My favorite Christmas memory
My favorite Christmas memory is when I was a kid, my family would go to a place called Pajara Dunes in southern California. My family from all over the world would show up and we would finally get to see how much each other had changed and grown.
My great-grandma Gatto would rent the house right on the beach and the only reason to this day why I can pick that house out of all of them and there were a lot was because it had a blue roof and a big 3 on the side of it. My favorite part about the house was that it had a big bay window right on the overlook view of the ocean.
Every morning we would wake-up and go sit in front of the window and eat a bowl of cereal and drink our morning drinks.
The house was beautiful and everyone always forgot their problems and anything bad in their lives when we were there and together. My family has been going for about eighteen years, and sadly, this past August my great-grandma Gatto pasted away. After she got sick about 3 years ago we had stopped going, and to this day we miss her and the house very much.
This special time holds many memories to me. I remember when I was about 10 my uncle was outside washing off the seashells we collected earlier that day. It was dark outside when out of nowhere a skunk came up from behind my uncles. Five minutes after they came in my uncle walked in and everyone in the house ran to another room because of the smell he brought in the skunk had sprayed him. The only person who would go anywhere near him was my great-grandma Gatto and she just wanted the smell gone to save everyone else in the house, so she took him upstairs and made him take a tomato bath. It was the funniest memory I have of that place and I don’t think anything can top that.
Another memory was when my cousin from Encinitas, California got into the cart that you can use when you need help with your luggage. When he got in it I pushed him down the fifteen-foot flight of stairs that you use to walk down to the beach. My cousin made it down the first seven and after that he flew out and rolled down the rest of them and he never even got a bump.
When my mom and dad split up it was hard to keep going because I would have to spend Christmas day without one of them, and I didn’t want to do that.
Even with the changes, this place has remained a special part of me. Now that my great grandma is no longer with us we will probably stop going, but her dream for a special place will continue in our hearts. We will have a new opportunity to start a new family tradition now and I can’t wait until this Christmas.