Gales family Christmas

 Every December of my childhood, right before Christmas, Mom and Dad would pack us all into the car and we'd head to Enid Oklahoma for Christmas with our Grandparents. Both sets of them lived there, but it was Dad's side of the family, the Gales side, that brought the party. He had four sisters and between them all their were 14 grandkids. My Uncle Gary was the oldest. He was in College and his sister Janice was in high school when my siblings and I, (and all the other cousins,) rolled into town like a rough and tumble gangly group of wiggles and giggles. We were wild things. We lived in Oklahoma City, and the drive to Enid was about 90 minutes. We knew we were almost there when Dad turned his head and pointed, "There she is kids. The Enid "LolloBrigida." Why he named it after Gina, a sexy siren of the times I'll never know, but he always smiled when he said it, and we would laugh.

When I think back now, I have no idea how 24 of us fit inside their house. Every car load of family arrived with card table or 2 and chairs in their trunks. They were carried in alongside all the kiddos and strategically placed in every nook and cranny in Grandma and Grandpa's small house. I remember the joke about sitting down to eat. Once you were tucked up in there with a plate of food you better plan on staying put for awhile because it was quite an ordeal to get somebody out from behind table number three in the back without everyone else in the room having to stand and pick up chairs and move about in the hallway by the bathroom.

And then, after everyone ate and the dishes were cleaned, the cards came out. And the Gales family siblings, they were serious about their cards. The kids weren't allowed to play until they reached a certain age and knew how to play, so the crazy cousin crew would run around the neighborhood and in and out of the house, slamming the front and back screen doors. Inside the house, there was always much laughter, and we could tell by the hoots and hollers, who the winners were. I liked to go inside and to sneak a look at the score cards regularly though just to see how close the scores were.

And then, just before dark, everybody would pack their card tables and chairs back into the trunks and the goodbyes would begin. This is when Grandma Gales would bring out her pre packaged paper sacks. One for each family. Inside were baggies of her homemade cookies, beautiful embroidery tea towels for the kitchen, huge containers of pecans from their tree, and then, my Dad's favorite gift, Grandma's homemade noodles. They were my favorite too. I used to watch all the ladies in the kitchen working on them. I'd stand on a chair in the doorway and peek into the tiny kitchen. Grandma, surrounded by my Aunts, would roll out the dough, and then cut it into the long strips of mouth watering goodness. I have never had noodles as delicious as the ones Grandma Gales made. As a child it was normal and she made it look easy, but I now I know how much time and work she put into the grocery bags of love.

I wish so much that I could now hold one of the embroidered Tea towels that Grandma made for me. But when I was a young, newly married girl cleaning out drawers, I remembered finding them. I thought, "These are kinda silly," I never use them, and I donated them with a pile of other stuff.

Oh to have that moment back!