I love talking about Christmas or really any holiday with friends and family. When you talk in the present tense about a holiday it's "I have so much more shopping to do" or "we are making three hams because we have 22 people coming to dinner this year!", or "I am really hoping for an iPad so I can stop lugging my laptop around with me". All are perfectly fine things to talk about, and all are conversations I find myself having too.
But I love the past tense conversations. It's never about what you got, what you ate, or how you fell asleep with visions of sugar plums dancing in your head. Not the Red Rider BB gun... not the feast down in Whoville... not the angel who you helped get its wings. It's about much smaller things. And that's what I love.
It's about how one year, there was so much snow that you were all dripping wet at Christmas dinner from making snow angels for an hour. About how Uncle Bruce spiked his own egg nog and confessed he didn't really meet your aunt in church, like he originally said. About that year that the dog chased your cousin's cat around the house and knocked down the Christmas tree. That time Dad forgot to open the flu in the fireplace before lighting the fire and everything smelled like smoke for days. Laughing about that year that the power went out and the kids put on a disco play with glowsticks and flash lights. About how happy mom was that everyone agreed to take a family picture. About staying up late with your cousins, convincing each other those really were jingle bells you were hearing. And the year you finally caught Grandpa eating the cookies that were supposed to be for Santa.
When I think about my Christmases growing up, I don't remember which year I got a barbie doll, or designed the perfect Christmas cookie masterpiece. My memories are smaller than that, and they make me happy.
It's that 'Santa' would always come visit us at my grandmother's house on Christmas Eve, and I always thought it was weird that he seemed to be the only person to use the front door, since everyone else came in through the side door.
It's that, with twelve people and two dogs in the house, it was easy for my brother and I to sneak out to the freezer on the porch and attack Nana's stash of frozen Thin Mint cookies, totally unnoticed.
It's that I got to sleep in my Aunt Jerri's old bedroom... which had more stuffed animals than I could ever play with. And that was awesome.
I remember my mother and her sisters acting out The Twelve Days of Christmas every year, and getting themselves into laughing fits until you couldn't tell which day they were on anymore.
It's the faces my dad would make when he walked into Nana's house to find that the thermostat was set at 82 degrees.
It's the orange glow that came from the candelabra night lights, that I watched as I fell asleep. Whether it was the color or the heat in Nana's house, I don't know, but it made me feel warm and safe.
Taking pictures along the banister. And never taking it seriously after the age of about 10.
Wondering how many years the same piece of string had been used to hang our stockings.
Realizing that my mother had hand made each of our stockings.
Trying to wear those stockings like socks, after we got those pesky oranges out of the bottom.
Wrapping paper wars.
Calling to my dad and uncles that they had to get out of the kitchen to unwrap gifts because it was "their turn".
Nana getting package after package of Exclamation lotion, perfume, and cremes, and her excitement over receiving each one because she just LOVES Exclamation.
Finding the drawers full of previous year's exclamation gifts that had never been opened.
Making the whole pew shake at midnight mass as my brothers and dad and I all tried not to laugh hysterically at the priest's sermon.
The looks my mother gave us when the pew started shaking.
And the main reason to go to midnight mass: walking home with my dad when the air was cold, the whole town was asleep, and it was just us. Each year, the walk seemed to get shorter, and I wished we could go just once more around the block, even though I couldn't feel my toes.
May your holidays be happy, healthy, and full of memories that you can hold with you long into the new year. Memories that are hard to explain, but fill you with warmth and make you smile. No matter what Best Buy says, Christmas is not about the iPad.
No comments:
Post a Comment