Christmas Past (installment two) AND... Whooooo-Hoooooo!

Because I have achieved the ripe old age of 36 I have many "Christmas Past" memories... of course, whittling them down to the ones you would actually care to read about has been... well, actually pretty easy since I'm SURE nobody wants me to go into details about the year H covered my brand new coat in her Christmas Eve dinner!

Growing up we lived in a pretty basic house - I would ask you to close your eyes while I describe it but well... that may not work so well in this medium.  The kitchen and living room were at one end of the house - the 3 bedrooms were at the other end of the house - they were connected by a hallway which widened considerably at the bedroom/bathroom end since there were a bunch of doors all together.  (there was also a basement, but it doesn't figure into THIS story... maybe later!)  My father was a "project" guy... or maybe my mother was a "project" girl and wished my dad was the same... either way, there was a large piece of plywood propped up in the hall waiting to be used on a project and it'd been there for awhile awaiting its usefulness.  

Early Christmas Morning (and when I say Early I mean EARLY!) I woke up to sneak out to the living room...  I had to be really quiet because my parents' room was right next to mine.  So, out my door, past the clothes hamper and WHAM!  What?  Did I become disoriented in the dark?  Did I forget a turn in the house I've lived in for years?  Okay, back up - yep, that's my room - try again... straight 3 steps, there's the hamper, there's the wall and here's the hal... err, nope, no hall... just a big solid piece of Plywood!  Come Christmas Morning (not so early) the Plywood was gone... not just away from the Hall, but gone... out to the garage or down to the basement or somewhere - who cared, the way to the pile of presents was clear!

Dad denies this to this day - but I've called him on it now for the world to see!  Way to mess with the brain of your precious and impressionable daughter... did you ever think about the future therapy I'd need... hmmm... come to think of it I am REALLY bad with directions - could that be Dad's fault?  We won't even get STARTED on the fire hazard!!!

Oh, you're still here?  you wanted to know about the woooooo.hoooo part too?  Okay, well, all that hullaballoo yesterday over at SITS (my new favorite people) has paid off - I am a winner! Let me just point out that aside from Spelling Bees - I have only won 2 things in my lifetime... some carnival stuffie when I was a kid, and a canvas tote bag that had some Stamp Company's logo on it!  This is MUCH better!!!  They have many lovely sponsors, and lucky me came away with an initial necklace from Charming Gifts!!!  Now I just need to decide if I am selfish and keep this for myself, or am generous and use it as a Christmas gift....  I'll let you know when I finally get past Christmas Past and move on to Christmas Present!