When I was younger five or six deacades ago, Christmas did not seem to come so early. We followed a stately procession of months, holidays and family celebrations.
All came in an orderly fashion. Christmas did not begin right after Labor Day, Halloween or the fifth of July. We waited, albeit impatiently, until at least the day after Thanksgiving.
Perhaps Santa’s little helpers, affectionately known as The Olds, got an early start, but my sister and I were never to know of such activities. They happened when we were in school or after our bedtime.
The Olds were so cruel that they even confiscated the gift books — the Sears, Wards, JC Penny and even my favorite, the Western Auto catalogues — from us. They promised that if we were good, helpful and well-behaved on Thanksgiving, we could look at them the next morning.
On that Friday, the Grinch (my nickname for my younger sister) and I rose early, dressed and hurried down to the dining room. There on the table were the all-exciting books, and next to them a pad of paper and pencil for each of us. We were to print out our wish list which they assured us would be mailed to Santa, c/o the North Pole, on Dec. 1.
I wanted to save the old boy a lot of work, so I wrote, “Santa, one of everything, please,” but Grinchy said it didn’t work that way. I had to go through the books and pick out specific requests.
Even when December finally arrived, Christmas was slow out of the staring gates. For the first few days all we could do was take turns opening one Advent Calendar window each day.
Remember, this was back in the austere and deprived days when there was no morsel of cheap and tasteless chocolate as a reward. Inside the window du jour was another little picture.
Meanwhile, The Olds had their own calendar. It was a real one, not some pouncy one from Dee’s 76 Gas Station. Mother had a hardcover one from the New Yorker, a subscription and gift she received each year from an aunt living in Boston’s Back Bay.
That is where she kept track of all the activities ranging from the Odd Fellows Lodge Christmas Party to the children’s Christmas pageant at the Methodist Church, to the day when she would drive to the Episcopal Church to buy a year’s supply of fruitcake. (I still have a couple of 2-lb. bricks in the freezer.)
Mother recorded when Santa would make a cameo appearance in the toy department on the fourth floor at Dayton’s Department Store, parades, school activities and dinner parties. There were a lot of dinner parties — something The Olds said they loved doing but left them exhausting after.
She scheduled when we would decorate the tree and house, make cookies and wrap presents (always under adult supervision ever since I tried gift-wrapping the Grinch in hopes of exchanging her at a school party.)
Thanks to her work, everything fell into place. Well, almost. Schools were closed for a day because of an old-fashioned blizzard that slipped in on us.
Or when my sister came down with the sniffles, or the year the cousin of an aunt interrupted all Mother’s plans by falling off her perch. Permanently, with the funeral three days later.
Only now do I realize how hard The Olds worked at making Christmas special. I know many carry on that tradition for their children and the grands.
If you happen to see one in action, perhaps looking a bit haggard and harried, say something nice to her or him. It will be much appreciated. Besides, Santa is watching to see who is naughty and nice.
I have also come to appreciate the importance of traditions. There is something special being able to say, “We always decorated the tree two weeks before Christmas.” Little things like that are part of our private heritage, deeply ingrained into our DNA and bring a tickle to our heart when they slip back to the forefront of our mind.
Our family’s really big Christmas traditions were based on our connection with the Methodist church. Mother was the Sunday school co-director along with her best friend. That meant at this time of year they rode herd over children in the Christmas pageant.
It also meant Father and I took our turn at the outdoor live nativity scene. On those nights we wore our heaviest winter clothes, donned a bunch of wooly robes and tied it in place with a piece of rope. We put on an itchy wool beard, somehow fastened onto a wire that hooked over our ears, and then a wool headpiece.
With shepherd’s big wooden crooks in hand, we stood outside in a paddock with two ultra-aromatic sheep and a sad donkey named “Josie.” The object of the exercise was to look sufficiently holy while people drove by.
I’m not sure of the goal. It couldn’t have been meditation and reflection, because back then Methodists didn’t talk much about that sort of thing. And if it was to evangelize nonbelievers, well, I don’t think it worked all that well.
We just did it, and every year Father and I would sign up, eager to share the tradition together. Most years we finished our 90-minute shifts silently vowing never to do this again. Ever. We always did, and I wish we could again this year.
Those memories of traditions are important to each of us. They remind us we need to carefully look at our present life and the legacy we want to leave to our little tax exemptions and their children.
I know one tradition that is meaningful to many people, whether they are church members or not, is to attend a Christmas Eve service. Of course, some feel awkward about walking into a church they haven’t visited since Easter morning.
Will the cleric warmly welcome them, or make some slighting remark about people who only come twice a year? And worst of all, what if they inadvertently sit in someone else’s pew?
You know what? If a Christmas Eve service is part of your tradition, or something you have even the slightest scintilla of hope that it might be meaningful, GO! Walk through the door and remember the old line from the musical “Oliver”: “Consider yourself well in. Consider yourself part of the family.”
You realize, don’t you, that you just made yourself part of their tradition? At this time of the year, that is a very wonderful gift.
