Picture number 1: Butch and Linda possibly circa 1951. This picture of us being Roy Rogers and Dale Evans was taken in Grandma's living room at 11 Grove St. At the time, Grandma and Grandpa lived on one side of the house and Eddie and Pat lived on the other side. This may have been the year that Bill built the railroad layout for Dickie. Not sure.
Picture number 2: (Old) Grandma at Jean and Louie's (in the "big" house) Christmas Eve with Gary and Danny wearing their cowboy gear.
Picture number 3 -- A Christmas Eve with Gary and Danny receiving even more dangerous gifts. Hmmmm. One might wonder what the heck the adults were thinking.
Picture number 4 -- Not too jolly looking Grandma, Jean and Fred (my father) Christmas Eve at Eddie and Pat's when they lived on the hill in the "small" house.
Picture number 5 -- Linda dressed for Christmas Eve at 11 Grove awaiting company and gifts. Charming.
Picture number 6 --- Yet another Christmas Eve at 11 Grove after gifts opened. Linda in "her" chair by the window. Normally, her mother, Ginny had one couch; her father, Fred had the other couch and only child Linda Jean had the chair. Fine.
Picture number 7 --- Butch, Great Aunt Ella (Old Grandpa Better's sister) Dickie and Linda -- Christmas Eve at Jean and Louie's in the "big" house.
Picture number 8 ----- Ginny, Linda and Fred ---- same year at Jean's. (More about that below).
Picture number 9 ----- Linda and Dickie. He received a Webcor Hi-Fi that Christmas (picture taken at 11 Grove on Fred and Ginny's side of the house.) Linda, using her mother's typewriter, is typing in names of records he received to go into the record case he got with the hi-fi.
Picture number 10 ----- A 1950's Christmas at 11 Grove Street, home of Fred, Ginny and Linda.
Picture number 11 ---- New Year's Eve Ann, Bill and Ginny
Picture number 12 ---- Same night ---- Ann. Cards still up at Ginny's from Christmas.
The Unorthodox Better Family
They say everyone has a "tell". Christmas Eve was ours. The best and the worst came out on that night. Too much anticipation; too much food; too much booze; too many diverse opinions with not enough knowledge ---- stir that up and you have the makings for "Christmas memories ~~~~The Reality Show."
The Better family consisted of Grandma and Grandpa. He was a not always pleasant drinker of German decent, and she an English/Irish teetotaler. Together they had four children ----- Bill, Jean, Ginny and Eddie. Caustic wit was inherited from Grandma and the weakness for drink, from Grandpa. These four offspring married people from other backgrounds, of course, and they themselves produced five offspring.........Dick, Butch, Linda, Gary and Danny.
Every Christmas Eve the "Family Better" gathered at someone's house. They took turns hosting the gathering but there was no special order to the schedule. During the early 50's everyone bought everyone a gift and all the gifts were brought to the designated house on Christmas Eve. After a while, the adults decided it would be better for them to draw names. The kids still received gifts from everyone. Traditions that may have been common to those who married into the family were basically set aside. An exception to that would be Eddie and Pat who had Gary and Danny open a portion of their gifts on Christmas morning. If someone had garnered a costume, Santa Claus would arrive around 8PM and we would open gifts for however long it took. After that the adults would adjourn to the kitchen or dining room table to play cards, eat, drink and eventually argue about who killed Jesus. After ample time, some got ready to go to midnight church services in whatever condition they were in at that point. My mother and father ( Ginny and Fred), were in the choir at the Episcopal church. I was in the junior choir. Pat was the only Catholic and couldn't eat before midnight Mass so in addition to being hungry, she constantly had to defend her religious practices. Unfortunately, Christmas Eve was the best night for arguing about religion, in the opinion of the "Family Better". If religion wasn't the topic of heated debate, then the rules of a particular poker game had to be hotly discussed. For instance: "After the Queen".......... just the card after the queen is wild or are queens wild? When another queen is turned up does that cancel the other wild card from after the first queen? "No Peek Baseball" Threes and nines are wild and with a four you get an extra card but is it turned up right then or put on the bottom? Arrrgh. Meanwhile, Dick was too old to be "playing" with us, so he was watching or was in the card game. Butch and I were occupied with whatever games or toys we got and Gary and Danny were mainly fighting about one of them touching the other ones toys. Later on, Butch and I would stack pennies for our parents as the poker game went on. All the adults smoked except Grandma Better. We were in a haze and didn't realize it. The food was great and the laughter, despite the ritual arguing, was hearty. Every year the same..... no matter which house; no matter if snow fell that night or if Santa showed up in person or not.
And then a few months after the Christmas of 1958 my father and I said good-bye to the rest of the family and that was pretty much the end of my childhood memories of Christmas Eve in Mount Morris, New York, until I had my own children but that's another story.....................
Uh, aces and jacks and the king with the ax, a pair of sevens takes all. Now, is that natural sevens or can you use a wild card???????
