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.
Dad had four sisters and between them all, there were fourteen grandkids. We all 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 all laugh.
When I think back now, I have no idea how twenty-four of us fit even fit inside Grandma and Grandpas tiny house. But every car load of family that arrived came with a card table 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 house. I remember the joke when we all sat down to eat. If you need to pee, you better go now, cuz if you happen to be tucked into the tables in the back with your food, you better be able to hold it. Everyone laughed, but sometimes a person couldn't hold it and it was quite an ordeal to get somebody out from behind table number one.
So all the people and their chairs, between the bathroom and the person who had to go, would stand, fold up their chair, and slide out holding the chair over their head to the hallway or kitchen, or corner. Then they waited for the person to come out of the bathroom, and do everything in reverse.
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, so the crazy cousin crew would run around the neighborhood. We ran in and out of the house, slamming the front and back screen doors, and chased each other.
Inside the house, there was always much laughter. I could tell by the hoots and hollers, who was winning the card games. Dad, his sisters, and their spouses, would rotate around the cards games based on who was winning. I liked to go inside and sneak a look at the score sheets regularly. I wanted 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 large pre-packaged paper sacks. One for each family. Inside it were baggies of her homemade cookies, (I loved the gumdrop ones), beautiful embroidered tea towels for her granddaughters, big jars of pecans from their tree, and then, my Dad's favorite gift, Grandma's homemade noodles.
I used to watch my Aunts and Grandma make them. I'd stand on a chair in the doorway and peek into the tiny kitchen. Grandma, surrounded by her girls, would roll out the dough, and then cut it into thick long strips of mouth watering goodness. I have never had noodles as delicious as the ones Grandma Gales made. As a child it was my normal, and she made it look easy, but I know now how much time and work she put into all those 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 kind of silly," I will never use them, and I donated them with a pile of other stuff.
I wish so much that I could have that moment back!
No comments:
Post a Comment