Turning the calendar to December is always bittersweet.
Christmas Past
Christmas Past, I mean like fifty years ago when I still believed in Santa was the best. As a child, my parents never failed to fill a Christmas stocking with mints, nuts and tangerines or get us the latest or most certainly what was at the very top our our list for Santa. We had Patty Playpal, Chatty Cathy, Mr. Kelly’s Car Wash, Give a Show Projectors with Huckleberry Hound Dog slides, microscopes and chemistry sets. It was pretty much like A Christmas Story, at least that is how my minds eye still sees it.
Horne’s Christmas display was always decked to the nines and Santa Land was big and glittery and big and like a dream and big. I am sure that I was just so little…you know how you always think of something as being a certain way when in reality it usually is not.
I remember the year we replaced our live pine tree with an aluminum one and the year the adults used pull tabs on their Black Label Beer cans for the first time. Every Christmas after mass, ham would go on the table and the traditional foods would arrive with such great fanfare along with aunts, uncles, grandparents, great grandma, cousins and neighbors. Our house was centrally located so we were the landing pad. I can’t believe my parents had that much energy to pull off a perfect Christmas every year. The aluminum tree ran the course over one or two seasons and we went back to real pine. Every year we would go cut a tree and mom would say that it was the ‘ ugliest tree she had ever seen. Were our eyes in the back of our heads?’ We would make her go to the neighbor’s house and when she came back the tree would be decorated and she would say that it was the ‘most beautiful tree we ever had’. She would be so happy. We knew what we were doing she of little faith.
Christmas Present
Here I am. Here you are. That’s good. My mom and dad are still hosting Christmas Eve as they have done every year since I was born. I will be on the hunt for the dry cottage cheese for mom’s home made pierogies and my dad will soon be firing up the smoker for home made keilbassa. Everyone brings a dish on Christmas Eve and the fervor of this time of year is as present as the presents themselves!. Our family loves to eat and laugh and tell stories and do a gift exchange that is so much fun that by the end of the evening we are all drunk on how great it is to still be gathering this one evening out of the year. Some drunk on the idea of the gathering, others just drunk. l My parents are 83 years young and still have the energy to pull off an excellent gathering. Mom would say they are tired and move slower and it takes longer to do all of the preparation but it still gets done every year to perfection.
Christmas to come
Who knows what the new year will bring? I have plans like most of you. Weather or not they come to fruition remains to be seen. I just know that it is a good thing to think about the future and the promise of tomorrows. May we all have many more tomorrows.
There was a segment on the Today Show this morning in which they asked what was the least favorite thing about Christmas for these particular guests and they said not being able to wish people a Merry Christmas because it is not politically correct. So, whatever you celebrate, just know that when I wish you a Merry Christmas, (and I will) I am wishing for all good things to come your way. Not just on December the 25th, but that you have a good day, a good week, a good life.
Merry Christmas!
