Christmas Memories

So who's ready for the Christmas holidays? What, no shouts of joy do I hear? Do I hear a few shouts of happiness and giddiness? I hope so because this is the time of year for celebrations, family and the joy of the birth of our baby Jesus. There is no other time of year that compares with this Christmas season.

This post is dedicated to the memories that we all have of holidays past. I know that you have quite a few of them yourselves. There is one in particular that I think of every year when I watch my favorite all time Christmas movie. The slapstick comedy and laughter gets me every time. The movie I am talking about is of course, "National Lampoons Christmas Vacation". This movie brings so many wonderful memories back to me. Good times with family!

I remember the first year I watched this movie. Believe me there is not a Christmas since that I haven't seen it either. The first time was many years ago, the first year it came out in 1989. My family went to the theatre to see it together. My little brother was all of 12 years old at the time and one of the biggest comedians. He loved to share laughter and jokes. Anyway, the family loved it. We were still giggling for many weeks afterwards.

But one particular weekend about two weeks after seeing the movie we all shared a huge laugh. You see, my families septic tank became stopped up. I remember very vividly that it was cold, we had a light snowfall, which is uncommon for us in Arkansas. My parents, sister and little brother and I were all out in the yard doing something, but Dad was working on digging out the septic tank. Not a chore he was fond of or happy about, let me tell you! When he finally got it all dug up and we were standing there looking at it, my little brother, the comedian, looked over at Dad in all seriousness and without missing a beat or smiling he said "Dad, the shitter's full". We all stood back to see if he would get into trouble for saying the word "shitter" and was half scared to laugh at him for it. We could hardly contain our laughter at this point, but Dad finally caught on to what he had said and then in the next breath he also burst out laughing. We all totally cracked up at this point and it helped a whole lot to put my Dad in a better mood! I swear that as old as I may live to be we still talk about this at Christmas and try our best to still get together and go to their house and watch this movie together.

I hope every single one of you who read this post has a wonderful memory of something at Christmas. I would love to hear them. Share one with me and help me get into the spirit of this holiday. Aw come on, one won't hurt ya.

I'll leave you now with one of the songs from the movie. In fact it's one of my favorite Christmas songs for the season.