Tag: dailyprompt-1829

I’ll be honest in saying that any prompt regarding family can be difficult for me, which anyone who knows me can say is true, having read my story.

That being said, I also told you yesterday that I am committed to answering each daily prompt with sincerity and honest effort. The only safe answer surfacing this morning, is Pajamas… and I will do my best to explain why.

I was born into a family that practiced a religion that forbade celebrating any secular holidays. This means no Birthdays, No Christmas, No Thanksgiving, No Valentines, No Mothers Day, No Fathers Day, etc. You should be getting the picture! The only traditions my family participated in and left in my memory banks, were ones that I’d rather not remember.

I wrote a story some time last year, regarding me trying to secretly create a Christmas tree next to my bed, on the eve of a holiday that everybody else got to celebrate except for me! 

I made a point to do this tiny tradition for several years in a row, before eventually running away from home and leaving that life behind. I was approximately 11 years old when I left that place for the last time.

The reason I share this sad bit with you is because it is linked to the only good tradition that I hold dear to my heart, even now! Christmas has to be my absolutely favorite season, bringing with it an entire world of traditions shared by many… it is heartwarming, touching, and beautiful to me.

When I was 15 years old, living in a fostering facility that kept me hidden from my family, I got my first taste of what Christmas was, being given the opportunity to spend the holiday with a very wealthy family that did things up big for C Day, if you know what I mean… it was the most love I’d ever been given by anyone, and I’m not even talking about the gifts. 

It was my first time feeling like someone had noticed the child that had been forgotten. They made me feel like I belonged there, instead of being treated like they were only babysitters. That experience started me on my journey of love with Christmas time.

I’d lived there about a year before a family, that volunteered at the home, took me home with them and fostered me for the next several years until I graduated high school and moved on. One of the things my foster mother did each Christmas morning was placing a brand new set of pajamas and a new pair of slippers, at the end of my bed. Honestly, you could have given me nothing else for a gift and I would still have been elated. There is nothing like the feeling of climbing into a pair of brand new, freshly laundered and folded pajamas… then follow that up with pulling on a fluffy soft pair of slippers to go with the jammies. To this day I have the same feeling, upon wearing a new pair of pajamas and slippers… utter bliss!

This is the one tradition that I can think of that I have always loved, continuing it’s practice with each of my three daughters, every year that they were growing… perhaps they now do this for their little ones, as well.

There ya have it folks… I answered the daily prompt, without getting too far off track down rabbit holes resting in the ditches of my memory lane.

Here, have a cookie…

I left two choices because I don’t know what everyone wears…