Christmases Past

Why is it that every year at this time most of us review past Christmases -- for better or worse? Among my friends (and even strangers) I hear about their long ago favorite gift, the elaborate tree ornaments and the food, company and revelry now long gone but still bringing pleasure.

My own nostalgia brings on an oxymoron imbalance of past happenings. Why was I alone in the house on Christmas Eve the first year of my teens, allowing myself to be hypnotized by the multi-colored lights on the tree in the bay window? Surveying the wrapped gifts beneath the branches, my curiosity became uncontrollable and I carefully opened every one that had my name on its tag. Years later, my closest sister told me what a selfish brat I had been as a teenager and cited that long ago Christmas morning when I had opened each of my presents, quickly put the gift aside, ready to open the next one. I was shocked that anyone had noticed my ho-hum reaction and confessed the error of my adolescent yule-ish ways.

An earlier year, the first one I can remember, brought out another emotional experience. I was probably six years old when I announced to my family of about ten holiday-happy adults that there WASN'T any Santa Claus! (This was in response to threats about my behavior.) Well, I did a double-take at the horror my statement created. Everyone gasped at my heresy. I apologized through swelling tears. My conduct was exemplary during the few remaining days 'til stocking-filling time. When I awakened that glorious morning, there was the darling, smiling Shirley Temple doll in the plaid dress that I had notified Santa I wanted. I wisely stifled my questions when I opened a package of beautiful handmade clothing for the doll. One of my older sisters was a talented seamstress.

I learned from others in the family about another Christmas that happened when I was three or four years old. The Depression had disrupted our family with a move to a less expensive house in a less expensive town. Our Dad had come home after a very late trip through the city on Christmas Eve, carrying a floor to ceiling tree which he and my mother decorated while everyone else slept. Foreverafter they told the story of how Dad scouted the town for a marked-down tree but the only ones he could find had been abandoned hours earlier. As he picked one up and started for home with his cache, a policeman suddenly appeared and asked what he was doing. The truth of six children sleeping at home with nothing to look forward to except Christmas morning, prompted the policeman to turn his back and walk away as he shouted, "I didn't see a thing! Merry Christmas!"

A decade later, this may have been the memory that my mother harbored as she tried to build a frame and attach it to the trunk of an evergreen lying on its side in our living room. My father, her husband, had died ten days before the Big Holiday. The family vote was to erect and decorate the traditional tree for the sake of the youngest! That was me. That afternoon I held the tree straight while Mother, lying across the floor, wielded Dad's hammer and held back her tears. Success on both counts. We had another Christmas... almost as usual.

Originally published

Dec. 1, 2000