MANY CHRISTMASES
I have had many Christmases in my long life. In thinking of them I am reminded of a line in Eugene Field’s poem “Little Boy Blue” where he wrote “The years are many. The years are long.” The years do seem long in retrospect. On the other hand, the time has gone very fast. There are so many Christmases to remember that it isn’t possible to choose a favorite. There are special ones to be recalled with joy, but, alas, there are those to remember where things didn’t always turn out as well as hoped for.
When I was a little girl I usually had a part in a Christmas program at our small church. I was reminded of this recently when I read Margie Stillwell’s post, “The Lost Art of Speaking a Piece.” In the “olden days” children did speak pieces at programs at church and school. I remember giving a recitation where I wore a nightgown and carried a lighted candle and a stocking. I was supposed to pin up the stocking as I said the words, “And now I’ll hang my stocking up and then blow out the light.” To my dismay, I couldn’t get the stocking hung up as I couldn’t get the pin to stay in a bulletin board on the platform at the church. I laid the stocking on the floor and left the stage in ignominy.
I can still feel a little bit excited when I remember a Christmas Eve service and gift exchange at the church where, to my surprise, I received a gift from a high school boy. We were classmates and I had a crush on him but I really wasn’t sure that he liked me, so receiving a Christmas gift from him was a heart-fluttering event. I still have the gift, but the giver and I lost track of each other many years ago.
There are memories of trips during college years when icy roads and snow drifts didn’t prevent our getting home for Christmas. One time when the weather was unusually mild my sisters and I foolishly started out without boots and we had to go to the cellar in our home and unearth some four-buckle overshoes to wear when a blizzard came in.
In later years, my fiancé who was working in another city, arrived for the holidays and discovered, to his great dismay, that he had left my gift back at his rooming house. I learned later that he made a frantic call to his landlady and she was able to send it by mail in time for Christmas. I still have that gift also—one of my greatest treasures—a lovely little music box that plays “The Bluebells of Scotland.”
Still later, our first born shook and wadded the gift wrappings which appeared to interest him more than the gifts. I can still see him, eleven months old, smiling with glee as he toddled around the room with crackling gift wrappings in his hands. Three years later it was his turn to speak a piece. He had a baby sister by then, and he spoke a poem at a Christmas party. The words were “Hang up the baby’s stocking. Be sure you don’t forget. The dear little dimpled darling has never seen Christmas yet.” We had prepared him for applause when he finished, but he spoke so softly and so fast that there was complete silence when he finished. He cried out in disappointment, “Mommy, they didn’t clap!” That, of course brought down the house.
As the children married and their families grew, we had a number of happy Christmases with gifts piled high and the tree often festooned with decorations made by the grandchildren. One year things didn’t go very well as I was in a cast with a broken leg and two of the grandchildren broke out with chicken pox while they were visiting in our home. And there were poignant moments years later when my son took the place at the head of the table at the first Christmas dinner we had without my husband.
Two years ago during the holidays, the family visited me in the hospital where I spent l0 days. (This story is told in “The Hospital Experience” which appeared in MedHunters.)
The holiday observances leave many precious memories and we gain new ones each year. Special is the candle-light Christmas Eve service at the church where a profusion of poinsettias, the scent of greenery and the soaring music of organ and voices give worshipers a sense of truly celebrating the holy birth and delineate the real reason for the seasonal activities.