Grandparents

My paternal grandparents are unfortunately deceased. My grandmother passed away in 2006. Christmas hasn't been the same without them. For me, Christmas is almost synonomous with them. For some reason, I miss them very much this year. I've been thinking about them a lot lately.

They lived around an hour outside of town, and rarely came to town to visit us. It was mostly us visiting them.
So you knew that when they did come to our place, it was a special occasion. It was almost something holy. Hearing their voices in our place was really something.
I had this annual Christmas Eve tradition growing up, I would take a long bath with either scented oils from the body shop or some funny bubble bath. I clearly remember this bottle of bubble bath in the shape of Fozzie Bear from the Muppet Show.
There'd be incredible excitement in the air, because it was Christmas Eve, the best day of the whole year.
I'd be in the bath, trying to casually read a book or comics, in an attempt to contain the feverish butterflies in my stomach.
All of a sudden, the front door opens and I could hear those familiar voices. They never used the door bell because that was simply not done in the village where they lived and certainly not when you were visiting family members.
Now that the grandparents had arrived it became impossible to stay in that bath one more minute. Although I would force myself to stay in the tub for just a few more minutes anyway, just so that I wouldn't appear too anxious.
Calmer, more restrained kids were the ones to receive more approval in our family.
I definitely didn't belong to this category.

My grandfather would be sitting on a chair next to the window in the kitchen, smoking a cigarette. This was before smoking inside and around children became a big no-no.
He would always talk about what traffic had been like on the roads.
My grandmother was more laid-back. She would sit at the table. Her short hair was curly, either from her last perm or from hair curlers.

Then we had coffee and cakes and cookies. Sometimes my father's aunt and her family would join us, in which case everything was even more thrilling. I loved it when we were all together. It meant it was a special occasion indeed. Just having the grandparents there was a big deal.

My grandpa would always tease me in the same way every Christmas Eve. At least three times he would ask me, in this very teasing voice, if I was nervous and excited about the Christmas gifts. He'd say my face was white with excitement. Which it most likely was, but of course I'd vehemently deny it and get angry about the mere suggestion of it. As I got a little older I developed a new strategy of answering calmly and casually instead of getting mad.

Then as I got older, he continued to tease me in the same way. It wasn't until I was in my mid-twenties that he stopped. Soon after he that he passed away. At the time, when I was a kid, his joking would annoy me, since I always tried so hard to appear nonchalant and cool about the presents. Now I miss it, oddly enough. I simply miss their presence.

It's just not the same without them. It's like something is still missing after all these years. This year I'm being very nostalgic.