The Terrible Catsafterme

It wasn’t Christmas. It wasn’t even a reasonable facsimile of Christmas. Traditions had been broken all accross the board. For starters, we held our annual Murphy family gathering two days after Christmas on Saturday, December 27. The reason for this revolved mostly around Mom staying at Denise’s house through Christmas and the day after so she could be with her for a good portion of the holiday. Denise was unable to travel in her pregnant state…doctor’s orders! And for this reason, the Murphy gathering wasn’t held at Mom’s house either, where it had been held for closing in on a decade. Darlene quickly stepped up to the plate and hosted for the first time in about a dozen years.  Read the rest of this entry »

By sleeping on the loveseat at Denise’s house, I naturally woke up at some ridiculous hour like 5:30am, got some water, and listened to my new headphones for a while. I dozed back off, and by 8:30 I was greeted with Adam’s smiling face. He was investigating the new presents which had miraculously appeared under the tree. He didn’t want to hear anything about Santa Claus because he is scared of him. So we (mostly I) told him that the penguin and moose that he met at The Beach waterpark holiday fest would be bringing the gifts. He was perfectly fine with that. Read the rest of this entry »

This Christmas celebration marked a distinct departure from events of the past dozen years or so in many ways. I had hosted Christmas Eve (which is the major family Christmas gathering) every since 1995 (with the exception of one year), but this year the honors went to Denise and Aaron. This was mostly because Denise had been ordered by her doctor not to travel since it was so close to time for the new baby to come. And because Mom was going to be staying in Columbus until Friday, this also was a deciding factor that we would not get together with her family on Christmas Day, but two days later on Saturday the 27th. In addition, this was the first year in many that Briana did not attend the celebration. This was because she was in Florida with Billy and Jill for the holiday. And finally, this also represents the only year that someone gave a gift that I had given them back to me…right on the spot! Read the rest of this entry »

This year in our installment of photos from early Murphy Christmas celebrations, color comes to the Murphy family as we enjoy these photographs from the Christmas of 1967. Some appear to be taken on Christmas morning in the house on Cunnington Lane, while some later in the day for the Murphy family Christmas party. This in fact was not so much a ‘Murphy’ gathering but rather a ‘Murlin’ gathering, since the siblings present were those of my Grandma’s.   Read the rest of this entry »

Of all the pictures I’ve located of me during my childhood, there are perhaps none so comforting as these – at least to me. It is unlikey that anyone – including my parents – can quite understand what they represent. But for a two-year old, I’m sure there is nothing quite so comforting, nothing so safe, as your own home in the company of your parents. Read the rest of this entry »