I took a few days last week to put up some Christmas decorations. I don’t go as hog-wild as I used to when the kids were small, and certainly not as elaborately as I did when Earl was alive. Earl loved the holidays and we always started decorating the day after Thanksgiving and left everything up until after the Orthodox Christmas in late January.
The ornaments we bought from our travels around the world are still wrapped in tissue and in boxes in the garage. Living in a small townhouse I only have room for so much and no more. So my little tree is decorated with 8 tiny bird ornaments and clear lights; a little cotton snow around the bottom which gets smaller with each passing day as my pup, Indy, decided that taking a nip at it really gets my attention and it makes me laugh because it hangs down around his chin and he looks like he has Santa’s beard!
Last night, I had the fireplace on, the lights of the decorations, and Christmas music playing. Indy and I sat alone in the living room and I thought about those precious one’s who are no longer present here on earth, and was remembering Christmas when I was a little girl.
We lived in Cleveland, Ohio, and my mom and I would take the bus downtown late in the day and get off behind the Higbee store. There’d be snow on the ground and the streets, black and wet with melted snow reflected the lights of the stores, cars and traffic lights. We’d walk up the block to Euclid Avenue and begin our walk down the winter-wonderland before us. Every window we passed had elaborate trimmings. Trains tooted and blew smoke from their smoke-stacks, while villages of elves and animals moved about! Each window display different and more incredible than the other. Men, dressed as Santa rang bells as they collected money for various charities. Christmas music played and after taking in the window displays, we’d go into May Company and go up to the toy department that was brimming with every kind of toy one could imagine. Back then, we didn’t have TV (yes, I am THAT old!) and so, commercialism hadn’t entered our lives and it really was like going to Santa’s work shop!
I can remember the bus rides returning home and walking hand-in-hand with my mother as we crunched through the snow as we walked down the hill to our home. The neighbors all had their homes decorated and we could see the families indoors. We’d arrive home, cold and sometimes wet and sit in the kitchen and drink hot chocolate and talk about Christmas.
It was good back then. Christmas was about hopes and dreams and being together and making popcorn balls and cookies. Now, as little, Cindy, says in the, Grinch, "It’s all so superfluous!"
I’ll never forget the Christmas my mother learned about Santa. It was during WWII and I was just a little girl. Times were tough back then. My brothers-in-law were all overseas and my sister’s were working in the factories. I remember that they used leg-makeup because they didn’t have stockings to wear. We were able to eat, because we had food stamps and my dad used to go to the railroad and pick up coal that fell off of the trains so that we could keep warm. It was Christmas Eve and mother had tears in her eyes. She said that she hated to spoil my dreams and my beliefs, but there really wasn’t a Santa. She explained that there wasn’t any money and that I would not be getting a new doll for Christmas! I can remember thinking that this information was really painful for my mom and I minded that more than I did finding out there was no Santa.
The next morning when we got up - - much to everyone’s surprise - - there was this wonderful doll under the tree for me. My mother was shocked and couldn’t believe her eyes. I knew she wasn’t pretending because she was crying. Where had this doll come from? It wasn’t there when she went to bed.
Later in the day she learned where it came from - - I didn’t learn for many years, since the existence of Santa had been firmly reestablished in my life that morning.
It seems that my youngest sister’s boyfriend, David, had come home from the Navy and on Christmas Eve, learned that I wasn’t going to have a doll that year. He and my sister, walked around town until they found a store that was still open and had a doll for me. Christmas miracles!
Fast forward to now and I am still paying off the iPods I bought for the grandkids two years ago!
I need a little old-time Christmas right about now. How about you?
Let’s take time to be thankful for the gifts of - life, health, vision, hearing, loving, children - of all ages - and the time to rejoice in them!
Merry Christmas to you and yours and may the new year bring peace to mankind everywhere.
God bless you!
Diana
