The Stillroom

“I heard a bird sing in the dark of December.  A magical thing.  And sweet to remember.  We are nearer to Spring than we were in September.  I heard a bird sing in the dark of December.” ~Oliver Herford

When we turn off the lights at the end of a work shift now, we walk outside into the darkness of early winter.  Today is the winter solstice and Christmas is almost here!

Christmas past.

Christmas past for me and perhaps like a lot of folks my age,  is always bitter sweet.  Oh, the things I remember.  Things like visiting Santa at Hornes department store, the smell of a new baby doll, craft kits to make hairbands, colorforms like Miss Cookies Kitchen, a set of paint by numbers, mom baking the ham, my grandma baking paska and making horseradish.  It was all good.

Christmas Eve at my grandma Pastrick’s house was the best.  The excitement and buildup for this one evening every year when I was a kid was magic. We would put on our very best Christmas clothes and my mom would give us marching orders.  Those orders, if not obeyed, would result in a stocking full of coal.  It happened to my Uncle Steve when he was a kid and it could happen to us.  (I wonder what he did to deserve that life altering experience). It was so hard to contain our excitement!  But, we would walk into grandma Victoria’s  home in an orderly fashion and greet the grandparents with the grace of a person meeting the King and Queen of England.

We would be very stoic until we hit the top of the game room steps then pretty much all hell broke loose as we tackled each other to get to the rumpus room.  Yes, the rumpus room!  This was the place to be! This was the beginning of the festivities that we waited so long for! Aunt Betty played the old upright piano and my Uncle Steve and Aunt Nora Ann would be singing Christmas carols until all were summoned to the dining room where my grandparents hosted The Feast of the Seven fishes. After this special feast, everyone went back to the rumpus room where we would discover Santa had quietly come and gone while we dined.  Amazing stuff for a kid.

After we settled in, my grandmother would give the word and wrapping paper started to fly around the cramped room as the marching orders from my mom flew out the window.  The drinks flowed, kielbasa, kishka, ham, cabbage and noodles and homemade nut roll and poppy seed roll were feasted upon.  These were the delicacies that we loved.  We were like the Cratchet kids fawning over the Christmas goose.  We partied like it was 1899.  The best times.

Christmas Day!  It was here! The morning was spent opening presents and then being bummed out because at some point we had to get ready for church.  My mom spent weeks shopping, baking and preparing the house for our guests on the Ameel side of the family. This was my Belgian and Polish side of the family.  I really don’t know how my parents pulled off such great Christmas Day gatherings at our house.  I guess looking back they had a schedule year after year.  Kids up at seven, church for ten o’clock and the party started around one.  Great grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles cousins…it was a giant  party in a middle size house.  The Polish dishes were presented on the buffet that included my Belgian great grandma’s anisette pizzells.  Drinks flowed, kielbasa, kishka, ham, cabbage and noodles and homemade nut roll, poppy seed roll.  The Christmas Day feast had finally begun!

The whole family was in my parents house.  The cousins were always great to be around.  We would go into the “formal” living room and go through all of our loot while the older kids played records and tried to escape the younger kids. The guys usually separated at some point to watch  football (that way they wouldn’t have to talk to each other about anything other than who was destined for the playoffs in the coming weeks of the new year).  The women hang back  in the kitchen to get caught up on life events like how many times has Elizabeth Taylor been married now? surrounded by the picked over buffet on the table.  The last vestiges of Christmas were closing in on everyone. Weeks of preparation was now a pile of wrapping paper, a hambone and a busted toy or two. No holiday was ever complete however, until one of us kids would wake up in the middle of the night and throw up in our beds.  Now Christmas was officially over.

Christmas Present

Here I am. Now.  I’m collecting social security. Say what?  How did I get here? Just wow.

I am beyond blessed to have my immediate family around me.  My parents are 88 and 89 and they still do Christmas Eve at their house.  They have a rumpus room.  We are all older now, which is actually a good thing when one considers the alternative.  No holiday is complete without the Christmas ham, which is my oldest brother, Bill, who always brings the ruckus to the rumpus room.  Weeks before Christmas Eve my sister and I shop with our mom for everything needed for a family gathering.  We dust off the bar and set up the cookie table and the buffet table.  It is a pot luck dinner.  Drinks flow, kielbasa, kishka, ham, cabbage and noodles, homemade nut roll and poppyseed roll.  The feast is the same as it has always been.  The best of the combined  talents and traditions of my brothers and sister and our parents that we hold so dear to share, still, to this day is the best gift I could ever want.  We are rich.

It is bittersweet.  My oldest brother got a movie camera in 1964 or so and he filmed all of those Christmases. When we walk into my parents house on Christmas Eve, those movies are all transferred to tape and that tape runs all evening on their tv.  It is the most beautiful back drop to a beautiful evening with my beautiful family. The ghosts of all of our Christmases past are there with us.  Great grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors that have passed on.  They are still there.  As we raise a glass and a ruckus.

Christmas Future

My hope is that small businesses will not only survive, but thrive in the future.

Diamond Antiques & Gifts         311 East Sixth Avenue    Tarentum, PA

Come in and visit us.  If you want to make a memory, give a piece of the past for the present.

The Stillroom Gift & Tea Shop is located right inside the door of Diamond Antiques.  The holiday teas are stocked and the whole store is having a “thank you” sale the month of December.

Try and stop by.

“Don’t forget them, please.  The sweeter memories”~Todd Rundgren