Christmas Memories
By SHARON AIKEN
Like snowfalls in the South, the best Christmas memories renew our spirit, inviting us to remember a time when the edges were less sharp, less well defined, and we were not in a rush to lose the special light they brought. Like the snowflakes, the memories and years come fast, overlap, pile higher and higher, obscuring the past in haste to remember the present(s).
My first real Christmas memories begin with school at Jasper County Elementary, where every year the only thing that changed about the Christmas program was the grade we happened to be in. We entered down either side of the auditorium singing “O Come All Ye Faithful” and exited with an enthusiastic “Joy to the World.”
In between, students from kindergarten to fifth grade told and sang the story of Mary and Joseph, the Wise Men, Angels, and the Baby lying in a manger. And every year the teachers tried to convince those of us who could not sing how important we were, because we were actually telling the story of the birth of Christ.
I don’t know how many they fooled—or think they fooled, but I know I still would liked to have been part of the choir on stage. And whether I wanted to learn them or not, we rehearsed so often I still know all the traditional Christmas carols, as well as the story that began, “It came to pass in those days . . .” Of course, I still can’t sing.
Then there was the Christmas party after the program, which was why we were all so enthusiastic in singing “Joy to the World,” and getting back to our classrooms. We could count on angelic “Grade Mothers” to provide sugar cookies, cupcakes, and the same green punch made year after year; it must have been a secret recipe because it never came from a grocery store, ready made. It was more than food, though.
It was the multi-colored bubble lights on the Christmas tree, in their round holders—which actually piqued my scientific curiosity and fascination. Teachers were observant then, too, and knew the bubble lights were more enticing than long division, so they allowed us to watch only early in the day and late in the afternoon.
We drew names, kept our identities a secret, and exchanged great toys that were less than a dollar—except, of course, when I got a ”boring” book, Heidi, in fifth grade.
Christmas morning meant tea sets and baby dolls when I was eight, and a day of rest when I was eighteen. Beginning when I was fourteen, and throughout high school and college, Christmas meant 12 hours’ work on Christmas Eve in Beckham’s Dime Store, for the royal sum of fifty cents an hour, then manual inventory counts until New Year’s Day, followed by “extending” the book, which meant endless multiplication—also manual—for days.
I read Dickens’ Christmas Carol and couldn’t see what Bob Cratchet had to complain about.
Eventually, marriage brought a new dimension of Christmas and it became frenzied fun—Christmas parties with friends, Christmas Eve with one family, leaving them to join another, then early rising Christmas morning, leaving shortly to be with my family. That would change, of course, over time, when our son was born and we refused to go anywhere on Christmas day.
Christmas with Drew brought elves to our door, embarrassing letters to Santa in the local newspaper, special yearly ornaments from the Wicked Witch of the West to the Starship Enterprise and Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing Fighter, and toys—castles, pirate ships, legos, and video games—just as it should be.
Above everything, every year, there was a loving Christmas spirit that began with a small family of three in Bethlehem. I understood the special love of those three, even as a small child. There were no brothers or sisters at my house, either.
It was natural that the spirit of love continued in the face of a man I always knew was Santa.
Clement Moore pictured him perfectly: “His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry! His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!”
My Dad loved Christmas, despite missing the early mornings when, as a small child, I was too eager to wait for him to open my gifts that he had worked so hard to pay for. As I grew older and gift giving meant more than the obligatory present, I would ask him what he wanted for Christmas.
“Oh, I can’t think of anything,” he would say, despite the frayed khaki work pants and worn boots. “I just want us all to be well and want us all be together.”
“But what else?” I would insist in my ignorance. Knowingly, he would just smile at me, trusting that someday I would understand that his wish was everything anyone could ask for.
“I just want us all to be well, and want us all to be together.” That’s a Christmas memory almost as beautiful as the Christmas story told by children, year after year, almost as beautiful as “the moon on the breast of new fallen snow,” and almost as beautiful, eternal, and transformational as love.
Merry Christmas.
