Christmas, Then and Now
“Don’t mind me, I’ll just be over here making everything magical and shit.”
-Moms in December.@mommy manifesto
I must give credit where credit is due and say right from the outset that I had an amazing mentor coupled with a “Polar Express”-sized train full of memories to draw on when I first began to create my own magical Christmas traditions with my young family. Susan Irving, my mother, was a maestro, and knowing her mother, I can imagine she drew heavily on her own experiences when curating the Christmas season she imagined and delivered every December of my childhood. Today, as a fifty-seven year old mother of three thriving adults and two delicious granddaughters, I am still giddy when turning the calendar to December 1. Thanks, mom.
Hanging the advent calendar I’ve had for over thirty years, brings back my kids’ and my own memories of the tantalizing and often torturous anticipation of counting down the days to Christmas. As mom baked, shopped, prepared for the big Christmas Eve party and cleaned bedrooms I knew would soon be filled with the grandparents I adored, the days slowly ticked by. Led by our own “Christmas Vacation’s,” Sparky Griswold, my dad, saw in hand, tramped us through frozen fields and woods looking for the motherlode as my mother, dragging three kids in wet boots warned, “It has to fit into the stand!” Once home, it was just a matter of time before dad began his litany of cursing as he tried to get said motherlode into the just a tad too small stand. Turning to the box of lights, dragged from the bowels of the basement, he would begin muttering and then shouting with astonishing vigor, “Jesus H. Christ, who put the GD lights away last year?” And, just like that, the holiday season was officially upon us.
Christmas Eve was full of family and friends as mom threw her annual party. All of her friends’ visiting relatives were invited and the food and the cocktails flowed. In my mind, they were the greatest parties ever. Usually close to midnight, after ushering everyone out the door, trying to sleep was impossible and with the grandparents in various bedrooms, we kids were usually together on a floor somewhere. I’d lie there awake and listen to my parents make stealthy trips up and down the stairs knowing Santa was delivering the goods. I’m ashamed to say, but I’d count the number of times they went up and down to try to take measure of the haul I could expect the next day. I was never disappointed.
Christmas morning was a display of love, unadulterated greed, and gluttony as we ripped, tore, counted to make sure no one was short changed, and devoured bacon, bread, butter, egg casseroles, cakes and cookies. It was perfection. Together, in one room, with the sounds of a crackling fire, Christmas carols on the stereo, and backlit by the spectacular tree, the people I loved the most were joyous, and very, very stuffed. And that’s the way it was for the first 18 years of my life.
In late August of 1981, my parents dropped me off at college. That December, a mere four months later, I announced to them that while I would be home for the Christmas Eve party and Christmas morning, I would be leaving to drive an hour and a half to my new boyfriend’s parents’ house for Christmas dinner and to spend the night there. I could tell my mom was less than thrilled and she reminded me that the grandparents that I didn’t get to see quite so often would be disappointed, but I was not deterred. I know she could’ve stopped me, but she didn’t, and I’m ashamed to admit that I really haven’t thought much about it until recently. I never considered what my decision meant for my parents my grandparents, or siblings. I just knew that I was in love and wanted to spend Christmas with my new boyfriend. To me, it was no big deal, but for my mom, in that quick conversation, in those four short months, her Christmas changed forever and she never saw it coming. And to her credit, she didn’t stop me.
I never saw it coming either. Maybe it’s a good thing that we usually don’t know when something might end. Intellectually, I understood that my kids would grow up and have lives and families of their own, but when you’re caught up in life, you don’t believe that it’s possible that today is the day the end of what you have known for so long, begins. One day, I’m home with my family for Christmas, the next with the boyfriend, the next, with my own family. One day my parents are hosting the Christmas Eve party and the next day, I am. Suddenly they are the grandparents sleeping over at my house in their grandkids’ beds, while the kids sleep in the walk-in closet in the master bedroom starting the greatest tradition of all time. One day they are Santa, and one day, their daughter and son-in-law (yes, I married the boyfriend who changed my Christmas’) are making that repeated trip up and down the stairs. And, yes, it’s trite, but it’s also true; it happens in the blink of an eye, while you’re not looking and while you’re not anticipating it. My parents are just like parents everywhere; signers on a dotted line of a contract that at some point makes them obsolete or at least relegates them to a different position. A parent’s job is to raise kids to leave us. It’s a tough bargain, but one that we willingly take on everyday because we never see the day coming.
I suppose, like many of us, I tried to replicate the magic of my own childhood Christmas’ for my own kids. We added some of our own traditions, but our tree is always the motherlode, I now curse at the lights and my own litany signals the beginning of the festive season. I bake the traditional cookies, and take hours to decorate. When the kids were small, my favorite day was when I dragged all of the boxes out from a closet under our stairs, turned my iTunes Christmas playlist up really loud and spent the day decorating. I often did more than one tree, and managed to decorate every room in the house. When the kids got home from school, the joy on their faces was worth every dead light strand and the nasty back pain.
Like everyone across the world, this year, Christmas will most likely look very different from years past, and, collectively, we never saw it coming. The ability to gather and share in the wonders of the season; something we have all taken for granted, has been changed dramatically. Many will find creative ways to celebrate together, whether it be from a distance or a screen, and we all will ache for what might’ve been, while praying for what we hope will be a better 2021.
I also realize, the pandemic isn’t the only thing making my Christmas different from others this year. My oldest son is married with two daughters. He has wonderful in laws, which means incorporating his wife’s family traditions into his Christmas, as well as establishing his own family traditions, one of which includes white lights on his Christmas tree, which is completely unacceptable. We are a colored light family and when asked about it, he said, “We don’t do tacky.” Mouth agape, I replied, “Have I taught you nothing??? We are the epitome of tacky!” My daughter and her boyfriend live out of state and traveling 10 hours by car is difficult with work schedules. He also has a wonderful family who I’m sure would love to share Christmas with their son and his girlfriend. When I spoke to my daughter and asked her to send me a picture of their tree, she said, “We didn’t get one. No one will be here, so we didn’t bother. I bought a tree scented candle.” I had no words…Had she been in my house during Christmas for the past twenty-five years?? WTH?? My youngest son lives with his girlfriend, locally, and would’ve be available to share Christmas with us and her family easily, except that as twenty-five year olds, they are responsibly managing Covid, but are also living their lives with fewer restrictions than the old folks are. Zoom and a drive by will have to suffice this year as I’ve basically treated him like a leper since March. He did send a picture of his tree, or I should say his lovely girlfriend sent me a picture with…white lights. Where did I go wrong? Finally, although, at first we thought we would try, ultimately, for safety’s sake, this will be the first Christmas or Christmas Eve I will not spend with my parents in my lifetime. I’m sure I’m not alone, but I never saw it coming.
There was a minute there when my husband and I thought we might be alone Christmas Day, Christmas Eve or both. We accepted it, knew it would be ok, and intellectually understood it. We didn’t much like it, but we could survive it. We know that soon the day will come when we will be the ones in the grandkids’ beds, the guests at the Christmas Eve party and may even be getting dangerously close to becoming “who’s got mom and dad for Christmas, we had them last year.” But, then the out of staters decided to come, the young couple will Zoom, my parents will come in January when it’s safer, and the little family with my two gorgeous granddaughters will be here too, where I can shower them with the magic. And, Cora, almost three years old, saw my tree the other day and said to her dad, “They have colored lights! Wow!” And, just like that, I get a second chance to make the magic happen all over again. If I live to see her own Christmas tree with her family someday, I guarantee, it will demonstrate her adoration for colored lights!
Friends, make the most of your holidays in whatever shape they appear this year. Cherish those in front on your multi-colored lighted tree, whether it be one person or ten, or whatever’s legal in your state. :( Life is constantly changing, kids are growing, and whatever is in store next year, I guarantee, we will never see it coming.
God Bless, Merry Christmas and here’s to a multi-colored 2021!!