A sister for Christmas

As many of you know, I am the oldest of six. There are four boys after me, and I spent my entire childhood either hoping that baby in my mom's tummy was a girl or wishing she'd hurry up and get pregnant again so I could win the sister lottery the next time around.

I was the lone girl (and a prissy one, at that) for a very long time. One of my favorite games as a kid was to dress my brothers up as girls (the oldest three of them even had girl names that I'd call them when we played the "sisters" game).

I give you Laurie and Una, Christmas 1979:



Like I said, for years and years (and years and years), I prayed that I'd have a sister. In late 1986, I got finally got one. (By then, all the boys were done playing the game - done and then some... and I'll probably get more than one "I hate you" comment and/or email for posting the pic that I did up there... so I was happy as pie to finally have a girl to dress up in holiday garb.)

I give you Laurie and Katie, Christmas 1988.



Sweet poinsettias, eh? (Also, how much are you grooving on my circa 1987 turquoise/leopard print shirt? Pretty hot stuff, right?)

I have so many fun memories with my sibs. From going out into the woods to chop down the tree (a tradition that I completely loathed and abhored at the time, as I'm sure any of you who know how very NON-outdoorsy I am can imagine) - to the building of our own Christmas tree pizzas on Christmas Eve - to the watching of every movie Santa brought on Christmas day - to the wrapped up dolls and cans of food storage under the tree. My word, we've had a lot of fun. We've done a lot of stupid things. We've laughed a lot. We've sung a lot of songs. We've eaten hundreds of pounds of fudge. I could go on and on.

I love my family. As an adult, I love every one of my siblings and wouldn't change a thing about any of them (read: there's no part of me that would ever want my brothers to wear a dress and pretend they were my sister).

I love the memories I have with all five of them (plus in-laws and next-gens), and I look forward to the years of memories yet to come!