11 Days Till Christmas!

Day 15:

The past few days I have found myself looking back at past Christmases rather than at this up coming one.  I know this year will be one of the best Christmases ever because I will be home with my family and that is the best gift I could ask for this Christmas.  Time with my family is always amazing and full of laughing, stories, great food, and great company.  I wish I was a good enough writer to explain how much my family means to me, how great our times together our, how I cannot wait to be home with them however if you have read any of my blogs you know that writing is not my strong point.  So take my word my family is great and we all fit together like a puzzle each one of us completing another and so much a like yet so very different.

Anyways one of the memories I have been thinking about has been that every Christmas we have spent at my grandmas we always would wake up to have a candy cane and a $2 bill in our stockings that she would hang on the banister going down the stairs.  I can see her dark brown floor, the bells on the front door handle, the dark wood on the stair banister, the wreath by the front door with lights on it, the picture lining the stairs of the family, the greenery she would wrap around the banister and the stockings she would hang so clearly.  I close my eyes and can feel like I am there with the smells and sounds feeling so real.  Two years ago was the last time I got to experience a grandma Christmas and sadly it was the last. 

Last year we joked about where most $2 bills come from and my grams admitted to knowing.  She use to get them from the bank however the past few years got them from a guy they call Randy Ran Dazzle who was a substitute bus driver and also owned what we will just call a dance club.  We all started to make jokes about the creases that were on our $2 bills. 

That conversation, the laughter and smiles of my family around the table that day is something I remember very clearly and hope to never forget.  Every time I see a $2 bill I now think of that and all the great Christmas mornings at grandmas waking up and finding a candy cane and $2 bill in my stocking, and can't help but think about how lucky I am to have had a woman as great as her for my grams.