IT’S CHRISTMAS 2020. WHAT DOES IT MEAN NOW…

Sitting in Mexico, sunshine & blue sky, slightly chilled from the whispering breeze wafting into the open doors & windows (yes, it’s December here too).  Christmas music playing.  For me.  Ben objects but plays it for me anyway.  His memories of this Christian holiday are nowhere near my own pleasant memories.  I am sad for him.  Thinking it through…

In my childhood home, where Dad was a Methodist minister & Mother was often choir director, Christmas was a time for music, gifts, gatherings, lights, & Christmas trees.  Children starred in plays about baby Jesus & Santa & his reindeer. Choirs sang cantatas, Christmas carols, & classics like Ava Maria & the Hallelujah Chorus.  Everyone smiling, in my world at least.

Mother & I made sugar cookies with chilled dough rolled out & cut into shapes with metal, & eventually plastic, cookie cutters.  The sugary dough was yummy – until someone came along & told us all that it wasn’t safe to eat raw egg.  That was the end of scraping the bowl & licking the beaters that had blended the ingredients into a soft, sticky mass.  Fresh from the oven we moved the warm cookies to wire racks to cool then decorated them with homemade icing & sprinkles (gingerbread men scored raisins for facial features) & packed them in decorative boxes lined with wax paper.  A color-coordinated bow & tag completed the packages as we lined them up for their recipients.  The mailman, the trash men, the gas station attendant, the barber, hairdresser, & anyone else who provided a public service to our home & family.  It left me feeling warm & happy, though at that point I didn’t really understand why.

Every December Dad would take me & my brother to a field somewhere to cut down our own tree.  When Phil left for college, I got to go alone with Dad.  I loved it, loved traipsing through the fields with him, looking for just the right tree.  Usually it was on some church member’s land, scattered with a few small groves of trees left after someone some time back had cleared the land for cattle.  The trees were never very big.  Just big enough.  8’ was pretty much the norm.  I remember the last year Dad & I went.  Ambling along Dad stopped in his tracks – Look up! he whispered.   Ahead of us a red fox had stopped in his tracks as well.

We all decorated the tree together after Dad filled the bucket that held it in place with rocks & water & Mother covered it with some tablecloth or scrap of fabric saved just for that purpose.  There were shiny Christmas balls, bells, angels perched on our tree, & sometimes strings of popcorn & cranberries.  The final piece, of course, was the star placed on the treetop by Dad just before turning on the lights.  It was customary to place your tree in a front window for all to view each evening as they walked or drove by.  Our tree would stand for 2-3 weeks, others for months.  Taking it down always signified the end of the magic for me.  Back to the reality of day to day life, back to school.

In this season going to church was about singing & food & gifts & wearing new frocks.  Decorated & sprinkled with twinkling white lights, the sacred building held me spellbound.  What was this feeling that was so different from the rest of the year?  And why so different?

Christmas hymns, long my favorite, gave way to popular songs at home, played either on the record player or by Mother on the piano.  Early on in my childhood folks still gathered to go caroling in nearby neighborhoods.  The joy of the season welled up in my throat, my eyes.  Sharing this energy, moving in unison to bring joy to others, was magical.

Candlelight service on Christmas Eve was always my favorite.  Everyone (above a certain age, I suppose) was given a white candle with a paper sleeve to catch any drippings.  I’m sure it wasn’t safe.  I imagine there were accidents somewhere, sometime.  But for me it was magic to see the church fill with candlelight as we joined our voices in the old familiar Christmas hymns…Silent Night, Oh Little Town of Bethlehem, Joy to the World, and so many others.  Made even more magical for a small girl by the anticipation of Santa Claus & his reindeer.  Had I been good?  What would be under the tree for me?  How would I ever go to sleep?

Early Christmas morning I’d sneak to the tinsel draped tree where the lights were already on as Mother padded into the living room in her robe & slippers.  Christmas music chimed softly nearby.  Dad, who’d read ’TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS the night before, now read, with reverence, “the (Biblical) Christmas story”, as the gathering of kings around a babe in a manger long ago was called, just before handing each of us our gifts.  Shiny metallic paper & ribbons lay scattered on the floor as each package was unwrapped.  Stockings were filled with fruit & nuts, ribbons & bows for my hair, new socks for my brother.  Then we transitioned to the kitchen where Dad made omelette or waffles to go with the hot chocolate we inhaled at the table, holding our dearest gifts close.

I don’t remember how or when I found out there was no real person named Santa Claus.  It must not have been very traumatic for me.  Maybe I just outgrew it.  I’m not sure Dad ever did.  For years after I left home for college & then marriage, he would dress as Santa, hiring himself out (after retiring from church work) to parties & churches, handing out gifts as he Ho-Ho-Ho’d.  Oh, how he loved it.  Eventually he bought an expensive well-made suit, wig & beard that made him the best Santa ever, complete with a twinkle in his eye.  He could’ve fooled anyone!

In 1985 Dad was dying from colon cancer.  He spent that last Christmas on the living room couch.  My ex-husband & I took our son to the local Belk’s store where a photographer was taking Christmas portraits.  Finally, the 3 of us together on film.  We were proud to hand our framed print to Dad when we visited at Christmas.  He was thrilled & chuckled when he said, “Do you have to die around here to get a family portrait?”  Even at that point he loved to laugh.

After Dad died & Mother moved into a little house in Louisville, KY, to be near my brother & his family, she yearned for all of us to be together at Christmastime.  Once, when my son was a teenager, we made it happen.  My brother & his family, me & mine, all piling into the small house our Mother called home.  It was a joyous time, one of the highlights of my mother’s life I dare say.  The smile on her face, her arms raised with hands clasped together as we all arrived at her door, are images etched in my mind forever.

During my 32 years of marriage we always had a tree decorated for Christmas.  Early on I made gifts for everyone but once I’d started nursing school, then went to work, all that ended.  I joined the rat race of shoppers, looking mostly for practical gifts & eventually for the latest toy or pair of shoes (Jordan’s) for my son.  There was no church in our lives, no Christmas music unless we set the radio to just the right station or played some leftover Christmas album.  Gradually it became a task (rather than a joy) to organize gifts & travel to one place or another.  Often I only had 1 day off of work, if I was lucky, so travel was less & less of an option.  My world of Christmas hung by a thread.

When I moved to Hillsborough to be with Ben he took me to an afternoon event of a Christmas sing along & my heart soared.  I was in my element, my magical world again!  In Virginia his large family gathered to celebrate.  I thought of my mother & how she would love to have been there with us. In Hillsborough the tradition I’d grown up with of having a real tree was displaced by a handcrafted curled metal table tree that could only hold a few ornaments. We made up for it with lights strung inside & out.  Gradually I collected ornaments with birds & pine cones to hang alongside my snowman set, a gift from my first nursing workplace, & the Hallmark collectables I’d picked up at Deerfield Pharmacy in Boone.  Those snowmen are with me still.

So it’s Christmas in Mexico, where evergreen trees are found only in the high mountains & craftsmen sell sturdy trees made of thick twigs by the carratera (roadside).  This year we bought one, along with handmade Mexican ornaments & some lights for the tree & terrace.  On a walk one morning I spotted a small spool cable set by the road for trash pickup.  I figured it’d make a perfect tree stand, draped with cloth, & it does.  Every night & every morning I turn those tree & terrace lights on.  My heart soars.  I’m a little kid again, filled with excitement, hope & promise.  Though I’m missing my granddaughter’s first real Christmas (she’s nearly 2 now), I know we’ll see her on FaceTime.  We sent gifts through Amazon. The easiest way from here. But I long to hold her.  I want her to know the Christmas I knew as a child. I’m glad she has parents who love her so dearly.

Where have those feelings, those traditions gone?  Is it all no more than what & how much to buy now?   This winter holiday that begins in July?  How did this happen?

My mind stretches & my heart bursts open.  What does it mean to me now?  Now, finally, with encroaching age & the trauma of the past year, for me it is once again about giving & sharing.  Not the same giving as I did as a nurse where there was so much responsibility tied to a paycheck.  This time it is: Who can I help?  Who can I make happy?  Who can I surprise?  What does the poor Mexican family down the street need?  Who needs a local “getaway” & a hot Christmas meal?  I don’t mind that this holiday sprang up from the birth, fictional or not, of a man named Jesus.  What if it is just symbolic of how to care for each other?  What if the point, really, is to gather together & share our thoughts & gifts & love?  To create memories?  What if there was no Amazon?  No online purchasing?  What would you give?  How would you connect?  What will you & your family & friends remember about Christmas in 2020 & for many years to come?  How will we create more “magic”?

   Happy Holidays!  Merry Christmas!  Happy New Year! 

Feliz Navidad!  Feliz Año Nuevo!