Grandma | bekahcubed

Flashback: Dressing Up

October 29, 2010 6 Comments by bekahcubed

My family didn’t celebrate Halloween. We had candy and tracts to give the kids at our door, but we never dressed up or went trick-or-treating. At least, almost never…

Today Linda asks… What was Halloween like when you were growing up? Did your family participate? If not, was there a substitute activity? If you went trick-or-treating, what were the rules, both for trick-or-treating and for candy consumption? What types of costumes did you wear? Were they store-bought or homemade? Did you carve a jack-o-lantern?….

The year in question was the year my family was at Grandma and Grandpa’s farm over Halloween. Grandma seemed scandalized that we hadn’t ever gone trick-or-treating and she determined to remedy the situation.

We went digging through the dress-up boxes and scrounged ourselves up some costumes. My sister and I wore some old dresses that used to belong to our twin aunts. I’m not sure precisely what Anna was, but I was a princess-crowned with great-grandma Pierce’s Bicentennial Queen tiara.

Once our costumes were assembled, we loaded into the van for trick-or-treating. With the nearest neighbors a half a mile (ish) away, we didn’t have the option of walking from door to door. Instead we drove to one great aunt and uncle’s house to another. At each house, we stopped and chatted while drinking cider and enjoying homemade popcorn balls or other such treats.

In all, we probably visited a half dozen houses–and ate most of our booty at those same houses. It was pretty much the ideal Halloween’s trick-or-treating outing.

For all of our not celebrating Halloween when I was young, I sure managed to learn to enjoy dressing up in costumes. Now, I jump at every opportunity to wear a costume. I’ve been Richard Simmons at a birthday party. I’ve been a superhero during a “spirit week” the dining services staff held at Harper. I’ve been a biker chick for a youth group “Sponsor Hunt”. I’ve been a Nebraska football player (in their off the field uniform of wife-beaters and baggy sweats worn below the buttocks.) And, in my coup de etat, I’ve been an old woman.

I’ve blogged about a few of those costumes–click on the picture to hear the story.

Hear other people’s Halloween stories at Mocha with Linda’s Flashback Friday Meme

Everyday Life, Reflections

Wamma-Wampa’s

September 4, 2009 1 Comment by bekahcubed

I can’t say when we started calling Grandma and Grandpa’s house “Wamma-Wampa’s”. I imagine it was someone’s early lisping first phrase–a corruption of “Gramma and Grampa’s”. But it caught on and now we rarely call it anything else.

In the past when we’ve visited Wamma-Wampa’s, it’s been at least a half dozen of us–if not throwing in several families together to make a couple dozen. Dozens is the way they come at Grandpa and Grandma’s house. They had a dozen children, and their dozen have been faithful to multiply.

Which is why today’s visit is so unusual. Me and Mom and Dad join Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Ruth to make only a half dozen even. The three of us arrived less than half an hour ago, after the others were already in bed. Mom and Dad found the bedroom in the basement–and I was left to pick my room upstairs.

To pick. Imagine it. To have my choice of the three upstairs rooms (not including the landing). I didn’t have to determine whether it would be best if girls or boys stayed on the landing, who needed to be in the three-person room or the two-person room or the one-or-maybe-two-if-necessary room. I could just pick. I chose the three person room–the room I’m most familiar with.

At many a previous visit, I slept on the short twin bed by the door while Anna and Grace shared the full by the window. Now, I have set myself up on the full bed, just me. The window is open and I know my head will be congested by morning, but for now I don’t care. For now, I’m just enjoying the quiet that isn’t really quiet of the country.

No train whistles, no traffic, no car alarms, no domestic disputes. I can’t make out a single cricket, but the combined music of hundreds forms a pleasing lullaby, begging me to leave behind my city-folk worries and just be a child at Wamma-Wampa’s again.

Alas, in this too, this trip is different. I’m here on break, but not really. I have fifty papers with me to grade, four texts to peruse, and a sheaf of journal articles to review for my thesis proposal. This is a working holiday, and I’ve borrowed my sister’s laptop for the journey.

Which is yet another way that this trip is different. Instead of being unplugged, I’m more “wired” than I ever have been before. With wireless internet throughout the house–I can now blog whenever I please. But I also have to respond to students’ e-mails, input grades on blackboard, and maybe get some research in.

I’m already weighed down with the tasks I have for this weekeng; but I’m wishing, longing, hoping for something beside. I’m hoping that I can take a moment, just a brief breather, to enjoy some sort of holiday. I’m hoping to just once lose sight of all that must be done and spend some time just being.

As life grows busier, it becomes harder and harder to find that place. But if that place can be found, I’m pretty sure, I’ll find it at Wamma-Wampa’s.

Family & Friends

Spring Break Plans

March 8, 2005 Leave a comment by bekahcubed

I’m super excited–my Grandma just e-mailed me back about spending Spring Break with her and Grandpa. She wrote, “Grandpa says, ‘tell Rebekah we would be honored if she would spend her spring break with us instead of going to Florida.’ I second the motion.” So, I’ll go up on Monday morning and stay until Wednesday or Thursday. I so need the opportunity to rest, to focus on Christ, to get away from everything. Traveling, in and of itself, isn’t enough. I don’t need to get away from a place. I need to get away from doing. I need to go to a place where I can just be. Grandpa and Grandma’s is that kind of place–as Grandma said in her e-mail: “Life here gets pretty boring so you should be able to do a lot of reading, tv, walking, cedar tree cutting, and maybe even a scrabble game or two.” There’s nothing I’d love more.