Last week’s Monday Listicle prompt was suggested by Christine who writes the blog, A Fly on Our Chicken Coop Wall. It’s ten traditions remembered from growing up.
1. As the family would head into Jersey for our vacation to Wildwood each year we would be bursting at the seams. As soon as we would see the sign that announced Wildwood was x amount of miles away we would start the chant:
Grown up in the front: Everybody say Wildwood!
Kids in the back: Wildwood! WILDWOOD.
This would go on for a few miles or so until someone, most likely Leaky, started crying or my sister and I started fighting and got in trouble.
2. Growing up my grandmother’s….friend(?!) lived in the back room. He was an older gent who was nice enough but was really this cigar smoking, reclusive type of who was kind of curmudgeonly and kept to himself. When it was time for dinner it was the job of the kids to get him out of his room and down to the table. My sister, cousin and myself made up a song (of course) that went
“A one! A two! A one, two, three hit it! Mr. Bob c’mon and eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeat!”
3.Holidays as children with no responsibilities used to be fun. I remember being able to hardly stand to wait one. minute. more. During Christmas my mom would take pity and allow for a “Personal gift” which would usually be something like pajamas so we could open a gift before we exploded. We sort of lost that tradition but I want to start it again. I liked the idea of a gift before the gift of gifts.
4. When my sister and I were in elementary school my mom would hustle us up in the morning, getting us ready for the day and then would drive pack us into the car to drive us to school, a special treat since school was literally right around the corner. What we would really do instead of going to school is play hooky and spend the day at a museum, the zoo or a movie. When I asked Mom about this practice, as an adult, she said that kids need mental health days too. Well said.
5. My grandmother used to get up for work at around 4am and, if we spent the night at her house, my sister and I would beg her to wake us up. When she would she would always make us eat soft boiled eggs or allow us a sip of her (puts hair on your chest) coffee.
6. My sister and I would tease our aunt, well because we could, by sitting outside of her room and calling, “Charleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeene!” When one would get out of breath, the other would pick it up. This was because we could.
God, we were annoying.
7. Holiday time again. My mother would load us all up in the car and we would drive around looking at Christmas lights. Each time we would see lights on houses, trees, cars, Boathouse Row we would shout, “There goes some!” which inevitably evolved to sound like, “Digglesome.”
8. My mom’s friend sold Avon. In fact, someone always seemed to be selling Avon and would always give us the samples. My sister and I would make our selves up (red lips, blue shadow, lots of rouge) and put on little variety shows which included original songs and dances with accompaniment from the Mickey Mouse organ that I had and loved.
9. I really think one of the reasons I am as good a storyteller is because my mom and aunt used to make us act out books. We had a copy of Richard Scary’s Nursery Rhymes and would have to act them out. Among my favorites, Taffy was a Welsh Man, Jack Sprat (although I was always sad that his wife was fat) and Little Miss Muffet.
10. The last one is a little more recent, kind of cruel but so darned funny. My mom had this snowman decoration, about 3 feet tall, and we began to place it around the house and scare each other with it. It started innocently enough…one day my mother went to get something out of the kitchen and someone had moved the snowman and Mom was startled and then it became a thing. We would place it in the shower, the bed, the top of steps, closets…fun times.
This whole post was fun and, of course, reminded me of Fiddler on the Roof!
Tell me, what traditions do YOU remember from your childhood?
Share in the comments.
I got help from the family for this stroll down memory lane. It was a blast!
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