Just Simply Jen

So this weekend was a big one for me. I haven't been on a road trip of any sort since June of 2005 and I haven't been with my family for any kind of Christmas celebration since 1997. This weekend I was able to fit both things in.
Saturday we left well before dawn even thinks about showing up and headed down towards Louisiana. Temperature wise, the second we hit Oklahoma there was a huge difference. We went from below freezing to icky hot. Not fun. Other than that it didn't look all that different. We ended up taking forever to get through Texas because of traffic and other little things. The trip through Texas was so stressful that, as soon as we hit the Louisiana state line, my son shouts "We escaped Texas!!!" It definitely felt like an escape to all of us. Nothing against Texas. I'm a big fan of the state. We were just ready to be here.
Sunday we spent the day with my entire family, minus one cousin, at my grandmother's house. Since some of the people have to work for Christmas, we did it this past weekend. I haven't experienced this in so long and it really wasn't all that different from when we were younger. Family visited. We all ate too much. Games were played. Overall, it was a really wonderful day. There were a few moments I could have done without but it was worth it. Actually, seeing how happy my grandmother was to have everyone there and watching my grandfather get choked up over his Christmas gift(a frame with a picture of him as well as my dad and uncles all in uniform when they were younger) made it all so worth it.
As if that wasn't enough, I was given a gift that day that will hopefully be passed down to my son and on and on. My grandmother has always been a quilter as was my great-grandmother. When they were married, my parents had quilts on the beds that they were given and my sisters and I all had baby quilts. Mine was big enough that I slept with it until I was in my 20's and it was falling apart from use. After my great-grandmother died, most of the quilts went to my grandparents. I have loved them and the history and time they represented since I was 13 or so. I have been saying since my later high school years that I wanted one. My grandmother always just smiled and we moved on. She made lots of quilts and it was always the same story. Well Saturday she told me she had something to show me and started showing me this great quilt I recognized the squares as being fabrics I had seen all my life. Some had been used in clothes for my sisters and I. Some had been from my great-grandmother's scrap collection and others my grandmothers. As usual I was awed and loving it when, to my complete shock, she told me it was mine. She had made the top for it and then had some women she was friends with do the rest. The top part is what would matter anyway as that is where the love and sentimental value is. What got me is she did all of that specifically for me because she knew how much I wanted one. I always thought I might eventually inherit one of the older ones. It never occurred to me that one day I would have one of my very own. It wasn't a Christmas gift, just something she wanted me to have. It was also a big secret everyone had kept from me. If I didn't get another gift this year, that would be more than enough. Even now I get tears in my eyes thinking about it. I'll post pictures of it later.
Today I learned two things. I learned that when you are a kid, some things just seem so much bigger and I also learned that some people just won't change no matter how hard you wish they would. I would have been perfectly fine not learning the second one but oh well.
The bigger thing came when I ran by my mom's house to drop something off. She recently moved back to where we lived from mid 4th grade to mid 6th or 7th grade. As we pulled into the trailer park, I noticed that the walk we used to get to the bus stop all those years was much shorter than I remembered. In fact, the entire place was much smaller. The place was our playground for all of those years and the yards seemed so big and the walk so long. Now it all is just really small. I was amazed at how much my perception had changed.
I don't feel like getting into the other thing right now. Maybe a little later when I'm not tired and still sensitive about it.
The best part of my day, aside from buying stuff for my son with someone else's money and getting to eat my step-mom's awesome cooking again, was going to see Christmas lights. It was so much fun. Some were just as awesome as I remembered and some were so much less. I don't think the less was perception because my step-mom felt the same way. I felt like a kid again. So many of my few good memories are from this time of year and I have been enjoying reliving them again with my own son. I will post some of the pictures from the lights when I'm home as well.
I am really grateful that my husband agreed to come this Christmas. I don't think he will ever fully understand how much it means to me. I'm so blessed.