When I was a little girl, I didn’t associate the day after Thanksgiving with shopping.
It was a day for a family adventure. The Friday after Thanksgiving, my mom dressed us in whatever matching outfits were that year’s theme, and all seven of us piled into our conversion van and drove downtown to Cleveland to take our annual Christmas picture in the Renaissance Hotel lobby, where there was a giant Christmas tree and other decor to utilize. My dad, armed with several rolls of film, would corral us into a form where all five of our heads could be seen while my mom fixed our disheveled bangs and bows.
The five of us did not particularly enjoy this portion of the day, but after what felt like hours of posing and smiling, we got to have an “Uncle Wiggly Adventure.” The term refers to the series of children’s stories about Uncle Wiggily Longears, a kind, elderly rabbit who uses a crutch and goes on daily adventures. The stories, created by author Howard R. Garis, originally appeared in newspapers, but we came to know and adopt it from a board game my grandma and grandpa had. When someone (always my dad) planned an “Uncle Wiggly” it meant you were going on a surprise fun adventure!
This usually involved somewhere to see Christmas decor - and then to a restaurant for dinner that we’d never been to. Nothing remarkable by today’s standards but this truly was one of the highlights of our year because it was the start of Christmas, and it was a surprise that my dad planned for all of us (even my mom). Looking back, it was also special because we were all together, and just us - no friends, no boyfriends or girlfriends later on - it was our family tradition for as long as I can remember. On the way home, we stopped in a park in Twinsburg that had a row of lit-up arches running through it and “walked through the lights.” This was the grand finale to our day out, and we kids really did think it was grand.
I don’t remember when our last “official” Kloots kids Christmas picture was, the kind my mom made into a card and sent out to everyone in her address book. But I love to look back at the years of them, which are still printed in 4x6 and framed in old albums. All of us in the same spot, in front of the same tree, growing slowly bigger each year. But we do still take “Uncle Wiggly Adventures” as a family. My siblings even plan them for their children now, and my fiancé and I have planned a big one for everyone in Paris during our wedding. Just hearing the words makes me feel like a kid again, about to do something wonderful with the people I love most.
As we got a bit older, I remember my mom declaring that she always felt Christmas Day went too fast.
Christmas morning had always begun at 7am, and just a few hours later, everything was unwrapped and all of us scattered to go try on our new clothes or play with toys - leaving a mess of wrapping paper and boxes. We had always disappeared for hours until dinner later that night. So, once Christmas morning was no longer about Santa coming, my mom proposed a different idea.
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