I dedicate this house to the Griswold Family Christmas

Clark: Our holidays were always such a mess.
Clark Sr.: Oh, yeah.
Clark: How'd you get through it?
Clark Sr.: I had a lot of help from Jack Daniels.

- Christmas Vacation


As we draw closer to Christmas my memory starts to invoke past holiday traditions that are no longer. Around this time of the year, my brothers and I would moan and begrudging fall prey to our mother's well wishes to attend caroling in Jackson Square. It wasn't an age old tradition, just one that my mother started recently and decided to inflict guilt upon us for not attending. So with that being said, this year I won't be there and I don't even know if it's still being held.

What once was? How I do remember those crazy little things about the Christmas holidays. I once remember that my parents couldn't afford a flocked tree, so instead my mother would buy Dove detergent soap for us to coagulate into a white powdery substance and douse the tree with the stuff. We ended up getting more on us than on the tree, but the highlight of the night was putting the stuff in my brother's hair when mom wasn't looking. I distinctly remember my mom pulling out the Time Life Christmas Albums. What a beautiful thing to hear Bing Crosby sing Rudolph or to hear the soothing sensation of Nat King Cole gliding across the room as we hung ornaments.

One year my pops got the Clark Griswold notion of chopping our own tree down. So we hopped in the back of his red datsun truck with a cover, and drove an hour to chop down a Christmas tree. All I can remember was me and my younger brothers spreading joy to the world as we marked our territory among a patch of Christmas trees. I remember the year my uncle dressed up like Santa only to have my younger brother pull his beard off in front of everyone. How traumatizing. It was a blast. Always a story, a memory, a feeling that will never be forgotten as Louis Armstrong would sing...It's Christmas time in New Orleans...