The other evening I was sitting on the floor, looking through old photo albums, and I became very nostalgic and sad which, I guess, was a double whammy. I’ve been doing this every year, and I don’t like it. People are expected to get on a “holiday high” right after Halloween and stay that way until January. But that is impossible and many end up in a state of depression which is not good. I remember Christmas at my grandparents when I was a child. Santa Claus came, and it was exciting and beautiful. My dad came from a family of nine, and everyone was always there with their kids. One Christmas I was sick and couldn’t go up the road to grandfather’s house, so Santa Claus came to my house - - upstairs to my bedroom and delivered my presents! I’ll never forget that. In those days no one was divorced, and people didn’t talk about diseases or when they had their last BM. People did die, but there weren’t doctor visits all the time like there are these days, probably because some of the diseases weren’t even known yet. Maybe the adults talked about those things, but I didn’t know about it. So as a child, I felt very loved, safe and secure.

When I grew up and married and moved to the city, we always came back for Christmas with our girls to my parents. We then went to grandfather’s house and Santa Claus came with presents, but by then it was their great grandfather’s house. The pictures above are of two different Christmas times there, and I’m so happy my girls were able to enjoy what I had years earlier.

Now my girls have their own kids and live in different cities, so there is no “grandfather’s house” waiting for us. But we all will be together. Much has happened to us over the years, but we’ve managed to survive it all. I think the nostalgia kicks in when I think of those times when I was a child and had loving parents that always made me feel safe. I miss them and that feeling. I just hope their dad and I made our girls feel loved and safe when they were young. But I’m no longer a child with parents and supposedly I’m all grown up now, so I think I better quit sitting on the floor and looking through old photo albums. Maybe I’ll do something really grown-up and get the “Wall Street Journal” and read it cover to cover. On second thought, I think I’ll see if there just might be a re-run of “Law & Order” someplace on TV. Now what could be more grown up than that?