winging it today...sort of a holiday story

It's one thing to just look in my journal, and pull-out notes from another memory by way of this reliable source.  It's quite another to just wing it.  So, here I go. 
My sister and brothers say they don't hold the same memories that I have.  But, they also say they can't remember much of anything, of what happened when they were younger.   My husband is the same way.   His younger memories are very vague and foggy.  That has always amazed me.  Not that they do not remember their past childhoods...but that I do. 
Hundreds of childhood memories are forever etched in my brain.  For good or bad, my childhood memories just keep playing over and over.  A smell of some scent...a brownie...a certain item...like an aluminum clad, silver christmas tree complete with that circular, tri-colored, rotating light...things like these automatically trigger my memories.  Yeah, that's what my mom liked...she thought it was very modern and visible from the road...which so doesn't explain another memory of her reaction to an ultra-modern plastic black, orange, and yellow pole lamp that dad bought her for a gift. 
Actually, truth-be-told, dad wanted it located by 'his' chair... so he could get a better look at those girlie pictures.  But, he made it out to be a present for mom...so she'd accept it and put it in her living room.  Did not go over well.  She said she would have to take it back and get something in an early American style.   That was when dad blew-up.  We kids knew it.  All of us were cringing in our seats...hoping against hope that our mom would smile and lie, and say she really really liked it.  But no, mom had this way of pushing dad's buttons.
So, that gift ended up in about a zillion pieces, as dad vented and took it out on that poor lamp.  I wasn't too disappointed that time.  That was one ugly lamp.  Mom later told me that honesty is always best no matter the outcome.  And then she added, she just couldn't stand the thought of having to look at that hideous lamp in her living room. 
She had picked her battle, and had decided that whatever flack she got from dad was going to be worth it, not to have to live with that lamp...but we all had to put up with that stupid silver aluminum tree year after year... see