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An American CHRISTMAS |
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a family enjoys a traditional American Christmas |
Cherish the little things
that fulfill your Christmas
of TheColumnists.com
When I was seven or eight years old, the Christmas
season was a time of fantasy and transformation lit by heady
anticipation. The drizzly days and nights of the San Francisco
Bay Area glowed with the colored lights that lined every house.
Grouchy people wished you a “Merry Christmas” because
they had caught the “goodwill-toward-man” spirit described
in the holiday cards everyone exchanged with a 3-cent stamp.
The animated elves in the window displays of department stores
in San Francisco thrilled me more than Disneyland would ever
do.
The air was charged with the buildup to Christmas morning. But
thanks to the nuns who taught at my school, this climactic day
meant more than opening gifts from Santa that arrived magically
in the night or finally untying the ones that had accrued under
the tree, hopefully unbroken from all my exploratory shakes.
I was no child ascetic: Those presents were important. On Christmas
morning I’d pounce on my modest pile of gifts under the
tree. My family operated on a small scale in all aspects of life.
I was an only child. Our local extended family consisted of my
mom’s one sister and three brothers. Only my aunt was married
and she had a son five years younger than me.
Relations were sometimes tense, so I couldn’t count on getting
something from any or all of them each year. With World War II
frugality my parents would buy only the thing or two I wanted
most, so I learned to focus my desires. Gifts from neighbors
and family friends spiced up my haul. My only disappointment:
San Mateo didn’t have snow like the scenes on greeting cards.
The best we could do was to create the illusion of snow by draping
a white sheet around the base of the tree.
Never mind that Bethlehem lacked snow, too. The American Christmas
rather than the original one, which was probably not on December
25, defined the nature of this holiday for me. The image of Santa
Claus as portrayed in Coca Cola ads loomed large.
Then Rudolph came along. I still have the original “Rudolph
the Red-nosed Reindeer” book published by Montgomery Ward.
But I always knew and cherished the real heart of Christmas.
The good sisters at St. Matthews made sure of that.
In the classroom they taught us that the real significance of
this holiday was about one thing: Baby Jesus. He was the best
gift of all, one that only God could give. Not even the prophets
of the Old Testament could fully anticipate the nature of this
gift. The people of Israel longed for a messiah who would be
a mighty king ready to vanquish their enemies. The prophet Isaiah
wrote:
“Behold, the Lord
God will come with might with His arm ruling for Him” (Is.
40:10).
But then Isaiah switched from this Middle Eastern mode of thought
to draw closer to the reality of what this Messiah would be:
“Like a shepherd
He will tend His flock, in His arm He will gather the lambs and
carry them in His bosom; He will gently lead the nursing ewes.”
(Is. 40:11)
The nuns told us that Baby Jesus would grow up and show us how
we could and should love our neighbors, and be merciful. Through
Him it was possible to be reconciled with God, to be forgiven,
to start again. I still believe this.
Therefore, the nuns admonished, it was almost a sacrilege to
write “Xmas.” The phrase “Season’s greetings”
missed the point entirely. “Happy Holidays” implied
the saturnalias of the pagan Celts celebrating the winter solstice
around the same time on our calendar that runs from Thanksgiving
through New Years.
In the middle grades I was part of a children’s choir that
sang for liturgical events, Christmas being the most wonderful.
I can still hear us singing my favorite hymn, “Twas the
Birthday of the King.” I would have felt guilty if I preferred
“Santa Claus is coming to Town.” Totally joyful, I
skipped downtown to church on crisp mornings those last days
before Christmas for rehearsals in the church choir loft. I knew
I was on the right track.
I knew from my mother’s copies of Family Circle Magazine
that the spirit of Christmas could also be conveyed through taste
if you used the recipes they offered. What worked for me were
the spritz cookies that my mother’s German friend made for
us each year. After she died my mother and I found a magazine
recipe for butter cookies and made them together for years afterward.
They became part of the mosaic of Christmas that formed within
me as I grew up.
So did taking my bachelor Uncle Philip to see the decorated yachts
in the San Francisco Marina. He lived a Spartan life in San Francisco,
seldom leaving his downtown neighborhood. Mom and I would bring
him a tree, decorate it, and then dragged him off to see his
city in all its Christmas glory.
When I reached my teens my parents said that I was too old for
Christmas the way I’d always known it. Now it was their
turn to enjoy the holiday the way they wanted. So we attended
Christmas Eve parties at the homes of my father’s friends
in San Francisco, ending up with a midnight supper at the home
of his closest friends, a houseful of unmarried brothers and
sisters from Mexico. I wanted, instead, to go to bed early and
in the haze of drowsing off, hear the jingle bells attached to
my Christmas stocking. This meant that Santa was filling it.
I missed the old Christmas and hoped that something would rekindle
its mood--the scent of a Douglas fir tree, a lovely creche somewhere,
a plate of cut-out butter cookies. I missed my all-American Christmas
of the ‘40’s. But most of all I missed being a child
who found each Christmas to be wondrous yet familiar–a special
time that existed in a realm removed from everyday life.
When I married Bill, Christmas came back to me in spades. When
we spent it with his family in Colorado, we found snow, heaps
of food and presents, and lots of relatives all around. Both
his parents sang in the church choir; this was a sacred time
to them. On Christmas Eve, someone served a big dinner and we
gathered for nights afterward to finish the leftovers. We went
tubing in the snow with aunts, uncles and cousins. One year over
20 of us had a family night at the movies. Christmas was restored
as I always imagined it to be.
Bill and I wanted our children to experience more depth to Christmas
than what they saw on TV commercials. All of us took turns reading
prophecies from the Old Testament around an Advent wreath. As
parents, we tried gift control, but boxes of presents rained
down on us from Colorado.
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poses in a Christmas stocking. She shows off her new doll house from Santa at right. |
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Then we had grandchildren and forgot gift control. Our children brought them to our home on Christmas morning for an experience of delightful chaos which sometimes included the dog running off with the candy in our stockings.
But the year our granddaughter, Amri, was three, she stopped us cold.
I remember how much she looked like a golden-haired cherub from a Renaissance nativity scene.
When she arrived at our house that Christmas morning, she was totally absorbed by the tiny Polly Pocket doll that Santa had brought her. While she played with her doll I fetched the gifts under our tree while another young granddaughter handed them around. The unopened pile by Amri grew and grew while the rest of us tore into our loot. Then my helper served her cousin one more gift. Amri began to cry. “No more presents! ” she begged. She knew when one was enough.
Christmas is so laden with expectation that we overlook its fulfillment. We expect this holiday to recapture childhood or to work its magic to suspend family tensions. We expect to be showered by the generosity of others. We turn to TV specials about make-believe families enjoying the holiday to spark our own spirits. We do the baking and try to live up to the expectations of family and friends. And still those hollow moments sneak in like Dickens’ spirits.
The fulfillment of Christmas comes not on the 24th or 25th, but throughout the season in those unexpected moments that warm the heart because they come from the hearts of others--the gathering where you sense how much everyone cherishes the friendship that brought you together; the time a grandchild points out her favorite ornaments and tells you when her family got each one; the time you find an expressive personal note enclosed in a card that usually bears just the sender’s name. These moments can be transforming. They can deliver beyond expectation and they take us outside of ourselves.
Like God’s gift of Baby Jesus.
© 2002 by Joyce Kiefer.
The illustration is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895
Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA. The photos
of Joyce and her childhood Christmases are from the author's
collection.
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