For Mom

This one is for my mom.

 My mother is a perplexingly complex person.

She has a no-nonsense personality composed of a sense of organization and knowing exactly where she is going. (She was born in the wrong era and missed her calling as a top military commander.) Her traits make her come across as tough and prickly. Making such an assumption (and people do) would be wrong.

Yes, she is tough as nails when she needs to be strong. But underneath that exterior, there is someone who loves deeply. She goes the extra mile for those close to her. Not many people get to see it - usually her kids and grandkids.

So, today’s writing is my attempt to begin to express how much her love meant to me while I was growing up, and to give other people a peek into why she was such a great mom.

Here we go….

It’s November, so ‘tis the season for thinking of holidays. My mom and holidays go hand in hand. They are folded together so tightly, my brain refuses to separate them.

In no particular order:

Halloween – On the surface, as you read this particular section, it may not seem like much. Having had children of my own, I now see the significance. My own kids endured their fair share of rushed Halloween evenings. The frazzle-ment was real!

Not so with my mom.

She was always ready for Halloween. No last minute scramble to finish a costume. No harried dinner and out-the-door mad dashes. Everything was cool and calm.

Trick or treating in rural West Virginia ain’t easy. In a lot of places, the neighbors aren’t close. You have to hop in the car and drive around looking for porch lights. My parents skipped the search and took me into town. I got to have the experience of walking down a street and knocking on doors. At the time, I didn’t appreciate how much more of an authentic experience I was getting. By the end of Halloween night, I was just a content little kid gnawing on goodies, thinking about all of the different houses and people.

Nowadays, I can see it must not have been easy to keep things so peaceful and traditional. As a kid, you’re blissfully unaware of the planning going on behind the scenes.

Valentine’s Day – Mom rocked when it came to this particular holiday!

First off, she always got little boxes of candy for me and my brother. We’d find them by our bed, first thing in the morning. So that was awesome!  

(Ya’ll have no idea how much I love boxes of chocolates!! They are just the best….all full of tiny delicious surprises!! I can trace this candy obsession directly back to this holiday tradition ‘cause I remember falling in lust with a particular piece that was lemon cream with a dark chocolate coating. It was some kinda wonderful since I can remember it 40 years later.)

Morning candy boxes aside, she truly kicked Valentine butt during my high school days.

Every year, my school would have a Valentine’s fundraiser which involved selling cupcakes to be delivered to your “valentine”. It was a dollar per cupcake, or something like that.

On the surface, it was a smart idea for raising funds. However, if you’re a shy and not-very-popular teenager, it’s gut-wrenching to see everyone else getting cupcakes while you have none. Zilch. Zippo.

(I still get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach thinking of the popular girls who would have rows and rows of cupcakes. You know the type. The football players ended up helping them carry the extras around. That crowd. )

((Which, good for them. They had no idea I was miserable and envious, so I shouldn’t make them out to be awful. They weren’t. My feelings were my own. <<<Therapy pays off!!))

Anyway…

Somehow my mom understood the cupcake situation. She’d buy a few cupcakes and have them delivered to me so I wouldn’t feel left out.

It meant the world to me.

I could hold my head up high and be proud of my cupcakes.

Folks, I am tearing up now writing about it. It is definitely on the top ten list of nicest things anyone has ever done for me.

Along those same lines, for my junior prom (when I didn’t have a date) mom bought me a corsage. Again, she didn’t want me to feel left out or ashamed.

((Before moving on, I want to add being kind to someone often leads to them being kind to someone else. Mom doesn’t know this, but sometimes, when I had more than one cupcake, I would share. I’d give one to someone else who didn’t have any ‘cause I didn’t want them to feel left out, either. Kindness is contagious.))

Easter – My mom was doing homemade Easter baskets before it became a trendy thing.

She’d include actual presents! To be clear, only one present per basket. It would be something like a cute plastic watch or a Barbie or a fun necklace. It was something to show she put some thought into the creation of the basket. Plus, she was super good at remembering the kind of candy my brother and I liked. (For me it was miniature Cadbury eggs! I gobble those things up in an embarrassing manner!)

And we always colored eggs. Again, with no rush or fuss.

Thanksgiving – Mom will be the first to admit she doesn’t like to cook. She has a sign that says “the only reason I have a kitchen is because it came with the house”. Despite that, I always loved the food at Thanksgiving.

Maybe it’s because my mom is one of those wonderful people who doesn’t blink an eye at seconds, thirds, or even fourths. Geez, I love that attitude!

Being a food-oriented person, Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Always will be. Mom gets credit for that because she never denied us the expected excesses or scolded us for having too many sweets. I’m so thankful for her indulgent mama-ness. ((See what I did there?? Thanksgiving, thankful.))

‘Course, maybe her generosity with food was not entirely for the sake of the children. To be fair, mom strikes me as someone who is also food-oriented. Dad, too.

I come by it honestly.

Christmas – Looking back at my childhood, it’s chock full of happy Christmas memories.

As far as presents go, some of the best were a soft plush Chewbacca, a baby doll that actually got a diaper rash, Sylvester and Tweety (which had the pull string to make them talk), a Barbie Dreamhouse, a ventriloquist dummy ((I butchered the word “ventriloquist”. Thank goodness for Spellcheck!)), and a pink and white spotted rocking horse. These were all my mother’s doing. (Well, Santa Claus, if you’re a young reader.) Mom was always the one who worried over the gifts and picked them out.

((Although, a huge shout-out goes to my dad ‘cause he made the money to buy the gifts. Without him, none of it would have been possible. He doesn’t get enough credit for working hard every day to make sure we could have nice things.))

I have such feelings thinking back on my gifts over the years. To this day, they still bring a smile to my face. In fact, I still own some of them. I have an entire pile of the original My Little Ponies and a bag full of Barbies, not to mention a few baby dolls and stuffed animals from back then. They are treasured possessions which move from home to home with me.

(There is a lesson here for current parents. The presents they remember, they remember forever. Pick them judiciously.)

Mom always decorated our rooms for Christmas, too.

In fact, she is one of those people who decorates the whole house. (She still does this. I was on the phone with her the other day, and she mentioned she is dragging out the Christmas decorations.) As a kid, this was magical. It made the holiday seem much more of an event.

I still remember drinking egg nog out of special cups, having Poinsettias tucked into out of the way spots, and Christmas tinsel with lights draped over the piano.

(Another lesson for those parents who wonder if the effort of decorating is worth it. Yes! As long as you don’t get stressed. Include the kids! Every year, my job was to clean up our big plastic light-up Santa Claus. Nowadays, light-up Santas make me happily nostalgic and get me in the mood to decorate.)

Last but not least….

My Number One All-Time Favorite Christmas Memory is one I’ve written about it before. It meant so much to me. I enjoyed making homemade bows with mom. It was THE BEST!! There was a wonderful sense of “let’s see how this one turns out” fun! Looking back, I think it was the creative process that made it so memorable.

She had a special kit, and it had these clear plastic star-kinda-shaped things. There was a stubby push pin, thick enough to poke through a box that you popped into the middle of the plastic star. Then, you took your bow ribbon and started weaving it around the star. When you felt like you had enough ribbon on it, you gently slid the whole thing off, and then you’d carefully start easing the curved bits of the bow free. I LOVED that part!!! It was delightful to see what you had created.

The greatest part was incorporating your bow into the wrapping of a gift. You would find a special present, wrap it with the prettiest paper, and put this one of a kind bow on it. It was complete giving….like “I have made this as nice as possible because you are special to me”. That kind of thing. The idea has stuck with me my entire life.

Go into good things whole-heartedly.

And there you have it. A brief glimpse into my holiday memories from growing up. Suffice to say, my mom made my childhood special. It was all behind the scenes, though, and given her tough exterior, I don’t think she gets enough credit for it.

But I know.

And my brother knows.

Now, some of you know.

I have other stories, but I will save them for another time. (I find myself working on the beginnings of a book. It proceeds in fits and starts. If I ever finish, I’m sure there will be mention of even more joyful traditions.)

Finally (on a more prosaic note)….

** If any of you know of a product like that bow making kit, get in touch with me. I’d love to have one again. I’ll be doing a bit of Googling, myself, but my Google list grows longer by the hour and is becoming a beast unto its own self. **