Christmases Past

I have been nostalgic for the Christmases of my childhood. I stay awake remembering half the night away. Mother was Mrs. Christmas. She loved everything about it and was all in on the shopping, feasting and decorating. 

Daddy always selected a tree that was too tall, even though we had tweve foot ceilings in the living room. Mother made sure “the bad side” was hidden in the corner. We all decorated with homemade ornaments, fragile glass balls and lots and lots of tinsel, on the tree and all of us! The lights went on first, but that was usually a multiple person job to get them untangled and make sure they all worked.While the untangling was happening, the red felt Christmas stockings with our names in sequins went up. Two of our great aunts on my father’s side made them for us and made one for every new baby and new spouse for as long as they were with us. They even sent a box of goodies every year to fill them. We usually got to open the stocking stuffers on Christmas Eve, after the feast.

Mother had legendary shopping skills. She also had a no shaking or touching rule about the packages under the tree. She was tired of listening to arguments about who had the most or the biggest packages under the tree so she stopped putting our names on the tags. She started using codes that she would reveal on Christmas morning. One year there were no tags at all. The packages for one person were all in the same kind of wrapping paper. No small feat to find enough paper in nine different patterns.

Decades before anyone thought to market the Elf on the Shelf, Mother had elves perched over each of our bedroom doors to report to Santa about what time we finally went to sleep each night and how many times we fought with each other.

Our meal was on Christmas Eve. One of Daddy’s clients raised geese so we had a Christmas goose. Mother was a good cook, but an even better organizer. As soon as each of us turned about seven, we started helping with feast preparation. Mother’s role became one of organizing and doling out assignments. My husband says she ran the operation as if she was a general conducting a military campaign. We all had our assignments and the result was a delicious feast.

We drew names between all of the kids and had a strict price limit. One year, two of my brothers proved the adage that people buy other people what they really want themselves. They went out separately shopping and each bought a Popeil Pocket Fisherman for the other one.

On Christmas morning we had to stay upstairs until at least 6 AM. We would gather at the top of the stairs waiting until it was time  to wake our parents up. Mother and Daddy went downstairs first, turned on the coffee and sat down before we were allowed to come to see what Santa left for us. One advantage of being the oldest in a large family was that Santa remembered me until I was eleven! 

Mother wanted to see everyone’s reactions as they opened their gifts so we always opened them one person at a time. That meant, literally, hours and hours Christmas morning to get through everyone’s unwrapping. Daddy managed the big black garbage bags to gather up shed wrapping paper in between unwrappers. We had cinnamon rolls and orange danishes hot from the oven while we unwrapped.

In the spirit of those long ago Christmases, I wish you a joyous Christmas and echo the sentiments of Dickens’ Tiny Tim, “God bless us, every one.”