"I think there must be something wrong with me Linus, Christmas is coming, but I'm not happy"
-Charlie Brown
-Charlie Brown
It's the Saturday before Christmas and I have done no shopping whatsoever. I am no Grinch, no Ebenezer Scrooge, not even the Grumple. Quite the opposite, I used to absolutely love Christmas, and I still do. I merely wish that I loved it for the same reasons that I did when I was a young rapscallion.
(The Grumple)I hear it all of the time, "You're too young to be jaded." Maybe I am, but that is an issue for another time. So many elements constitute my lack of Christmas cheer, but one in particular stands alone above the rest. I am an orphan (ahh yes, nothing says immaturity like a grown man declaring that he is an orphan).
Christmas to me is my father taping hours of Christmas music from the radio so that he wouldn't have to go to the store and actually buy it. Of course this is back when radio stations ONLY played non-stop Christmas music from the morning of Christmas Eve through the end of Christmas Day. Christmas is my father playing the tapes that he made the previous year while the five of us (my father, mother, sister, brother, and me) put up our decorations. Christmas is waking up early (not too early) to open gifts with the previous collection of people. Dad's hair was always so disheveled, his robe was tattered (he liked his tried-and-true clothes and was stubborn to adopt new garments), and somehow still, always with his pipe, he appeared noble and aristocratic as every family's patriarch should.
Christmas is my mother hurrying us away from new toys and into our Sunday best for the inevitable journey to church. The Catholic Liturgy is tedious I know, but somehow on this one day of the year, it was at least tolerable and at best uplifting and inspirational. One particular instance stands out so concretely. I couldn't tell you what year it was, only that I was still a youngster. One of the songs for the service was Pachelbel's Canon in D. Along with the normal organist, there was a violinist and my mother played an additional organ that was amplified. I was eager to lend a hand and was given the crucial task of turning the sheet music pages as my mother was playing. Okay, maybe not that big of a deal on the surface, but no less significant to me. Even to this day, as the Canon may be redundant and cliche, it remains one of my favorite pieces of music ever to grace these ears (and don't get me started on George Winston's "December" - my all-time favorite Christmas album). The injection of music into our family's Christmas ritual is priceless and finer than any other, graciously given to us from our mother. Most important was how much she loved us and never forgetting to tell us such, even when we were being brats (which was pretty much all of the time).
Christmas is my sister, the second oldest (i'm going to catch hell for that one), always in charge of passing out the gifts at my aunt's Christmas day gathering.
Christmas is certainly my brother ruining pictures, quite possibly my all-time favorite Christmas memory, indeed forever fossilized in a fantastic photograph.
Christmas is Grandpa opening his gifts with his careful hands not ripping the paper, but rather deliberately removing the tape in order to save the wrapping. Okay, Grandpa saves way too much, but I always loved him hoarding paper and bows during the yule tide.
Christmas is Grandma sitting in her chair with her feverishly heated cup of coffee (or the adult beverage, the "aunt stel" as I believe it was called), watching her children, her grand-children, and now her great-grand-children with that contented visage. It is always a sign of her love and pride.
Christmas is my aunt and uncle welcoming a rag-tag horde of vagabonds into their pristine and embracing home, stuffing us as if we were calves on the way to a slaughter, and sending us on our way with a kings ransom worth of chocolate and peppermint.
Christmas is the rag-tag horde of vagabonds, from the uncle that would play "look" at the dinner table, to the cousin that always got too rambunctious from a sugar overdose, to the sister-in-law that would sleep on the couch after dinner, to the warm-hearted, affable sarcasm of her husband (Can sarcasm be affable and warm-hearted? Survey says...absolutely.), to the ever growing family of little geniuses, thanks to their children.
This is what defines Christmas, not playing non-stop carols on the radio starting July 5th, not trampling people for an Xbox at Wal-Mart, and surely not going on CNN and weeping because you don't have enough money for that Xbox. Christmas isn't about consumerism and to me, Christmas is not about Jesus (nothing against him, I'm sure he was a swell guy). Christmas is about family.
Try as we might to stay within our comfortable niches, things always change. The holidays of my youth are long gone, and the holidays of adulthood are here. I must report, I am somewhat lugubrious and woebegone, but my melancholy is stirring, inspiring, and heartwarming. I'm a lucky guy. The process of carving new traditions is upon us, and this reporter says, "So far, so good."
I'll tell you what, you can keep your Xbox, your Tickle Me Elmo, or whatever other money vacuum is the latest rage. I don't vividly remember specific gifts that were given to me, nor do I really care about the material things that have been bestowed upon me, for I have known Christmas riches far beyond the imagination.
Christmas to me is my father taping hours of Christmas music from the radio so that he wouldn't have to go to the store and actually buy it. Of course this is back when radio stations ONLY played non-stop Christmas music from the morning of Christmas Eve through the end of Christmas Day. Christmas is my father playing the tapes that he made the previous year while the five of us (my father, mother, sister, brother, and me) put up our decorations. Christmas is waking up early (not too early) to open gifts with the previous collection of people. Dad's hair was always so disheveled, his robe was tattered (he liked his tried-and-true clothes and was stubborn to adopt new garments), and somehow still, always with his pipe, he appeared noble and aristocratic as every family's patriarch should.
Christmas is my mother hurrying us away from new toys and into our Sunday best for the inevitable journey to church. The Catholic Liturgy is tedious I know, but somehow on this one day of the year, it was at least tolerable and at best uplifting and inspirational. One particular instance stands out so concretely. I couldn't tell you what year it was, only that I was still a youngster. One of the songs for the service was Pachelbel's Canon in D. Along with the normal organist, there was a violinist and my mother played an additional organ that was amplified. I was eager to lend a hand and was given the crucial task of turning the sheet music pages as my mother was playing. Okay, maybe not that big of a deal on the surface, but no less significant to me. Even to this day, as the Canon may be redundant and cliche, it remains one of my favorite pieces of music ever to grace these ears (and don't get me started on George Winston's "December" - my all-time favorite Christmas album). The injection of music into our family's Christmas ritual is priceless and finer than any other, graciously given to us from our mother. Most important was how much she loved us and never forgetting to tell us such, even when we were being brats (which was pretty much all of the time).
Christmas is my sister, the second oldest (i'm going to catch hell for that one), always in charge of passing out the gifts at my aunt's Christmas day gathering.
Christmas is certainly my brother ruining pictures, quite possibly my all-time favorite Christmas memory, indeed forever fossilized in a fantastic photograph.
Christmas is Grandpa opening his gifts with his careful hands not ripping the paper, but rather deliberately removing the tape in order to save the wrapping. Okay, Grandpa saves way too much, but I always loved him hoarding paper and bows during the yule tide.
Christmas is Grandma sitting in her chair with her feverishly heated cup of coffee (or the adult beverage, the "aunt stel" as I believe it was called), watching her children, her grand-children, and now her great-grand-children with that contented visage. It is always a sign of her love and pride.
Christmas is my aunt and uncle welcoming a rag-tag horde of vagabonds into their pristine and embracing home, stuffing us as if we were calves on the way to a slaughter, and sending us on our way with a kings ransom worth of chocolate and peppermint.
Christmas is the rag-tag horde of vagabonds, from the uncle that would play "look" at the dinner table, to the cousin that always got too rambunctious from a sugar overdose, to the sister-in-law that would sleep on the couch after dinner, to the warm-hearted, affable sarcasm of her husband (Can sarcasm be affable and warm-hearted? Survey says...absolutely.), to the ever growing family of little geniuses, thanks to their children.
This is what defines Christmas, not playing non-stop carols on the radio starting July 5th, not trampling people for an Xbox at Wal-Mart, and surely not going on CNN and weeping because you don't have enough money for that Xbox. Christmas isn't about consumerism and to me, Christmas is not about Jesus (nothing against him, I'm sure he was a swell guy). Christmas is about family.
Try as we might to stay within our comfortable niches, things always change. The holidays of my youth are long gone, and the holidays of adulthood are here. I must report, I am somewhat lugubrious and woebegone, but my melancholy is stirring, inspiring, and heartwarming. I'm a lucky guy. The process of carving new traditions is upon us, and this reporter says, "So far, so good."
I'll tell you what, you can keep your Xbox, your Tickle Me Elmo, or whatever other money vacuum is the latest rage. I don't vividly remember specific gifts that were given to me, nor do I really care about the material things that have been bestowed upon me, for I have known Christmas riches far beyond the imagination.
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