Chapter 44: Christmas With the Grannies | My Southern Gothic Life

Another new post is up on my other blog.  I’m rather prolific this week…

All the Christmas Drama and mayhem at our house was off set by the simplicity of Christmas at Granny’s.

By this I mean, my Mother’s Mother, not my Father’s Mother, who was safely packed away to the State Hospital for the Insane in Staunton and, later, Petersburg.

But we did have to go visit my Father’s Mother, Granny Susie, AKA Susan Catherine Rush Michaels,  sometime around Christmas.  This was always an ordeal.

This was before there was an Interstate Highway to Staunton, so we had to travel along winding mountain roads to get there.  With not many restaurants or gas stations to stop.

A few times, my Great Aunts wanted to go along.  Aunt Lily and Little Mary were her sisters and her brother Joe’s wife, Big Mary, usually went along, too.  The one trip I remember was when we still had the station wagon- before Daddy flipped it coming home in an ice storm from Earl’s Bar and Grill.  They were all lined up in the back seat in their black wool coats, hats and white gloves.  Aunt Lily would always pack her lunch and refuse to share it.  When I was about 5 or 6, I asked once and she told me I should have planned better.

Link to full Post:   Chapter 44: Christmas With the Grannies | My Southern Gothic Life.