Like a Good Girl

"Hon, like a good girl would you please...."  It's a phrase I always think of when holidays roll around.

It's a phrase I hope I never used with my kids as they were growing up.

We had every holiday with my father's parents, who lived in San Francisco but had no car and since neither of them had any social interaction with their families we were their only family, which is strange because she had a brother and he had 3 or 4 brothers, but I never knew any of those extended relatives, except for one brother, who was my godfather, and never heard of them getting together with them.

So everywhere we went, and especially every holiday, we spent with my grandparents, mostly with my mother hosting.  Occasionally we had others at our dinner.  My aunt lived next door to us in a flat in San Francisco and for a couple of years my grandmother lived with her too and it was nice when they joined us on holidays.  But we could count on it being my father's parents and Uncle Fred, who always brought a 2 lb box of See's chocolates for us to pass around the table after dinner was over.

My father would drive to get my grandparents and they would arrive at our flat.  My grandfather greeted my sister and me by giving us each a quarter until one year when he decided that we only liked him for the money and he never gave us a quarter again.  

My grandmother would settle herself into the couch in the living room and while my mother worked in the kitchen, what passed for visiting would take place.  Whenever she wanted anything --- water, an hors d'oeuvre, or anything else, she would always say "Hon, would you please get me...."  She never got up to get anything herself,  but always asked to "hon, would you please..."  Over the course of the cocktail part of the evening eventually I would wander out to be with my mother and then pretty soon Karen would join us and then my father, since none of us could stand being with my grandmother.  My mother would have to shoo us back into the living room to be polite.

Holidays have certainly been different with our kids.  Until they started pairing up with partners, things were mostly at our house, but you never knew how many were going to be here (the most was 24).  I loved our family Thanksgiving after Walt's mother bought a condo at Lake Tahoe.  We all went up there and it was a pot luck.  She cooked the turkey and everyone else brought something to share.  My mother never came because she had remarried and so all holidays were spent with his family.  But we had such a good time.

There were games to be played, endless solitaire contests and then after dinner we always played charades, my favorite part of the whole weekend.  Watching the kids try to make things difficult for Walt's mother (and her being willing to try to act things out) was always such fun.

This year will be quite different, with only the four of us here for dinner.

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