Christmas Eve

We would start our Christmas Eve tradition by going out to eat at a nice restaurant. We would all head out to the car and then mom would say something like, "oh, I forgot my purse, you all go on ahead and warm up the car and I'll be right out." She would be out in a few minutes and then we would be on our way. Every year we went to El Charro's restaurant. I always ordered shrimp, I've always loved shirmp even as a small child. The first time I ordered them I had checked if it was okay with dad because the price was a bit higher than other choices. That was the one night of the year that we could order anything on the menu we wanted. I had had a bite of shrimp before so I knew that I loved it. The first time I had my own plate of them I really went to town, no one had told me that they had tails!! I just thought that part of the shrimp was really crunchy!! Of course I knew better all the following years when I also would order shrimp.

After we finished our meals we took a drive down "Christmas Tree Lane". It was a beautiful drive with all kinds of lights and displays. It was quite enchanting to us kids--some of the displays would move around and some were just gorgeous lights. It was a fifties version of all the "Christmas in the parks" and "Boulevard of ligts." Sometimes when we were finished looking at all of that we would drive through a few neighborhoods looking at their lights. Then either mom or dad would say something like, " I wonder if Santa Clause came yet?" I would imagine you can guess what three little girls in the backseat said. So we all decided to go home and check to see if he came or not.

Guess what, while all five of us were gone for the evening, Santa had come and left our gifts for us! Talk about excited!! So we got to open our gifts. We all took turns opening a present so we could see what everyone else was getting too. When we were small, Michelle and I always got new dolls, we loved to play with dolls and kathy had already outgrown playing with them . Kathy did get a beautiful doll to set on her bed one year--I can still remember what it looked like. One year Michelle and I got Terri Lee dolls, bunk beds for them and a little closet to hang their clothes in. We also had a metal dollhouse that you put together by putting the metal tabs into the slots and then pressing them down. Nothing like Barbie's dreamhouse!! It was kind of small but then so were the people and the furniture.

We always got a new dressy outfit to wear to church. After the gift opening, we had time to play with everything for awhile. Then we put on our new dresses and went to Midnight Mass. It was always such a beautiful service with the choir singing religious Christmas songs.

I knew this one would be very long. Hope you all enjoy it!!