It may sound strange to say this, but this ornament brings back fond memories of Christmas mornings spent with my brothers. Now you may wonder how a dog in a dog house and a cat on top of the dog house would evoke such emotions, but bear with me, they are in fact my memories. If you notice the year on the dog house, it is 1989. For those of you that can do the math, that would have been the first Christmas that my little brother would have spent with the family. He was a mere 3 months old, and now, as a 20 year old, it is strange to think that he has been around that long. Maybe I am really in denial because I don't want to admit, that he is in fact 20 years old.
My little brother and I had a love/hate relationship until his early teenage years. He came on the scene and stole my position as the youngest child and grandchild and he was, to put it mildly, a punk. I mean look at him now, can't you tell he is a punk? Maybe not...I digress. Having that kind of love/hate relationship with him, I avoided or pestered him for most of his early years and did little to foster a friendship with him. I am thankful, however, that cooler heads have prevailed in the last 10 years and my brother and I have been able to become friends.
My older brother, Brandon, and Nick and I have a very strange relationship...as exhibited by the dog and cat in this ornament. Living in peaceful coexistence, even though at any moment we could have snapped at each other. How my mother survived summers with all three of us, I will never know! Hopefully she will be able to provide much needed counsel in the coming years as we, God willing, will have sibling issues in our own house.
Christmases in our house were always spent waking up as early as possible....Yes even 4 am on occasion, because I was too anxious to wait to see what Santa had for us. We would all sit around the Christmas tree and begin the carnage that most refer to as unwrapping gifts. In the orgy of tape, ribbon and paper, we three would often find time to see what the other was opening to assess the "playability" of the toy being opened across the way. But the real fun came after all the paper was cleared away. We would display our treasures and pick out what we wanted to play with first and spend time as brothers enjoying our gifts. Even though we are now in our 20s or 30s (Brandon...old man!) I feel like we can still have those moments together! Albeit, now we have more sophisticated tastes so we quote obscure movie lines while opening presents...as indicated by the Ghostbusters quote in the title...
On a side note, I had a moment today where I was swept into a flurry of emotion. I was in the kitchen listening to a song and for some reason my mind settled on my cousin Gene. Gene passed away about a year and a half ago and there was just this deep desire to talk to him and more importantly to hug him. Gene was like a bigger brother to all of us and I hope he felt as much a part of us as we felt included in his circle. He was a bear of a man and there was something about getting a hug from Gene that was special. It wasn't your average hug, it was a full body hug. More than once I think he realigned my spinal column with his hugs! I think its funny how memories can flood back into your mind at random times and for some reason my mind was consumed with Gene. I miss seeing him at family functions and I miss his laugh. In this Christmas season, I hope you find yourself consumed with loving thoughts of family members past and present. May those happy thoughts comfort you in the days to come...
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