lights
I remember —
Lights when I was a kid. We would climb into the car and drive around looking at lights. And that was the best part of Christmas for me.
Christmas in general for me as a kid sucked. There were so many politics. So many rules. You had to appear surprised and happy to receive really sucky gifts. You had to appear not too surprised and happy when you received really cool gifts. [That might make the sucky gift people feel bad.] And, an awful lot of those gifts were, well, sheets. Seriously. My mother’s relatives would ask what should they get me for Christmas. And she would say, Sheets. So that is what I got as a little kid for Christmas. Sheets.
Just how fucking excited is a little kid supposed to get over sheets? Also I was not exactly a stupid child. I got my mother pulled out the household list when Christmas rolled around and probably I was just lucky I was getting sheets instead of dry wall. But still.
Sheets?
[Also someone really REALLY owes me an apology still for that sack of potatoes.]
But I really loved the lights time. It was not Christmas Eve. It was not Christmas morning. It was not Christmas day. The lights came at night. When you just drove around looking. Soaking them up. You could just take every little piece of them inside you and save them as a part of you.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2cXrS0Xysw]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szLmAPW39uE]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05L1c_II_wo]
20 Responses to lights
Small world, Max. That house in the middle is just a just a few miles from my house. You drive by it and tune the radio to a certain channel to hear the music the lights are sync’d to.
About the presents, this reminds me of my spectacular golden birthday (6th). Every single present I got was clothing. I kept ripping the paper of each one as if in a bad dream and horrors, more clothes. I had no idea my mom had conspired with everyone. In fact, to my knowledge she never fessed up to it.
Were they all ten sizes too big so you could “grow into them”?
Hell yeah they were big enough to grow into.
Sneaky plotting bastids.
I do not know what they thought they were clothing when I was a kid, a baby tyranosaurus rex or something I guess, some of those clothes would still be too big for me.
Had my brother not been a sneaky little spy and figured out what we were getting on Christmas and then TOLD me and my Sister it would have been cooler-
But the adults in my family always got us cool toys- and around New Years when they were done playing with them we’d get a turn.
Brother.
amm
Well. My eldest cousin was “the first grandchild.”
My brother was “the only grandson.”
My other girl cousin was “the lost and secret daughter it must be made up to.”
That left me “the child of that shameful act in college.” AKA, “sheets.”
Kinda sucked to be “sheets.”
I had one cool aunt though. She not only knew I was not a size sixteen, she had cool taste in all things clothes. Did not count the lost daughter or the shameful college act against a little kid. AND everything she ever gave me was pretty AND my size AND made me feel pretty and happy.
I love my aunt.
I had three wonderful Aunts- one was an Artist, the other was this kind of Proper Lady who taught me to whistle through me teeth and swear and my other Aunt played poker, used to shoot coconuts out of the trees for fun and flew planes.
Aunts are cool.
Love the lights this time of year – in fact I’m going to look at some in the ‘hood tonight. Good sheets would be a great gift for an adult. For a kid, not-so-much. My worst gift received as a kid was a bathrobe.
… To bring this back to the cinema, the pink bunny suit from “A Christmas Story.”
>:)
Merry Christmas, Max!
Wait. You got the pink bunny suit, Woe?
My favorite childhood memory is of Christmas lights. I had slipped out of bed Christmas Eve after everyone was asleep. The tree was done only in blue lights. And as I stared awestruck, a Frosty the Snowman ornament began slowly twirling. A blue light reflected off it and the whole scene had a soft hazy dreamy quality. I went back to bed but I always felt as if I had seen the magic of Christmas.
Oh no! My brother JUST sent me an email and he rarely emails but I click it open and it’s a link to a site and so I click that too and displayed in big letters is “HUGE BED BLOWOUT!” and there are a bunch of pics of sheets! I was wondering, WTF?
Also, my mother always buys me clothes like ten sizes larger but now that I’m bigger they are probably four sizes larger lol anyway she does it because she hates for me to show my body. She’d rather pretend I’m just a floating head.
That is a beautiful description Kym.
Stil, fight back, get her clothes four sizes too small….
You once suggested that and I forgot all about it.
Next time, Max, next time. Chinese New Year is not too far off.
Oh wait – that’s when parents are supposed to give the kids money. I’ll probably get Monopoly bills. But that’s ok – cuz her birthday is right after. MUHA!
PS That is beautifu, Kym.
Shower the woman with size fours. Also a lawn jockey might be nice.
[I am still agog at the presents she gave you an antique garage sale LOL]
My mother is either clueless or cruel. Or both.
I’m thinking that guest closet full of size twos but I could give those to you, Max :)
Only if I dump this eight pounds the evil Ensure episode stuck on me. If I do not dump those I am in the size four camp for sure.
If it makes you feel any better, my in laws gave both of my daughters a homemade pillow case one year for Christmas.
Oh no. Not when they were little? That is so wrong.