The Spirit of Christmas
Getting closer and closer to Christmas, and the chilly days and deep-freeze nights that come with it. We come to Christmas with a merry spirit, and we always have. Man and boy, boy and man, my family tried very hard to have Christmas trees. In Fresno, where I grew up, we had precious little money. The first Christmas tree I remember is one I brought home from kindergarten on the last day of school before Christmas break. It was small, skinny and scrawny. It was beautiful.
Back in those days, I’d have a free hand in decorating our trees. Dad never cared much for Christmas doings – probably because his family was desperately poor when he was growing up and never had much of a Christmas. Mom bought the gifts and wrapped them and kept the Santa thing going.
When we got married, Sharon and I always had a tree, no matter where we lived or how small our apartments or homes were. And we kept that tree thing going when we had children. It always went the same way: We’d buy a Douglas fir at a tree lot, lug that baby home, and I’d put on the lights and ornaments.
As usual, there would be a lot of tree “redecoration” by the Lady of the House. “Turn it that way. No, turn it the other way.” But no matter which way you turn a Christmas tree, those darn branches never look full all the way. There’s always some bare spot in the middle. You turn it, and there’s another one at the bottom. And, of course, the Lady of the House always had to rearrange the Christmas tree ornaments – and sometimes the lights – before they were hung to her satisfaction. And there was tinsel – so much tinsel. And we used that sparkling stuff year after year – storing it in a shirt box in the closet during those months that were not spelled “December.” One year, I remember trying to sew a string of popcorn. Guess I should have popped it first.
Christmas always began early in our holiday homes. It was always a blessed time of year, but it took some doing to get up to the Blessed Day Itself. We lived all over the country, and our homes always smelled and looked of Christmas during the holidays. The trees. The baked cookies. The stockings hung on the fireplace, when we had a fireplace. And when we did have a fireplace, the smell of burning oak and pine would, delightfully, permeate the place.
Except for that one holiday season – it must have been in the ’90s – when we decided to rent a cabin near Bass Lake to spend the week between Christmas and New Year’s. We invited one of our long-time friends named Jim to come along. And there I was, one night, building a blaze in the fireplace. It smoked up the room amazingly fast. Sharon yelled, “Are you sure the damper’s open?” Well, I had forgotten all about that. I got a poker end into the lever that opens and closes the damper, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember which way was “open” – up or down. I tried it both ways. Sorry, Charlie.
So I did the next best thing. I rushed to the front door, opened it to the freezing night, rushed back to the fireplace and grabbed the tongs next to it. And I proceeded, quite heroically, to grab each burning log, run out that front door, and dump each log into the snow. I did that five or six times, while Sharon ran around, opening all the windows. And what, you might ask, was our friend named Jim doing during all this hoo haw? He just sat – I swear this is true – on the couch in front of the fireplace and placidly looked around as all the devil was breaking loose. Never broke a sweat. Yes, a Christmastime to remember. Oh, yes, I remember that.
And I remember – quite well, thank you – putting up shiny outdoor General Electric Christmas lights at every home we owned, no matter where we’ve lived. In the “early years” of our marriage, I’d get up on a ladder and put those babies on the eves. No problem, no sir. But as I grew older – and more afraid of falling – I brought those lights down a notch – to the tops of shrubs or to the lower branches of trees in our front yard. Nowadays, if you make your way past our home, you’ll see our Christmas lights on the junipers in front. No muss. No fuss. No ladders.
Santa Claus always came to our homes – at least, as long as we could convince Bradley and Amy that Santa existed. If they needed proof, we’d leave cookies and a glass of milk on the fireplace or near the tree. In the morning, of course, the glass would be empty, and there would be nothing but crumbs. “Who ate it?” “Santa, who else?” That proved it.
Christmas morning was always for the young and supple. That’s what I used to be, when I was a kid. I’d be up by 6, ready, willing and able to tear into whatever presents Santa had left. When I became a parent, the kids were the young and supple ones who would dash, dash out of bed early Christmas morning while Mom and Dad tried to recover from the previous night’s gift-wrapping. It was always a blessed day, indeed.
And as all these years and all these decades have piled up, one on top of the other – it’s STILL a blessed day, indeed. No, Christmas doesn’t “feel” like it did when we were children. It’s harder to find the sense of wonder, the sense of excitement, the sense of anticipation that always showed up around the first of December and grew bigger and bigger until it burst on those grand and glorious Christmas mornings.
But – the thing is, if we all look hard enough, we can still see and hear and feel the wonder that surrounds us this time of year. Look for it on the faces of children – or in those store windows decorated for the season. Listen for it – in the Christmas music from Andy Williams and Crosby and Como and Sinatra – on your CD’s, or on your streaming music source. And think back to all those days and nights of true Christmas spirit when we were young or younger and the whole world was ahead of us.
Yes, soon it will be Christmas, once again. Soon we’ll have those frosty mornings and frozen nights. Embrace it. Embrace all of it. And give thanks that we all still have a chance to add another Christmas memory to our already-stuffed store-bank of holiday doings. God bless us, every one.