Christmas Remembrances

            While I was wrapping gifts in colorful Christmas paper, I suddenly had a yearning for some Kentucky Fried Chicken. I am not sure if it was an actual hunger or whether the memory of Christmastime with my grandparents Edson and Anna Beck. They were in their mid-eighties by this time and what to get them for the holiday became a problem for my wife Cindy and me. Mom told me that when she helped Grandma clean their bedrooms, they still had clothing wrapped in their cellophane just as they came from the stores. They were stacked neatly in their dresser drawers.

            They’d reached the age when Grandma didn’t decorate the house for Christmas any longer. Gift buying for them became more and more difficult, until I learned they liked Col. Sanders’ secret recipe. After that, it was easy. I would go the Connellsville, Pennsylvania restaurant and buy a bucket of chicken with all of the fixings about a week before Christmas. Kentucky Fried chicken was a gift that they enjoyed and that they used. Because they ate so little, they were able to dine on it for entire week. At least, we never found any chicken tucked away in cellophane in their drawers.

            My wife and I also began to buy a Christmas tree for them. Not one of the large ones, but the ones that were about fourteen inches high. They were sold with a few decorative bulbs already on it. That would be their Christmas display. Granddad would water it and keep it in the basement after the holiday and when spring arrived, he would plant it in their back yard.

            My brother-in-law Doug Basinger and my sister Kathy bought my grandparents house and has remodeled it. The house looks wonderful. Doug occasionally complains about the pines in the back yard. There must be ten of them that have grown quite large and overshadow his garden.

            In another posting, I may share later is about the Nativity set I bought for them. Grandma kept it up all year and claimed the coveted spot on top of their T.V. I now have it and show it off each Christmas.