I remembered a couple of weeks ago I said I would blog about my favorite Christmas memory and realized tonight I better blog it or Christmas would have come and gone before I knew it.
I have lots of favorite Christmases (sp?) growing up spending time with Grandma Loper and Uncle (Mom's side) and my cousins, aunts, uncles and Grandma and Grandpa Hill (Dad's side) in Bloomfield, Iowa. One fun memory was all us kids running to the frig at Grandma and Grandpa Hill's looking for strawberry pop and seeing only one cold one in the frig - then we'd walk out to the porch and see the 8-pack sitting there. We never did figure out why Grandma and Grandpa only put one strawberry pop in the frig when they knew several of us grandkids liked drinking it - it was a treat to have strawberry pop!
I can't remember what Stan got each year as his Christmas gift from Grandma and Grandpa but the girls all got either an Avon roll-on perfume thing and $3.00 wrapped around it. I think a few years we got a handmade hot pad with $3.00 wrapped around it. No matter what any of us got - it had $3.00 wrapped around it. And several years we'd get those books of Lifesavers.
On the drive home at night my favorite sight was to see the lights of Ottumwa from a distance - it was really pretty. I remember one year when I was fairly young, Dad got stopped by a trooper - or county deputy. I immediately started crying like crazy and Mom couldn't figure out what was going on. She finally got it out of me that I thought the officer was going to take Dad to jail.
But my absolute, positive, 100% favorite Christmas memory was the year Mike and I had tickets to see the Chicago Bulls play I believe the Orlando Magic at the old Chicago Stadium on Christmas Day. The game was at night so we drove to Chicago Christmas Day and stopped at the Oasis at DeKalb. We lovingly called it the "Oasis from Hell" once we got away from it. It was Christmas Day and there were not many merry people to be found in it - and the McDonald's had run out of ice cream. We had a decent hotel room three miles down the street from the Stadium, took a cab to the Stadium and had a great time experiencing the Stadium. Because of the cold/whatever I'm dealing with, I can't remember if the Bulls won - I think they did. I'd have to go to their shrine in the living room and find the photo album to see what the score was. Driving home the next day in white-out conditions was another experience to remember too.
I'm still fighting a cold, very sore throat bug. If I could get rid of the sore throat, I could tolerate the rest. Like I noted on Facebook, I stopped at Walgreens on the way home from work to load up on Advil Cold/Sinus, kleenex, cough drops, Sprite and Chloroseptic spray. I'm walking out of Walgreens going, "where's my car?" I knew I parked a little ways down the row but I'm not seeing a blue car anywhere. I look across the parking lot - luckily it's a very small parking lot - and see my car parked at a very weird angle and realize I had not set my parking brake when I got out of the car. I drive a stick. My car had rolled across the parking lot and luckily not hit any other cars. Needless-to-say I headed home for the night.
I did miss my small group Bible study's Christmas party tonight though and that bums me. We were to wear the ugliest Christmas sweater we could find and if we didn't have one - one would be provided by our host. I've already seen one photo posted on Facebook and those sweaters are pretty sad.
Watching/listening to the Bulls and right now technical fouls are just a flying left and right.
