It is Christmas time again. What that means will vary from person to person. For anyone who knows me even a little, you know that I love holidays in general and Christmas in particular. With the exception of the first couple of post-high school years where I worked in retail, Christmas has always been my absolute favorite time of the year. My head is filled with decades of cherished memories of the sights, sounds, smells, and faces of Christmas. For many years I had taken it for granted that everyone felt this way, but it was not until I was nearing adulthood that I realized that Christmas can be a particularly painful and depressing holiday for some. Eventually, I learned that my mother was one of those people and that it was a especially painful time of the year for her.
This was a bit of a revelation for me, and it took a few more years before I fully absorbed what it really meant. I realized that my deep and profound love of Christmas was primarily due to my mom's efforts over the years to give my sister and me a first rate holiday experience. She always had Christmas music playing while the house was tastefully but liberally decorated, and there were many Christmases where my mom had draped the tree in old fashioned tinsel… strand by strand (and the results were spectacular). While she privately dreaded the holiday season and was haunted by painful memories of past holidays with her alcoholic parents, my sister and I grew up within the holiday excitement and magic orchestrated by my mom. We have discussed this a few times since my epiphany and she explained to me that she wanted us to grow up loving the holiday and embracing what it stands for. Eventually, she could no longer muster the enthusiasm or energy to continue the effort, but by that time we had already grown up, moved out and were creating our own Christmas memories.
I just want to go on the record to say; thanks, Mom. Thank you for making that sacrificial effort in the hope of giving Shelly and I something truly special. Thank you for taking the time to reflect on your own negative experiences and how to use them constructively to create a better life and experience for your own children. Thank you for being a positive role model when your heart was not truly into it. Thank you for giving such a priceless gift of yourself, and for sowing a seed that will grow into similarly positive experiences for my children and (hopefully) all of their descendants. While I am on the topic, your success in this did not end with the Christmas season, but extended throughout the year, and I can see that much of what I fondly remember and cherish about my childhood and adolescence is directly or indirectly attributable to you. I love you, Mom!
While my Mom laid the foundation of our family's Christmas miracle (as small and mundane as it might seem to some), there are two honorable mentions that I would like to call out. The first goes to my paternal grandfather, Emil. Grandpa Emil was everything that you wanted in a grandparent and we loved him dearly. He has been gone for over 25 years, but I still miss him and often think of him, especially during the holidays. When he would come to visit at Christmas time, the routine of family life would get turned upside down and he could and would overrule my Dad when it came time to figure out what to do and see. He always smelled like Aqua Velva, carried aluminum cigar rolls filled with dimes (that he liked to hand out to us as occasional gifts), and he usually gave us the biggest and most extravagant presents under the tree. However, the two best and happiest memories I have of him was his slow and deep laugh, and how we frequently got to eat lunch or supper from a tray of cheeses, crackers, and cold cuts (which was apparently one of Grandpa's favorites, and my Dad obliged him). It just was not Christmas until you got to doze off while sitting in Grandpa Emil's lap, or next to him on the couch.
My second honorable mention goes out to my sister, Shelly. I actually have two sisters and a brother, but because of family politics (i.e. my Dad), I grew up with only my little sister. At most times and in most ways, we were completely and utterly incompatible and that was the driving force behind much of our interactions… very few of which were positive or constructive. However, the magic of Christmas is a powerful thing indeed, and it was at this one time of the year that we could not only get along, but actually enjoyed each other's company. Unfortunately for my parents, this unlikely camaraderie peaked on Christmas Eve and early Christmas morning. Those mornings when we played "dodgeball" with pillows while bouncing on her bed are very near and dear to my heart and they were a precursor of the relationship that we would eventually grow to share many years later in adulthood. I love you, Shelly!
I know that some of you truly love the Christmas season as much as I do, and I hope that you continue to have the happy and warm holidays that you have come to expect. I also know that some of you are not quite as into the holiday season as I am, and I accept that. I just hope that you have your own Christmas miracle someday so that you can experience and share firsthand in the magic and spiritual glow that I feel. It is a powerful feeling, and I suspect that if more of us felt it, there would be a lot less badness in the world... at least for a month or two every year.