30 Days of Thankfulness Day 2

Today I am thankful for my grandmother.  We always called her Granny.  It was by her own choice that she was called that and I'm sad to say I don't even know why she chose that.  I know when speaking of her maternal grandmother she always referred to her as Granny, so I'm guessing it had something to do with that.

Growing up, my grandmother was my primary caregiver.  My parents were very young when I was born.  (I was born a year after they married and they married at eighteen.)  Their primary focus was on making money.  I was dropped off very early in the morning at my grandmother's house, long before school started, and after school I was at my grandmother's house until my parents got home from work.  Often my parents would go away on the weekends and leave me with my grandmother.  Honestly, this was for the best.  My mom will tell you to this day she was never cut out to be a parent.  In all honesty, my parents should have never had children.  Be that as it may, my grandmother provided me with a stability I would have never had otherwise.  She also taught me a lot. 

My grandmother was a strong Christian and from as early as I can remember church, the Bible, praying, vacation Bible school, church camp, etc were a part of my life.  For this I am very thankful.  If not for my grandmother, I know I would not be saved today.

My grandmother also instilled in me the importance of learning and gave me a love for learning.  She helped to develop my mind and push me to excellence.  My grandmother was the one person who never said I was stupid when I was growing up.

She also gave me my love of reading.  My grandmother read constantly.  She often said if she didn't have a book to read then she would just read a phone book.  I have to laugh because I have often found myself reading the cereal box when I'm trying to eat quickly and have deprived myself of reading material.  Growing up, we used to go to the library at least once a week.  We checked out tons and tons of books and we read every one of them.  My favorite books were the horse books by CW Anderson.  There was a series, Billy and Blaze, and I loved them!  He had other horse books outside of the series that I loved as well.  To this day, I wish I had his books!  They were just lovely and I spent many long hours enjoying them.

Correspondence is another gift only my grandmother could have given me.  I love to write letters.  Growing up I had pen pals and, to this day, I still correspond with my friends.  Yes, I use email, but some of my family and friends will also get a handwritten letter from me.  I can't count the number of times someone has said to me that they are so thankful to have received my card because it was just what they needed at that moment.

So, yes, today was all about my grandmother in my thoughts.  She's been dead many years now, but the gifts she gave to me are timeless.  What has been mentioned here is only a smattering of the many gifts she gave me.  There is so much in my daily life that I can attribute to her teaching and influence.  I am glad she picked up the slack and raised me.

Christmas Challenge 2012 -- Day 16

Day 16 -- When did you find out Santa wasn’t real?

We never did the whole Santa thing.  Sure we had some Santa decorations, but it was always made clear where the presents really came from.  And, yes, there were visits to Santa in the mall for the obligatory Santa Christmas picture, but it was clear this was just a silly little tradition.  Santa was presented in the same way that a fairy tale was presented -- It was not true and was just for fun.

I've had some people say that I missed out on some huge childhood milestone by not having my family lie to me.  Really?  I think I'd have been more scarred if I'd found out later my family had been lying all those years.  The most important thing we can give our children is honesty.  If you can't be honest with your children, who on earth can you be honest with?  Are you even honest with yourself? 

Presenting Santa as true would be like presenting the story of Cinderella, Snow White or Beauty and the Beast as true.  Surely no parent goes about presenting those as true.  Why then would you present Santa as true?  Is honesty not important to you?  Do you not value your child's trust?