The sisters first Christmas, 52 years ago.
Patty and Debbie became sisters on Nov 6, 1966 but they did not meet until Dec 21, 1966.
Patty was almost 2 1/2 when Debbie was born. Deb, who was due the end of December arrived 7 weeks early and didn’t come home from the hospital until Dec 21, the first day of winter, 1966.
As you can see from the picture Patty was delighted and happy to be a big sister. Debbie, I’m sure was happy to finally be home.
Patty was a terrific big sister right from the beginning. She helped me take care of Debbie and when I would give Deb her bottle Patty and her new dolly would join us. Her doll was almost the same size as Deb, Debbie had been only 3 lbs when she was born and had to be 5 lbs before she could come home… so yes, she and the doll were almost the same size.
Since it was so close to Christmas when Deb came home I wanted her to be a surprise to her grandparents when they arrived on Christmas morning. Patty was under instructions from Santa Claus not to tell anyone that her new sister was home, and since the request was coming from the big guy himself she didn’t utter a word to anyone.
However… my mother called one evening and just at that moment Debbie, who was in the same room with me, began to cry. Oh oh. My mother asked if that was a baby and I said no. She said she didn’t believe me. She asked again… ‘is that baby home from the hospital?’ I said yes but that I had wanted to keep her a surprise until Christmas. My mother kept her composure but I could hear the crack in her voice when said how happy she was but that we shouldn’t tell my father… let him be surprised on Christmas morning.
So Christmas morning arrived, along with a 24 hour stomach bug which hit me pretty hard. I managed to get out of bed long enough to greet my parents at the door. Patty was all bubbly and happy to see her grandparents and they were showering her with plenty of attention.
Then my dad glanced at the tree. He looked closer. I could see his eyes moisten when he realized that the baby in the baby carrier under the tree was NOT a doll but his new granddaughter Debbie. My dad wasn’t one to let his emotions out or show on his face… but he did that morning.
It was definitely a very merry, happy and blessed Christmas that year.
Christmas morning 6 years later in 1972, my favorite Christmas picture of Patty and Debbie…
Merry Christmas everyone and especially to my girls 
The next morning we arrived in Woods Hole and got an earlier ferry to Martha’s Vineyard… we like when that happens.
We checked into our inn and spent the day walking and relaxing. After supper it began pouring, I half kiddingly said we should take a walk in the rain and before I knew it that’s what we were doing. I never like walking in the rain, especially in the dark, but for some reason it just seemed the right thing to be doing.
The following day was spent driving around the Vineyard. Not too much walking was done due to the sore leg muscles one of us had… not mentioning names but I’m sure after reading about our bike trip that you can guess who it was ! Tuesday was also the most normal of our four day get away… a ploy perhaps to coax us into a false sense of security! That remained to be seen!
We pulled into the circular driveway of what once had been a gorgeous mansion. Once. The first thing we noticed was the roof being torn off and being tossed onto the driveway. OK, a little renovation is a good thing. There were no other cars in the driveway (an omen perhaps). The spider webs by the front door, not such a good thing, even if Halloween was only days away. The door was locked so we rang the bell. Lurch opened it. All right, it wasn’t Lurch, but this man was big and wore an eye patch and had a low gravely, grumbly voice. Maybe there wasn’t an eye patch but there should have been.
We did however have one of the best lunches ever. We drove to the harbor and ate outside at the Mooring. The whole time we were eating we were laughing and talking about the weird bed and breakfast and the strange owners. At one point our waitress came over to ask the usual “how is everything” question and before I knew it I was telling her about our … um, episode at the b&b. She told us she’d heard some stories about the place that were on the weird side. We agreed we’d definitely made the right decision in leaving.
