Treasured Times

Third Place, children's essays

Dakota Haraden |

12/18/2008 - 12/19/08

The year 2007 was a very sad and difficult year for my family and me. My uncle Randy passed away in June. He was only 46 years old. Then, in September, my grandfather Gus died. Soon after, my grandmother Grey passed away in November. Losing all of these important people has been very hard, especially since we lost our dad in 2002.

Because of this, my mom has become both my mom and my dad. She is always there when we need her, and she is very, very special! My mom and her family all stepped up when our dad died, and now that they are not here, our lives have changed a lot. We were very close and did everything together. They were all so important to us. Because of this, nothing is the same. Everything is so different, and this includes the holidays. To keep their memories alive, traditions are very important, old and new.

The traditions will always be a part of our holidays, but they will never be quite the same. For example, when we bake, like we do every year, it is going to be very hard. We always baked with our grandma Grey. She was the best baker and cook I ever knew. (Sorry, mom!)

We baked all kinds of things: fudge, Hershey Kiss cookies, nuts-n-bolts, tarantulas, and lots more. For the tarantulas, we would break up pretzels, cover them with melted milk or white chocolate, and put them in the refrigerator until the chocolate was hard. They are yummy!

But the best holiday cookies are called Mrs. Slade's cookies. They are called that because when my mom was growing up in Massachusetts, their neighbor, Mrs. Slade, would always bring over a plate of her delicious cookies. She would have one special cookie on top — a Scottish terrier, just like their dog, Heidi. All of the cookies were special but this one was extra special.

We will make the cookies this year, but the special one will not be a Scottish terrier. It will be a German shepherd named Wiley, who is our new dog. We got her this past summer. She is going to add something different to our holidays. She will help us with our sadness. I think it is going to be fun to watch her discover her first snow.

Wiley is going to bring new memories for us. My brother wrote in 2002 about some of our memories of our dad. It was going to be our first Christmas without him. He talked about all of the traditions we had with our dad. I am so happy we still have all the same traditions. We are still doing the same things six years after my dad's death, but it is still very difficult.

We have been able to do all this with the generous help of my mom's family. Now that a lot of the family has passed away, it makes it much harder. But we will keep the traditions going — memories included!

Our grandfather Gus loved Christmas. We called him Gus because his middle name was Mingus. He was a big part of everything, just like my grandmother and uncle. Gus would always help with the Christmas tree and enjoyed every second of it. He loved Christmas songs and Christmas movies at lot. One of his favorites was A Christmas Story. We would watch it together every year. We will still watch it and think of Gus when we do.

He also loved Christmas lights. Every year, we would drive out to Traditions and look at the beautiful lights. The lights were as bright as stars. Then we would drive around Santa Fe and see as many lights as we could. We loved that time with our family so much. Along with everything else that we will continue to do, we will look at the lights, but not as many of us will be there this year. This tradition will remind us of what great memories we had with our family, and we will remember everybody forever because of them.

My uncle Randy was a big part of our lives. During the holidays, he would help us decorate our house. Randy could do anything! We learned a lot from him. One year Randy took us to cut down our own Christmas tree. It was so much fun and we found the perfect tree. Randy knew exactly what to do. I will never forget that day. It had just snowed and it looked like a winter wonderland. We has such a good time. I am so grateful
for that.

We were so lucky to have my dad, grandparents, and uncle in our lives. I just wish it could have been longer. Our memories will last our whole lives, and our family members that have died will stay alive always. Our traditions help us keep everyone alive in our hearts.

We will always remember waking up on Christmas morning to the smell of Grey's awesome cooking, the gifts that we will never forget giving, the dinner with everyone in the evening, and everything else that made up the greatest holidays ever. We will never forget, because we will keep everything the same. We are blessed to have what we did, and we are very thankful. We will always remember our loved ones. This is what traditions do for us — they help us remember.