A Few More Memories of Christmas

The year Richard was born, my husband was working as a department store Santa. So, here they are together. Richard was a very unusual Santa's lap baby, in that he didn't cry. I think it was because he recognized Dick's voice. Since I taught the kids that Santa was a story that wasn't real, this is the only picture of either of them on Santa's lap that exists.

I've always liked this picture -- it is so unlikely that the person under that outfit is a tall, slim, 21 year old. A young actor getting experience at everything he could, rather than an older man down on his luck.

There was the year we had to attach the top of the tree to the curtain rods with guy wires because that year's crop of kittens, Fafhrd and The Grey Mouser, kept climbing it and pulling it over. You can't see the wires here, but this was the tree and that is Fafhrd and Mouser playing with an ornament they've knocked over. And, yes, I know that Fafhrd is supposed to be very tall and the Mouser short and sleek -- and when they were fully grown, my boys fit the myth. Meanwhile, Mouser was older than Fafhrd, and so bigger for a while.

There were the college years, when the tree was decorated with origami cranes and strings of popcorn and cranberries. I think that this is the one the lot owner wouldn't let me pay for. The kids were so young, Julie less than one, that even though the naked tree was there when they went to bed, they were amazed at the decorations when they woke up. They were so delighted with the decorations we didn't get around to presents until about mid-morning.

There was the tree in Fairbanks that Julie brought home at the beginning of Christmas break that got frozen on the bus and proceeded to drop needles by the fistfuls, until it was half bald by Christmas morning. The last day of school before break, the teachers asked if anyone knew someone who needed a tree, and Julie said that we couldn't afford one and so they gave it to her. We could have afforded one, really. However, I'm not too proud to take a perfectly good tree.

The year that I was waiting tables and the tips were so good that the presents threatened to lift the tree to the ceiling it looked a lot like this. This tree was at my parents' house a couple of years before we moved to Fairbanks. And, at this point Richard and Julie were the only children in the family, and it was all for them. All the presents and all the attention.


And then there was the year we were driving to Big Delta from Fairbanks and ran into a white out and had to turn back. We ended up having sandwiches at the only restaurant in town that was open and feeling very grateful indeed. Not only was someone feeding us, which in my exhausted state from driving for three hours at 6 mph with full knowledge that the lives of my children depended on me was more than I could have done, but the skid that could have smashed us into the mountainside or over the cliff hadn't. For a while there I had been trapped in the nightmare that we had wandered into the Twilight Zone and nothing existed except for the seven feet of snowy road that I could see directly in front of me. In one way, that grilled cheese sandwich was the best Christmas dinner I ever ate.

There were the wonderful "Granny Christmases" that Maya, Julie, Ted, and I had when I was in California over Thanksgiving. We had Granny Christmas for several years because I had a month vacation at Catholic Community Service. Then I left there, and my next two jobs not only did I not have a full month vacation but I was needed in November. Sad. I loved those November vacations. A week with Julie, Ted, and Maya. A week with Kate. Two weeks with Mama and Aunt Flo. Thanksgiving dinner with Ted's family -- a wonderful experience with relatives coming out of the woodwork.

Click on photos to enlarge

Christmas Meme

This one came from Scarlett, who started this meme herself just for us, and calls it “12 of my favorite things”. Here are her rules:

Please share 12 of your favorite Christmas things: they can be memories, traditions, songs, presents, beliefs, whatever it is about this season that you love.

I'm supposed to send it to 12 people, but I'm just going to open it up to anyone who wants to continue it.

1. The year that Richard had just turned 12 and Julie was a week away from 10, I bought them new bicycles. I put cards on the tree with hints, which led to hints, which led to hints. They followed their hints around the house and finally out to the garage, where they were so busy looking for another hint or a wrapped box that they didn't see the two bikes until I gave them a few verbal hints.
2. For years Christmas dinner was curry. When we returned to California from Fairbanks, we had Christmas with my parents, which was a traditional meal. So, we had curry on Boxing Day (December 26).
3. When Julie moved out and was dating Ted, they went to his parents for Christmas, and Richard and Kathy and I went to visit Julie and Ted for Boxing Day -- and, of course, had curry.
4. One year in Fairbanks, a friend of mine spent Christmas Eve and Christmas with us. The two of us sat up all night listening to music and making snacks and talking. Finally it was so late that I realized that I couldn't stay up till the usual time for opening presents, and if I went to bed right then it would be noon before I was willing to get up again. So, we woke the kids, opened presents, and had breakfast before I went to bed.
5. When the kids were very young and I was going to college, I put them in the stroller Christmas Eve and went out to see if there were any cut price trees. The lot owner helped me pick out the nicest tree that would fit in my apartment and then wouldn't let me pay for it.
6. When the kids were younger than that, I used to hold Christmas on December 27 so I could get them presents on the 26th -- they were too young to know the difference and I could get them much better presents at the after Christmas sales.
7. When I was about 14 Daddy had a pair of diamond and ruby ear rings made and froze them in an ice cube. Then, before we started opening presents, he brought a glass of orange juice with that ice cube in it to my mother. She had to be told to look in her glass, since she was paying attention to us kids open our presents.
8. For my 12th Christmas I received a wood burning kit and a paint-by-numbers kit, which was a good thing because that day I broke my ankle with the skates I'd received. Daddy was home with scarlatina, and so the two of us wiled away the hours of our convalescence painting and burning wood together. Since I couldn't go out, I couldn't get home late, and since I couldn't do chores, I couldn't get in trouble for that, either. It was probably the best time Daddy and I ever spent under the same roof.
9. I used to love going to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, even after I became an atheist. But then the Catholic Church stopped doing Latin mass, and I never bothered to go back. There was something about the Latin, the singing, the incense -- it really made me feel connected to the time in my childhood when I went to Catholic boarding school and began every morning with mass.
10. These days, Mama and Aunt Flo are living on fixed incomes and helping my niece Kristie out more than they should, so they tend to skimp on their own nutrition. Julie, Ted, Richard, Kathy, and I get together and send them a box of steaks. They enjoy them for months.
11. The year that Mama was engaged to Daddy and Aunt Flo was engaged to Uncle Wes, when I was nine, unknown to each other, the two men bought Mama and Aunt Flo the same satin lounging set -- one was red and one was blue.
12. Before my father died, we would always travel from where ever in California we were living that year to Modesto, where my parents had grown up. We would stay with my father's mother, and spend part of Christmas day with her and part with my mother's parents. I was the only child in the family at the time, and most of the presents under the trees at both houses were for me. I was the center of attention and I loved it.

Twelve Days of Christmas Tree © Peter Y. Chou, WisdomPortal.com