We used to have these family bingo games every week. And my dad would be the caller, call out the numbers. And I would take it so seriously - I always wanted to win. I hated to lose and really got upset if I lost. I'd bribe people to change cards with me, so I'd have a better chance of winning but I always used card #3. It was fun, we laughed a lot. My grandmother always won.
My mom used to take us a lot of places, not just us, but other kids in the neighborhood too. In December, she'd take everyone to go see Santa Claus. In the summers, on her days off, she'd take us all to the beach. We'd get there really early, like eight in the morning and stay all day. And then at night, she'd take us to drive-n movies. Sometimes on Friday nights, we'd all pile in her bed and watch TV - only we'd usually all fall asleep right away! Those times were special cuz my mom worked so hard but all her time off she spent with us.
Halloweens were real cool at our house, my parents always made a big deal of it. We had a playroom in the basement and they'd make it like a spook house. They'd get dressed up as skeletons or ghosts and try to scare us. We'd always have parties down there, every Halloween, bobbing for apples and stuff like that. Two years in a row, me and Mark got dressed up like ballerinas, in tutus - it was hysterical.
Christmas was our best time as a family! See, it was the most important, special day of the year to my parents and they'd save all the rest of the year to make it wonderful for us. Like they'd spend all this money on presents for us - you couldn't even walk in our house, for all the presents around. I think for a while they made me really believe in Santa Claus cuz they didn't make a lot of money, but on Christmas there'd be many presents for all nine of us! That shows how dedicated they were to us.
And my best memory is of Christmas morning. We'd all wake up, all nine of us, like at four in the morning or something, and sit, lined up on the steps, waiting for our parents to wake up. We wouldn't go downstairs to that tree, with all those presents underneath, until they woke up. I don't know why we were so good - but we were. As soon as they did wake up though, we'd all go tearing down the steps and dive into our presents. One year, I'll never forget, there were nine bikes around the tree.
But presents weren't the real reason Christmas as the most special. It was more the warm, loving feelings that we all had for each other. My mother made such a beautiful tree and the house would be lit so nice. It would be snowing and she always played her Johnny Mathis Christmas tape. Man, I would feel so Christmasy it was beautiful.
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