Christmas and Memories

Sleeping Beauty's castle, lit for the season.

Copyright © 2017

by Ralph F. Couey

Age diminishes many things, mostly physical, but somehow our appreciation for the simpler things never goes away.

We are now in what the politically correct call "The Holiday Season," but the rest of us always know as Christmas.  The air is colder, the days shorter, for some the first of many winter snows cover the ground.  But entering this season, one can't deny the onset of a quiet kind of happiness.  Part of that comes from childhood memories, rife with anticipation framed by the impatience of waiting for the arrival of that jolly old gent and a memorable morning tearing into gaily wrapped packages, watching dreams come true.  As I got older, I gained an appreciation for the gathering of family, grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins whom I never saw often enough.  Sometimes that meant a long trip up north to Wisconsin, where I realized they had REAL snow, instead of the hit-or-miss pattern of Missouri's winter weather.  There, we would all go to Tenney Park and spend a glorious day sledding down steep hills, having snowball fights, building snowmen, all those fun things that can only be done in winter.  When the sun rested on the horizon, we trooped back to a home, warm and bustling, where a hot bath and dry clothes awaited us.  I remember Christmas morning, us kids sitting around the tree, the focus and cynosure of love and affection as we tore into our gifts.  

Christmas dinner was served up by my grandmother, a brilliant instinctive cook who, along with her daughters, produced a feast the flavors of which still bring a smile to me over 50 years later.  A couple of days more, and we piled back into the car and started that long ten-hour trip back to Missouri.  The glow of those days stayed with me, and how I wished that it would go on longer.  

These days, new memories are being made by families who travel near and far to gather for a frenetic few days of family, storing up that joy that can only come from such gatherings to sustain us through the long, dark tunnel of January and February.

This year finds us separated from family.  We are finishing up a contract in Covina, California which keeps us here until December 30th.  We are facing a Christmas alone for the first time in I don't know how many years, while across the country, our grown children and their kids will be reveling in the joy and happiness of Christmas morning.  We will speak to them via webcam at some point, but while enjoyable, doesn't come close to playing with them, helping them discover and enjoy their gifts, and getting their hugs and kisses.

There have been Christmases while I was in the Navy when our kids opened their gifts while I sat sadly missing them half a world away.  Somehow when we were all together, I never thought about those future times when we'd be apart.  I lived in those moments, soaking it all in while consumed with joy.

It's easy to remember the reason we celebrate this holiday, the birth of Jesus Christ.  But as wonderful and miraculous an event as that was, this is also a season for families; for cherishing those unbreakable bonds of love and affection.  It is a time when we see the world through the eyes of children, sharing with them that spine-tingling anticipation, and their happiness in the decorations, the songs, the happier mood adults seem to be in, and that moment in the lap of Santa, sharing with him our heart's desires.  As adults, we need that perspective in our lives.  We live with too much stress and worry, and its good and healing to be a child again, even if only vicariously.

This time between Thanksgiving and Christmas Day seems to fly by, powered by the events on the calendar and the preparation for them going on all the time.  All too soon, Christmas passes, then the New Year makes its appearance, and then it all goes back to normal.  The decorations come down, the tree is taken away, and the house suddenly seems so barren.  The routine of work and school re-asserts itself, and we are swept away by the treadmill of our regular lives.  We mourn the passage of this season, and all the happiness it brought us, but the good thing about Christmas is that it will be back again next year.  

As the years pile up, so will the memories.  Decades from now there will come a moment while walking down a street as the flakes of gentle snowfall from the sky when a snippet from the past will detach itself from the dim recesses of our memories and in that moment, the joy and happiness we felt so long ago once again floods our minds and warms our hearts.  

And for a brief moment in time, it will be Christmas once again.