Wednesday, December 24, 2025 – Day 498

Wednesday, December 24, 2025

Wednesday, December 24, 2025 – Day 498 Good morning, everyone.
Merry Christmas Eve!🎄

When we were kids, Christmas Eve meant piling eight young kids into the station wagon and heading to North Chicago to visit my grandparents. They lived right next door to the family business—Ratajack’s—on 14th Street, just a couple blocks west of Abbott Labs (now AbbVie). From there, we’d make another stop at the home of one of my dad’s childhood friends: “Rich Uncle Marty.” He wasn’t our uncle, and he wasn’t rich…in the proverbial sense. He was a lifelong bachelor and apparently, that alone earned him the nickname.

This was the 1960s, maybe the very early ’70s. Neither stop was particularly kid-friendly. I’m sure we were repeatedly warned not to touch anything in either house. I don’t remember a single toy, game, or distraction…so the boredom meter was off the charts.

The trip to North Chicago felt like it stretched late into the night, though in reality it was probably only a couple of hours. We just needed to be gone long enough for my mom’s closest friends—Lois and Ann, both unmarried—to work their magic back at our house. While we were away, they would secretly decorate our dining room table.

When we finally returned home, the transformation was complete. The dining room had become a magical wonderland of colorful paper goods. I can’t recall the exact details now, but it was different every year—and every year we were amazed. To us kids, it felt like Christmas miracles happened while we were gone, and we never quite figured out how.

Looking back, the visits themselves mostly register as boredom in my memory. I wish I could say we had fun, but my grandparents weren’t about fun—they were about hard work. That’s what I remember hearing and seeing. Still, if I could talk to them today, I’d love to understand their lives better. I know it was a tough existence, but there had to be more to the story.

May your gatherings tonight, on this Christmas Eve, be filled with family and friends—where stories are told, laughter bounces off the walls, and peace and love rise above everything else.

Have a wonderful Wednesday, and good luck to anyone braving last-minute shopping.

Love you guys! ❤️

Photos