Christmas

I have fond memories of the holidays. Thanksgiving was - and still is - one of my favorite holidays. I'm not quite sure why (though it may have something to do with the copious amounts of food...) but I just love it. Maybe it's because it leads into Christmas - a holiday that makes me feel all sorts of warm and fuzzy - or maybe it's just being allowed to gorge myself until I fall into a catatonic state. I'm betting on the latter.
All joking aside, Christmas isn't the same as it once was and for a while I found myself really disenchanted by it. As a child I remember being so exciting to decorate the tree (which we'd all gone together to pick out) and being able to play with all of my mother's Christmas knick knacks was just the icing on the cake. That build up of excitement as we opened each little door on the cardboard avent calendar . . .
Then Christmas Eve would finally be here. We'd watch Rudolph and Frosty and daydream about the following morning when life would be simply perfect. And I'd wonder just how Santa would fit down that narrow pipe on our wood stove . . .
One year we were visited by Carollers and I remember standing in the doorway, shivering in my nightgown, and feeling completely safe and at ease with the world. Everything was right in that moment . . .
And then Christmas morning! Fahgedaboutit! My brothers and I would be up at the crack of dawn - and we had a ritual, of course. Whoever woke up first, woke the rest of the siblings. Then one of us would be designated to go in and wake up mom and dad; it was usually Dave, since he was the oldest, but not always.
Then we'd all have to sit on the stairs, chomping at the bit while Mom and Dad puttered around the kitchen, made coffee, visited the bathroom. But, to appease the masses and, in a wise strategic move that probably had more to do with their own self preservation, they'd allow us to open our stockings while we waited.
Then the real fun began. The whirlwind of delighted screams and brightly colored wrapping paper, the cacophony of battery-operated noise and my own girly squeals . . .
It was a magic induced high, a euphoria of childhood innocence. It was beautiful.
Then the high wore off and we'd all cart our new treasures off to our bedrooms, leaving our poor parents to deal with the mess in the living room.
Later would come Christmas dinner at Grammie's house and the pictures and the visits with cousins and aunts and uncles rarely seen during the rest of the year. And maybe a couple more presents, but not always.

I'm not sure when it happened but at some point the magic went out of Christmas. It was after my father died and all of us were too old to believe in Santa anymore. Suddenly the excitement wasn't there, that amazing build-up was just . . . gone.
Even after the younger kids moved in; I was excited for them since none of them had really ever had a nice Christmas but I had gone from being the youngest of the brood to the oldest. I was cynical and jaded and though I loved seeing their faces as they opened presents, the magic - for me - was gone. Or maybe not gone, just different.
My first Christmas after moving out was hard. It was so quiet, so lonely, with just Jocco and myself. But then I got used to it and Christmas became just another holiday - sans magic. We had all gone our separate ways and I realized that it was the togetherness that had made the holiday so special - not the presents.

Having children made me want to bring back the magic; the excitement and the build-up. I began doing all of those little things: baking Christmas cookies, painting snowy scenes on the windows, decorating the tree a month in advance, watching Christmas movies . . .
With the children came the desire to make Christmas not about the gifts, but about being a family and recapturing and preserving the magic that blooms when we are all together and happy.
THAT is the Christmas I want my children to remember. Toys break, wrapping paper gets thrown out and trees dry up but that feeling of being safe - of being loved and together - that feeling will stay with them forever.