More like the black ones, if they were brown. Dad also had a very "Mike Brady" look about him at the time.
Yeah like that, except Mom isn't blond nor is she white and there were only four kids and we aren't blonde either and we DEFINITELY didn't have a maid, although Christel was always over at our house. No, our family looked more like this at the time.
Yeah that is more like it. Mom had that Bon Jovi-esque hair do (the photo is actually Kathi Wolfgramm of the Jets--does anyone remember the Jets, MAN I loved them around 1988 too), I know Carly would have only been 11 yrs old at the time but he's looked 25 since he was ten and I definitely had the Ugly Betty look going on.
Anyways imagine if you will those cast of characters one icy, cold, wet Missouri night laying around watching America's Funniest Home Videos or In Living Color and looking like the biggest slobs on the face of the planet. I'm sure we'd have laundry we were supposed to be folding cushioning us on the floor as we loafed off and watched TV. I'm sure Mom would have come in at least 5 five times asking us when on earth we'd quit "farting" around and start folding clothes. Yeah it was usually nights like that when either she or dad would have felt the complete NEED to say "OK you guys turn off the TV and get your coats on."
"Where are we going?" we'd ask like a pack of mangy hyenas.
"We are going to see the Christmas lights"
"Yipee, Can Christel go?" I'm sure we would've asked that right away.
Christel was my Aunt, but she was only two years older than me and one year older than Carly, so she was pretty much part of our gang. Plus Christel really never did much, cause Grandma and Grandpa were too old to do fun stuff (wait did they "ever" do fun stuff?) and also Uncle Henry lived to terrorize her so it was such a relief when we'd pull up and yell for her to come with us somewhere.
So I'm sure it took a half an hour to load up in our nice Brown, conversion van (we lovingly called it "nightmare on wheels"). Which it really was. It just wouldn't work sometimes and it didn't matter where you were, on a side street, in a parking lot, on the hi-way. It never mattered, we'd always have a near death experience while riding in it--but to a group of unruly kids, that made driving on a wet, icy, Missouri night "that" much better.
So here we'd all be packed in the car. Adri would be mad cause she'd want to sit in the front and my Mom would remind her that she's only four and Carly had longer legs than all of us so he'd have to sit in front. Me and Christel would sit in the "captain chairs" and Flint would be all bliss sitting in the very back with Adri and Mom. Where Mom would be whipping up festive treats like tuna fish sandwiches and Aldis Chips (doesn't that SHOUT Christmastime--man we were so abnormal).
So yeah now comes the completely fun part. Dad would pick some swanky neighborhood. It usually was Ramsgate in Independence, cause at the time it was the closest swanky neighborhood--sometimes we'd go to the Cliffs, but mostly it was Ramsgate. Then Dad would drive like .5 miles per hour as we went down like every street there was in this nice, neat neighborhood. I don't remember playing Christmas Music, but Dad would always seem to tell us some sort of Non-Christmas story like the time he and his cousin Benny saw Uncle Roy and Uncle Wayne and some of the other cousins skinny dipping at a pond (do I have this story right?) and he and Benny stole their clothes and hid them in bushes or something like that. And then Mom would tell us about how Grandpa Ah Mu would have her, Aunty Uku and Uncle Henry race around the house and Grandpa would always hold her skirt when she passed by him so Uncle Henry could beat her. Then our topics of conversation would get a lot more funny and way less Christmas spirity. We'd start making comments about how that lit up Santa reminds us of so and so, which would start down long funny stories about different "characters" we knew around town.
And let me just inform you all that Independence Missouri is not at a loss for very strange, bizzare personalities.
Then we'd brake into our "King Vele" impersonations and starting singing songs that were only funny to us such as:
"King Vele goes down to the Food Barns"--after which we'd all burst out laughing like the pack of mangy hyenas that we were. Yes I'm sure those people at Ramsgate would look out from their beautifully lit homes and see this coming
and grab onto their expensive, brand new cordless phones and just watch and wait to make sure we weren't trying to scope out the neighborhood for goods to steal.
And I'm not lying we would actually see people open their shades and peer out the window with a look of terror on their faces. This made Christmas light more fun too so we'd just drive even slower (if that was possible) and maybe if we were lucky the van would sputter and die and Dad would have to ask us all to pray for the car (which we always did and which ALWAYS worked!--Christmas miracles are real people).
It's funny because this really is a FOND memory and yet I don't have that tingle of a warm, fuzzy Christmas. It's memories like this one that makes me remember the feeling of always being such a rogue to the norm--like an outsider always peering in and actually liking never being part of the crowd. But that was my family and I love them for it.
