My Ghost of Christmas Passed (pun intended) had a combined fragrance of fresh pine and new baby doll smell. It was a very specific scent that I don’t think I could ever duplicate again. Ham on the table with cousins, auntsm uncles, and grand and great grandparents. Toys like Mr. Kelly’s Car Wash, Patty Play Pal, microscopes and Give-a-Show Projectors. Tangerines still remind me of the Christmas Stocking. Tangerines and nuts in the shell. We were the kind of family who my parents say were poor. Somehow, we never knew that. There were always toys under the tree. Back then as a child, I did not realize that my dad worked several jobs and my mother held down the home front with five of us kids running around. Entertainment, back then, in Pittsburgh involved coming home from school and watching The Three Stooges and Paul Shannon’s adventure time. I am happy to say none of us siblings ever hit one another with claw hammers etc.
Christmas Present
My parents are still healthy and almost 80 now. Us kids have been gathering at my parent’s house every Christmas Eve for over 25 years now. In that time, we have had all of the grandparents pass over, a couple of the cousins– when they were sadly too young to leave us– and close friends. Marriages, divorces, step nieces and nephews, different religions, different careers and a lot of people show up now. Babies are back into the picture with the unending belief that Santa will surely be there that night, secretly doing his thing. The only thing that changed is that there is no live tree and the plastic baby doll smell is not present.
The ham is still there. No, not the one on the table, that would be our oldest brother Bill, who is hysterically funny, and all of us together laugh and eat mom’s still homemade dry cottage cheese and chive pierogies. Of course, there’s also dad’s home made smoked keilbassa and home-made horse radish that we can’t resist putting on the sandwich in spite of the tears followed by “whew, that really cleared my sinuses.” Christmas Eve officially ends every year with my mom saying, “it’s all over but the shoutin.” The closest I get to real pine these days is the vestibule of Sam’s Club where they keep a crate of fresh wreaths. Sad ain’t it? I have a giant mean cat, Toughy, who would most likely eat the needles, and my precious chihuahua Pip might try that too. It’s a safety issue for my sweet pets. I do however enjoy my old school aluminum tree with the color wheel. I remember the year we had one of those as a kid. It was a trend that lasted one season in our house. I was mesmerized by the changes in color created by the wheel that reflected on the foil branches that would literally put me in a trance. I still do that!
Christmas Future
Check back next December 26th and I’ll tell you all about it. I hope the gang is all still here, I hope for global cooling, (how can it be that people in Jamaica be “cooling” all the time even though it’s a tropical climate)? I hope that we do what we do everyday for the common good. Open a door for someone, give a smile, pour someone a cup of La Prima coffee or Stash Tea, (shameless product placement) do some laundry, get the oil changed, you know, just everyday normal stuff. It all serves a meaningful purpose. I sure hope the economy straightens out and totally no war. My brother’s son is serving our country in the Navy I am proud to say. Later.
