Here we are, folks; it’s the Christmas holiday season, a time to remember past celebrations and renew old traditions.
In thinking about the joy this time of year can represent, I thought it might be fun to ask around and find out what other folks remember from their childhoods or what traditions they continue to preserve with their families today. I’d venture to say that during those brief moments of reflection, joy was experienced once again. I weave those submissions here with my own, like a giant patchwork quilt sewn together by a common thread of thought, “Peace on Earth.” Thus, I give you “comfort and joy” by way of memory.
ML: Plum pudding with hard sauce, spices wafting from the kitchen stove where Ma stood warming the special holiday treat. That tickle in my throat as the warm syrup slid slowly from my mouth. Later, snuggling up to Ma’s arm as I stared at the empty Christmas stocking and wondered if that exotic orange and delicious apple would once again miraculously appear in the dead of winter, making the stocking, once in rotation in Dad’s bureau drawer, like a giant swollen pea pod…
“When I was little, we had to go to my aunt’s house every Christmas,” J said, “but we didn’t have a car. We lived in the city. We walked everywhere, even in the freezing cold! It was awful.” She said that years later, when her own children were able to travel, Christmases were always spent somewhere warm, never in New England, and she confirmed her children had great memories of Christmases spent in tropical climates.
ML: Christmas gifts were often an opportunity for Ma to give us things we actually needed, practical things like new underwear, socks, pajamas, or boots. We always got a few toys, depending on how the year had gone for Dad’s TV repair business. I recall years with a Shirley Temple doll, a Barbie, a toy kitchen, paper dolls…
“We were always sent to bed after a light dinner, then the grown-ups would wake us up as they came into my parent’s house after midnight mass,” P said. “My mother always put out a big meal. I remember two tables pulled together to make one long banquet-sized table the length of the double parlor. We’d open all our gifts together; there must have been 30 people squeezed into our two-family home. My aunt, my mother’s sister, lived on the first floor, and we lived on the second. My sister would play the piano, and everyone would sing. One year all I wanted was a new bike. But when I got up, I didn’t see one, so I sulked until I finally saw it hiding behind a piece of furniture. I was spoiled rotten, but they never bought me a pony.”
ML: The scent of talcum powder called “Heavenly” that came in a pink Bakelite container with a big pink powder puff was an annual gift fit for a young girl aged 5 to 15, and I was always the happy recipient. Taking a bath and putting on new pajamas after dusting myself with powder made me feel safe and so comfortable…
G was surely smiling when she wrote, “There are so many memories! Hard to choose just one. I remember, as a kid, leaving the Tinkham Chapel service on Christmas Eve and going to my aunt and uncle’s place in New Bedford, scanning the skies to see if we could see Santa’s sleigh and Rudolph’s red nose. Later, my dad learned about the NORAD Santa tracking, so he’d tune in to the radio so we could hear where Santa was in his travels. I’m still a NORAD Santa-tracker nerd.”
ML: In school, in the ’50s, Christmas was a high point of winter. School windows would be decorated with our artwork of snowflakes and Santa heads. The day before school closed for the holiday, we’d bring our teacher small gifts that she lined up on her desk like trophies she had won from being patient beyond what is humanly possible…
“I grew up moving often and spent most of my childhood in Southeast Asia,” began JM. “Every Christmas Eve, at my mother’s insistence, we listened to Dylan Thomas’s ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales.’ She owned an old recording of the book read by Thomas himself. The sound was muffled, the record was scratched, Thomas had a Welsh accent. Moreover, we were in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and the Philippines – no snow, no cozy fires, no candy cigarettes. For many years I do not think I even listened – just sat with my own thoughts. When my children were born, my mother began giving us new, illustrated editions of ‘A Child’s Christmas in Wales.’ At the beginning of this tradition, I read aloud to my children. I essentially forced this on them. Christmas Eve is my birthday, and I can be bossy. Now every Christmas Eve, we gather all our copies and the five of us take turns reading. I believe we all enjoy it, but I never ask.
ML: Decades later, there was that Christmas when I gave my son new summer clothes. I planned a February school vacation trip to Disney World, our first. But the look on his face as he opened boxes containing summer clothes, well, his fake smile would have broken any mother’s heart. As he stood up surrounded by new summer clothing he tried to be grateful for, I told him why the clothes would be needed…
“My childhood, we had more than one Christmas. We had Christmas at home, Christmas at my grandparent’s house, which included aunts and uncles and cousins, and we had Christmas in Maine with my great-grandmother and other relatives. It seemed to last for weeks. It was wonderful,” wrote E.
ML: This last entry seemed to sum up not just the good times but the longing not to forget, to hold onto joyful memories, for in the end, those are the real gifts we give one another…
C wrote, “I grew up on North Street on the second floor with my family. My Aunt was on the third and my Grandparents on the first. On Christmas Eve, the family, all ten of them with spouses and children, would gather in my grandparent’s home.
“One of the first Christmases that I remember, the children were all on the floor in the two front rooms waiting for Santa. Suddenly there was a rattling noise, bells, and sounds of footsteps coming from the attic. Santa was arriving. Anticipation and excitement took my breath away!
“Down the front stairs came Santa, all in red and ‘Ho-Ho-ing.’ There was a sack filled with gifts and a moment of pure joy. This was a miracle to see. Then a voice from an older cousin said, “That’s Grandpa.” It couldn’t be; I refused to believe it wasn’t the real Santa, although his eyeglasses did look vaguely familiar.”
“Presents were passed out, and Santa climbed back up the stairs. Later, of course, the realization that Santa was Grandpa sunk in. Grandpa had dragged chains across the attic floor, rang bells, and stomped his feet like reindeer. It didn’t matter; I still love the wonder of that moment. Santa always visits my home, fills my stockings, eats my cookies, and leaves a gift unwrapped at the foot of the tree. If only Grandpa could come back and once more sing ‘Christians Awake’ at the bottom of the stairs on Christmas morning, then all would be truly perfect.”
This Mattapoisett Life
By Marilou Newell