Cold air from the open car doors bit my nose and cheeks as Dad packed packages and suitcases like a game of Tetris.

Next to me, my teenage brother was already grumbling about the upcoming long drive. He was wearing a set of headphones and a Walkman, U2 blaring through the speakers.

This was the beginning of our annual trip from Pennsylvania to North Carolina, where Mom was from and her family still lived.

I don’t remember how my brother and I kept ourselves entertained for that eight-to-ten-hour drive. I know we argued part of the time. The other part was probably spent listening to music and me playing with my stuffed animals. I didn’t read because reading in the car made me car sick and still does. When I was older, I may have written in my journal, took photographs, or drawn.

Mom still likes to tell the story (often) of how one year, after we attended a service at a church an hour from us the pastor’s wife asked how she could pray for us as we started our journey. Mom asked her to pray that we children would get along.

The pastor’s wife prayed that we children would sleep soundly the entire drive and that would keep the peace. We did sleep the entire trip — all the way to North Carolina, but let me say, we did leave in the middle of the night that year so, yeah, of course we slept. Still, I do remember how I felt like I was in a coma that year and how even trying to wake up to see where we were lasted only a short time because I’d knock right back out again – even when it was morning and we could have woken up.

I’m sure my mom needed the prayers for us to get along because my brother was the issue, by the way, and not me.

We always knew when we were in North Carolina. It had a certain smell to it – a smell of pine is how I describe it. Plus it was warmer than where we had come from.

We almost never had a cold Christmas in North Carolina.

There are eight years between my brother and me so there were many Christmases that I went with my parents without him, probably because he was in college or married.

One Christmas it snowed when we were in North Carolina. It snowed on our drive partway through the state until we reached Jacksonville, where Mom’s family lived.

Once we hit grandma’s neighborhood it was fun, yet not fun, to watch drivers slide all over the road because they weren’t used to the heavy snow. Dad, a born and raised Northerner, had to show some of them how to get unstuck out of snowbanks without digging themselves in further and the right way to stop in icy conditions.

In my mind the snow piled up in crazy amounts on my grandmother’s street and around her house, which may or may not be accurate. It may just be my memory inflating it. I’ll have to ask my parents. All I know is that we were usually in short sleeves at Christmastime in North Carolina so that was a very weird year.

My grandparents’ air conditioning was usually running full force all of the time, even on Christmas Day.

Leaves from pine trees crunched under our feet in her small backyard and everything smelled warm and inviting. Sometimes the whir of helicopter propellers overhead would fill the air. These were military helicopters from Camp LeJune – located less than half a mile away.

My grandparents lived in a neighborhood with houses built close to each other, which was different for me since I’d grown up in a house surrounded by woods and little else.

Before my grandfather passed away, I remember arriving late at night and seeing bowls of oranges and nuts under the Christmas tree, illuminated only by the lights from the tree and maybe from my grandmother’s Christmas village.

Grandpa always had to have oranges at Christmas and while that tradition continued after he passed away, I don’t remember it as much as when he was alive.

The house was always decorated when we arrived and smelled vaguely of cooked collared greens, which Grandma or my aunt Dianne were getting ready for Christmas dinner.

In later years my aunt also made sausage balls, which is a tradition we continue to this day in her memory. Gifts were already sitting under the tree when we arrived most years.

I don’t remember a lot about the gifts we received from my grandparents except the year my grandfather gave me a Santa Claus with a Pepsi logo on his big black belt. My cousin received Mrs. Claus and I was always jealous because I wanted the Mrs. and not the Mr.

I was never big on Santa. I knew from a young age that he wasn’t real. Mom had always felt it was important I understand the real reason for the season and that Santa had come from a real historical figure but that it was Jesus we celebrated that day.

One year Grandpa bought us both “bear rugs.” They weren’t real, of course, but they were rugs that looked like bears. Mine was a panda.

There are complex feelings about my grandpa in my family. He wasn’t a nice man when my mom and her sisters were growing up. He wasn’t a nice man at times after that either. He mellowed later and tried to make up for the times he wasn’t a nice man but part of the family still resented him for things he had said and done when his daughters were young.

I have mixed memories of Grandpa. I have memories of him loving Christmas and giving his grandchildren gifts and I have a vivid memory of him getting mad at me very quickly when I wouldn’t pose just right for the photos he was taking with his new Polaroid camera.

I wish I had been older when he was alive and could have even better memories. I can tell from the smiling photos I’ve seen now that I am older, he wasn’t always miserable and in fact had a lot of happy moments – especially at Christmas.

On Christmas Day, my other aunt, mom’s other sister, would arrive with her family and, though I hate to speak ill of the dead, they took over the house when they arrived. Whatever bothered them had to be rectified. If it was too hot for them, they demanded the AC be turned up. If they were too cold, which didn’t happen often, the AC had to be turned down. If something was too loud on the TV – which it always was for them – they demanded that it be turned down.

If they were hungry, we ate. If they’d just eaten then we had to wait.

If they were thirsty then we needed to make the sweet tea  with a ton of ice – stat.

When I became a teenager, I found myself sitting inside whatever room my parents were staying in to avoid the onslaught of their presence. Once they settled in and down, I snuck out and the rest of the visit was usually pleasant. Some of the hardest laughing sessions I had were with my aunt, uncle and two cousins.

My female cousin, closest to my age, was hot and cold. Some years she was friendly and the next she was less-so. I never knew what I was going to get. We only saw each other once a year so I was fine if she didn’t think we should be best buddies. She was very girly – with make up and doing her hair and dressing up. I was more of a tomboy who’d rather be drawing or journaling or reading a book than caring about what I looked like.

When I think back to Christmases with her as a teenager, I most commonly picture her with her nose in the air. I know. I’m horrible, but that’s how she was until her ice began to melt as the day went on. When she started dating it was ten times worse.

Once she warmed up, setting her ice queen persona aside, we would laugh and draw together and make memories that I try to hold on to when I now think of the negativity that later developed between us.

On the other side of the coin, my male cousin was the same every year and never seemed to make everyone act a certain way before he offered his affection.

We normally waited to open gifts until after my aunt and uncle and cousin arrived. They had their own family gathering first and then would come and we’d have a bigger family gathering. There may have been some negative moments when they first arrived, but when we got into opening gifts and dinner and “visitin’” as they called it down south, there was so much laughter and love I felt like my heart would burst.

I miss those days terribly.

My aunts, my uncle, and my grandparents are all gone now. I no longer speak to my cousins for a variety of reasons, partly physical distance between us.

What I wouldn’t give to sit in those rooms again with them all alive and laughing.

I am grateful for the memories I do have, though.

When I close my eyes, I can see Aunt Dianne at the stove cooking collard greens. She’s laughing and being slightly off-color, but not rude or crass. (She’s the aunt who later moved in with my parents and who I was able to grow close to during that time.)

My great aunt Peggy has just breezed in the front door with a pecan pie and a debate about how to pronounce “pecan” is launched.

Behind her is my uncle Johnny laughing that deep, hearty laugh he had as he grabs my dad’s hand and shakes it firmly. They used to be roommates in the Air Force (which is how my dad met my mom since Johnny was dating Peggy, Mom’s aunt, who is very close in age to her).

Aunt Joan and Uncle Mike are in the living room by the tree singing. Uncle Mike is playing his keyboard. Aunt Joan is singing in that deep, but beautiful vibrato she had.

My cousin Aaron is playing a video game on his portable TV and his sister is checking her makeup with her new mirror and makeup kit.

My grandma is in the kitchen at the table, watching it all unfold and talking about her latest conversation with Jesus. (She literally spoke to Jesus. I’m not mocking her. She was in constant conversation with him. Sometimes out loud.)

Mom is helping with dinner and anything else she needs to help with because she loves to be there for others.

Dad is in the back bedroom doing last-minute gift wrapping (a common theme for our family), wearing a sweatshirt that reads, “Wise Men Still Seek Him.”

My brother is watching an old movie in Dianne’s room and I’m sitting on the loveseat writing about it all so 20 years from then I don’t forget it because remembering it all is what helps to keep not only my family members alive but the Christmas spirit in me alive.

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This post is part of our Comfy, Cozy Christmas. Don’t forget to share your Christmas memory posts or any posts related to Christmas on our link up HERE, or at the top of my page.