After the buying, worrying, and scurrying about…after the Black Fridays and the Cyber Mondays…after the hubbub that the holidays bring, even after the convivial toasts and holiday greetings, comes Christmas Eve. When the last well-wisher has “Merry Christmas’ed” and the noise of traffic had died away, there is a moment when I find myself alone and nostalgia creeps in. During that surcease of activity, I remember the times that marked my life.
Somewhere in our piles of photographs is a picture of me at my sixth birthday party. The year was 1953 and the era of bouncy-house parties had not begun. Most birthday celebrations involved a few kids from the neighborhood and an aunt or uncle taking pictures with a plastic Kodak.
My party was pretty much the same. As I remember the photo, I was standing in our snow-covered front yard wearing an aviator type leather cap with the ear flaps dangling awkwardly. Around me are an assortment of neighborhood boys, four or five of them, wearing whatever their mothers could convince them to wear against the cold day. There was Chipper, Michael, Billy, Joe and Mike McGill. I still know them all well except Mike McGill. Mike lived next door on Leroy Street and his mother was my kindergarten teacher. They moved away shortly after the photo.
I am facing the camera and in front of me is a rectangular cake on a tray table. I was born on Christmas Day so the cake had white snow-like icing and on top a plastic Santa sat in a sleigh pulled by eight tiny plastic prancing reindeer. My mother stands over my shoulder, her head wrapped in a scarf, ready, I think, to put six candles in the cake so I could make a wish. I don’t remember it from the picture, as she is wrapped up against the cold, but Mom must have been about six months pregnant with my sister, Connie. I don’t know why we are in the front yard but I don’t think most mothers would have let that little gang of ragamuffins run snow-shod inside the house.
I thought about searching for the photo as I wrote this but realized I really don’t want to find it. I am sure my memory is painted and re-painted by the years and I don’t want to be confused by reality. It was a time of pals and neighborhood adventures and family gatherings.
In those early years there were fearful times when we spent Christmas at Dad’s parents house in Union, SC. His parents were nothing to be afraid of…in fact I loved to visit them. I was not sure, however, that Santa was familiar with the territory. I remember tossing and turning, listening to every creak of that old house hoping to hear reindeer hooves or at least a sound of boots landing on the living room floor. No such luck. Finally, cocooned in heavy blankets against the chill of the room, sleep overcame my worries and I awoke to the sound of Paw-Paw Hill putting some coal in the living room fireplace. The house did not have central heat and was heated by space heaters and coal fireplaces and on December mornings no one wanted to get up until somebody else stoked the fire.
Hoping against what I feared most, I crept out of bed and made my sleepy way toward the glow of the fire. I could hear my grandmother stirring around in the kitchen making something that smelled delicious. I know now that that smell was the never-to-be-forgotten aroma of fatback in cast iron skillet. She would be busy cutting out biscuits with a worn Calumet baking powder can. On other days, I could hardly wait to break them open and spread butter on them before pouring thick black molasses on top.
But I had bigger hopes even than her unforgettable breakfasts…I looked under the tree in the corner of the room and there were only the same packages from the night before. As my dreams tumbled out of my eyes, Dad called from the adjoining bedroom. I crossed the room and there, already set up and gleaming in the reflected flicker of the fire was a Roy Rogers Double-R-Bar Ranch set with plastic figures of Roy and Dale, Trigger and Buttermilk, their dog Bullet and even the Ranch house. I could still tell you about every piece in the set. I didn’t know how but Santa had managed to find me and even put the set together without waking my parents in the same room. I was then and still am prepared to accept it as Christmas Magic.
At fifteen, my neighborhood had expanded. My slowly developing brain was infused with thoughts of high school and girls and cars. I confess to being a little embarrassed when my parents planned a sixteenth birthday party at the old National Guard armory on Elliott Street. I was excited about having my friends together and elated with the prospect of slow dances with the girls in my class who were suddenly so grown up.
I was, in 1962, six-one and what my grandparents called a “Bean Pole.” The only “dress-up” coat I had was a mother-bought tweed and I had grown so fast that the sleeves were two inches too short for my gangly arms. I had just started to care about looking decent in clothes and was a little self-conscious about not looking “cool” at the party. Don’t underestimate “Cool.” It was the ultimate goal of everyone in high school in the 1960’s. Other words like gnarly and boss and groovy have tried to take its place but cool is just, well…cooler.
When party day came, about two weeks before my Christmas birthday, I had already brushed my crew cut to perfection and was tugging at my coat-sleeves to try and make them longer when Dad called me into the living room. There, on an upholstered chair, was a deep forest green sports coat, a pair of gray pants, a white button-down collar shirt, and a gold and green striped tie.
I said a brief “Thank You” and hurried off to my room. I put on the clothes and got Dad to tie my necktie. When I walked back into the bathroom, I saw, for the first time, a young man looking back at me from the mirror. The party went well, I have some blurry photos to prove it, but it could not match the moment I first became aware that I was growing up…that I was no longer the silly kid Dad had called into the living room.
Christmas changes when our own children come onto the scene. Christmas morning with young children awakens something warm and gushy in all of us. When kids come along they are at first, a complete disappointment on Christmas morning, then at about age three they catch on and we first see the astonishment in their eyes. At that moment, they help us recapture the joy of the season. That childhood innocence and uncontrolled delight helps us not to mind so much staying up late helping Santa put together Barbie Houses or train sets or even the dreaded bicycle. I said so many terrible words one year trying to get the handlebar grips on a pink bicycle that I could have filled up two swear word jars had they not already been full of egg nog.
Those beaming Christmas faces last until our little bundles of joy reach about age 12 and suddenly everything is the wrong brand, wrong color or just plain not right. We love them and despite all evidence to the contrary, they love us back. In a mere decade or so they will again magically appear as just the grown-ups we hoped they could become. As they marry and have children of their own, we will spend Christmas at their house, or they will bustle into ours with arms full of brightly wrapped packages and the cycle will begin again.
I know that your Christmas memories are very different from mine. I know that there are often sad memories mingled with the good. I only hope, that through my stories and small adventures you recall fragments of your early years and along with me, believe again in the impossible and the miraculous, even if only for a few magical moments.
As I finish this podcast, we have just lost Cheryl’s father and our loss of him will color our time together. As people do, however, the family will comfort each other with good memories of Grady and Christmases spent with him. From my family to yours, I wish you a Christmas full of family and friends and love.
Mike
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