Rosemead Christmas

As I am sitting in the Denver Airport waiting to board my flight home to Oklahoma City I am reminded of the very first time I ever flew on a plane when I was in the third grade. We were living in Tucson Arizona with my mom. For Christmas Jenni and I flew to LAX, all by ourselves, to spend Christmas with my Dad, Rebecca and her whole family. I am sure that we must have spent time with the Kinkade family in CA, but I don’t remember that. What I remember, what stands out most about that year, was the Casares Christmas in the house on Guess Street in Rosemead.

I think that may have been one of Grampa Roy’s last Christmases, or maybe everyone always showed up for Christmas? All the cousins were there, Amber, Anna, Diana, little Mike, Laura and even Uncle Rick’s girlfriend (ex-wife?) was there with baby Jeremy. I think Uncle Roy was working for a radio station at that time, because all the kids got ball caps with the radio call sign on them. Rebecca had waited until we were there to do the Christmas shopping for the cousins, (what was she thinking?), so we went with her to the mall. Jenni and I paid careful attention as Dad and Rebecca made their purchases.

As soon as we got back to the Rosemead house the very first thing we did was blurt out what everyone was getting for Christmas. DOH! I can’t imagine that anyone was too pleased. When we opened presents Christmas day I was surprised as everyone else that ‘Santa’ had given what I thought was little Mike’s gift to Diana, Amber’s gift to Anna, Laura’s gift to little Mike, etc. Someone got a set of jacks, and Rebecca and Aunt Nancy showed us kids how it was done. I had never seen adults play jacks before, but they had some serious skills.

After presents there was an amazing Christmas meal. Gramma Lucy had made a ham and all the fixing, plus red chile, rice and beans. A first for me. I’d like to say I loved the red chile, but I did not have the taste for spicy foods as a child that my boys do now. Other things I remember, endless games of tag (man could Diana run FAST), and hide & seek (NOT IN THE HOUSE), and in general the kind of family fun Christmas you would want for a child to experience.