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«©» Aaya. 12 . PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, December 17, 1991 KEN RANKIN PLUMBING Christmas N ever (Joes Out of Style In the spirit of peace and and joy, we offer greetings and thanks to each of you. RICK LAROCQUE ELECTRIC We will be CLOSED December 24th to January 3rd, 1991 By Amanda Robinson Christmas is a favorite time of year at the Robinsons. It is full of simple, yet beautiful traditions that are truly all our own. It's one month until Christmas, and preparations have to be made. Us adorable children have already handed out our one hun- dred paged typed reports on what we would like for Christmas, and our parents have promptly thrown them out, unread. Boy, some people have no sense of humour at all! We have also managed to eat all of those cute little chocolate shapes out of the Advent Calendars without anyone noticing - that is until the first of December. Another tradition of ours is the finding of the "perfect" Christmas tree. So there we went, all seven of us crammed into our car, on the ultimate quest. After searching through acres and acres of cut your-own Christmas trees, we found it}-The perfect tree! Unfortunately it's on so- meone's front lawn. Oh well, such a beautiful tree wouldn't match our house anyway. After sear- ching for this long we're so cold and tired that any tree looks good, so we grabbed it. So what if it's ten feet high! So what if it's ten feet wide! So what if it's a maple tree with a chipmunk living in it! (Just kidding - we're not that 'crazy - but close)! We're off! With our tree strapped to our roof we "sing" Christmas carols until dad can't stand it anymore and turns on the radio as loud as it can go until we shut up. At home we all try to shove our tree through the door, but of course it won't fit. So we trim off a couple feet. With our tree two feet too short, we drag it in the door, But, because it's ten feet wide, we kinda knock off a few hundred pine needles. Oh well, we'll just have to clean it up after we get the tree up. We put our lovely tree up in its cute little To our growing 'family' of customers, who we also consider our friends, may your holiday yield happiness and love. BLACKSTOCK COUNTRY CONVENIENCE STORE Don, Ginny, Sharri & Tim Masterson stand, and begin to plaster it in assorted decorations that range from homemade thingamaligs, to plastic birds, to a paper angel that we put on top. Not to mention the ten sets of lights and the garland. After all this. the tree looks. , like it's going to fall over! But beautiful just the same. After we've done all this the family room looks extremely messy. With pine needles, broken bulbs, and decorations spread across the room, it looked like we had a se- cond tree that exploded all over. At this point, we all have a sudden urge to go drink some hot chocolate and clean up later, much, much, later. It's Christmas Eve already! The time sure did go by quickly! It seems like only yesterday we were searching frantically through crowded shopping malls for the perfect presents for our friends and family. Oh yah, it was only yesterday. On this particular night every year the Robinsons have a very special tradition where we all gather around the old...television. Every year we all sit down to en- joy such Christmas classics as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Garfield's Christmas, It was the Night Before Christmas, and yes, everyones all time favorite! Fros- ty the Snowman On Ice, with just a twist of lemon. We carefully avoid all the "'Christmas With A Whole Bunch of People You've Never Heard Of, But Would Rather Spend Christmas With Than Your Own Family Because You Hate Them And You Don't Have Anything Better To Do On Christmas Eve But Sit On Your Butts And Watch Television!!! We avoid those awful things every year - we hate true stories. 'At about ten o'clock we all head up to bed. But...we'll be back! Every Christmas we make a point to get as little sleep as possible. So every ten minutes we run downstairs and use such excuses as: "I had to go to the bathroom," or "I thought I heard a burgler downstairs," or "I thought that dad ate Santa's cookies, I was just checking," or "Aliens brainwash- ed me and forced me to come downstairs...but I'm o.k. now, don't worry...I'm telling the truth, really!" When we get caught by a cranky, impatient parent, who has much better things to do than chase naughty, yet incredibly cute, children back to bed. Finally, at about five o'clock in the morning, us children decide that we've been in bed long enough. So we tip toe downstairs and go to the Christmas Tree. For a while, we stare at the brightly decorated presents that overflow from under the tree and cover the floor. We stare and drool. Know- ing that we can't open the yule time packages until seven o'clock, when our parents wake up, we make some 'accidental' noise. Like tripping over something and falling, or shaking presents real- ly loudly. Then when mom and dad wake up angry and deman- ding coffee, we can say; "Sorry mom and dad, we didn't mean to wake you guys up. I guess we were just a little too excited." After they have a few cups of coffee, we are allowed to...OPEN PRESENTS!!! So with a fly of coloured paper, the ceremony begins. We rip and tear open the packages until there's nothing left to de-paper but the walls. At this point we're all suppose. ' to help clean up, but as we look across the devastated room, we suddenly have an urge to go get dressed and clean up later...much, much, later. Christmas day mostly consists of playing with new toys, trying on new clothes, getting a pile made up of presents given to us by distant relatives that are too hideous to even consider keeping, and having good clean family fun. This means having a snowball fight or playing poker (not betting with money of course...well o.k....but not much money). : In the evening the Robinson family sits down to a huge feast of turkey, stuffing, potatoes, and gravy. This is my absolute favorite part of Christmas, because once a year we all sit together as one big happy family. As I look down the table at my family members, who are shov- ing food into their mouths and smiling and laughing and joking I think, this is what Christmas is all about. It's about being together and I wouldn't trade it for a million bucks! Py 3 oF 2a PUNE ar Dic Rs A Ry ? "aT AR : poe ROGER B. MOASE CHARTERED ACCOUNTANT WE tn I I SET ER Is tbr, 1 IR ET I A -------- Ee a SHRI ATS SRN VEU QS VY fips Wit 4 a ---- ON CN ----