of grouchy. As I got older, I figured out that he would do just about anything for me if I would sing to him. He loved to listen to me sing.

I remember going to their home one Christmas and somehow we talked them into opening most of our presents on Christmas Eve. It was the most anticlimatic Christmas ever. The funny thing was that my grandmother warned us that Christmas just wouldn't be the same, but she let us do it anyway. We played pool with my grandpa that Christmas. I don't remember if that was was their Christmas present or not but they had finished their basement and put a pool table down there. This was not something that people did in the seventies. Basements were supposed to be cold storage for food not playrooms. I remember my grandpa laughed a lot that Christmas and his laughter made me really happy.

Second memory - we lived next door to my mom's parents and we spent a lot of time at their house. But every Christmas it seemed that on Christmas eve, we had a party at the Barlow's. It seemed like everyone came, even though to a little girl it probably was just the family. We had a talent show of sorts. I loved this because my aunt and uncle would play organ/piano duets. My grandparents had a pitched roof upstairs that had two rooms, a small bedroom with a fluffy full bed and a bigger bedroom that had lots of twin beds in it. The cousins got to sleep in that room. I remember watching the automatic outside light for most of the night wondering what Santa would bring us. It was always so much fun to be there for Christmas.

Third memory - I had just gotten married on December 19, 1985 and I wanted to go see the lights at Temple Square. I had heard my mother talk about how beautiful they were and how much she wanted to go see them and that never happened because my dad hated to go to Utah. The Christmas we got married was bitter cold and snowed constantly. So I still don't remember how I talked Tom into going to Utah except that we didn't have much money to go anywhere else. As we got closer to Utah, I began to realize that my new husband also didn't care for Utah much. We arrived at Temple Square, drove around the block attempting to find a parking space, nearly getting into three weather related accidents only to have Tom say..."See, there are the lights. Have I ever told you how much I hate Utah?" With that he turned around and drove back to Idaho. We didn't stop until we reached Pocatello.

Fourth memory - Mikael was about eight and he needed to have surgery on his femur. He was tripping himself when he walked because his foot turned in so much. The surgeon at PCMC thought that a left femoral trochanterosteotomy would fix the problem. This meant that his femur would be cut in half, twisted and then plated back together. The surgery would last approximately six hours or so. It wasn't the first surgery that he had ever had but for some reason I was really nervous about this one. Sometimes knowing is scarier than not knowing. Being a nurse, I knew all the complications for this particular procedure and I was afraid for my little boy.

We chose to do it at Christmas because Mike had a hard time in school anyway and so we didn't want him to miss too much and this would give him the four months after that he needed to recooperate before he started baseball. He was going to have to be nonweight bearing for four months to give the bone time to heal. Actually Christmas turned out to be an amazing time to be at PCMC. There were opportunities everyday for the kids to have good things happen. Someone famous came to visit everyday and Mike was adorable so we were signing a press release just about everyday so that his picture could appear in or on one media venue or another.

Before we went to the hospital though, I thought that something really special was in order so I arranged for us all (Tom, Mike, Alyssa, Grandma Schlund, and myself) to visit Temple Square to see the lights. It was amazing and the kids loved it. Because it was below zero outside, the visitor centers were void of visitors and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. The sister missionaries were delighted to have someone to talk to and were more than willing to take us around on our own personal guide tours. In one of the visitor centers, there is a room where the lights are all turned out at one point and it looks like you are standing in the middle of the galaxy. I was not aware until seconds before that this would happen and being the mom that I am I searched frantically for my little ones when the lights came back on. My mother was crying when the lights came back on as was the sister missionary. When we got upstairs, both attempted to tell us what happened when the lights went off. Mikael was standing between the missionary and my mom and he grabbed both of their hands and whispered "this is just like I remember from before." My mom asked him "Before when?" And in his sweet eight year old voice, newly being baptized by just a few weeks said, "Before I was here. You know in heaven."

I am grateful for these moments that I remember. The sweet Christmas memories that come flooding back when I choose to allow myself to place myself back in time. Merry Christmas!