You Forgot Cranberries, Too?

Christmas has come and gone, and the New Year looms large with promise and unwanted responsibilities. But I'm not ready to give up the warm fuzzy yuletide glow just yet, so I'll leave the resolutions (and there are plenty of those) for later. My Christmas trip got off to a shaky start. Three hours on the Thruway with only FM radio is almost always a bore, but it's especially brutal at Christmas, as a good third of the radio dial is given over the same few holiday songs played over and over. Yes Mariah, we know you can shriek, and yes George Michael, we know you gave him/her your heart last Christmas. Ugh. Anway, I was already past Port Byron when I finally heard a song I like: Christmas Rapping by the Waitresses, a song which always puts me in a better mood. By the time I reached Liverpool I was actually full of Christmas spirit, but the clock was ticking and I had things to do. Laundry and wrapping presents while my parents were at church, and then off to my brother's house for Christmas Eve celebrations, featuring a house full of people and food and games and fun. Even the Grinch would have been forced to admit it was really nice. Later on my dad asked what I remember most about Christmas. It was a surprisingly tough question to answer because for so long our Christmases followed the same format, so I remember specific events rather than the year they occurred. I remember the year my brother and I got an electric race track, and as our bedtime came and went, we were told we could stay up until the next time a car went off the track. I think we set a world record for how slowly and carefully a toy racecar could be driven, but we got to stay up for a while. I remember the time my brother and I chipped in to get a coffee maker for my parents, and my brother was so excited he told them "it rhymes with toffee breaker!" a good week before Christmas. I also remember being severely punished for what I did next.