If all the Christmases I spent as a child, there are two that stand out to me more than all the others. The first was unremarkable and that's why it stands out. Each year my mother, dragged our plastic tree covered in ever-yellowing clods of fake snow down from the attic along with several boxes of ornaments that ranged from a baby's first Christmas globe in era appropriate shades of 1970s browns and oranges to heirloom baubles from her own childhood. There were garlands of shiny beads in red, pink, silver, and gold and hand crocheted stockings featuring Santa, (which was always my dad's), a snowman, (always my brother's), and two with strawberries of all things which mom and I used. And then there were the school crafts and coloring pages which mom laminated so she could keep them forever and in fact still uses them today at holiday time. And lastly there were stacks of Christmas cards we'd received over the years which mom hung all around doorways and walls to add to the cheer of the season. She did this every year, except one, the one I remember.
I don't know what was happening in our lives that year, but we were busier than usual. Mom was tired and just didn't get around to putting up any decorations. Our "attic" was really just a crawl space in the ceiling with narrow boards spanning the insulation and resting on support beams. My dad had warned me that a wrong step and I would punch through the insulation and dry wall and find myself in a heap on the floor. Sufficiently terrified, I wouldn't risk going in to the attic even if I could have reached it alone, which wasn't possible since the only way to access it was by placing a ladder under the hole cut in the ceiling and having someone push the "door" open and then hoist me inside. Unable to undertake the decorating alone, I waited. Surely we would have a tree, we never had Christmas without a tree. And I waited. School let out for the holidays and we still hadn't decorated. Christmas was just days away and frantic for Christmas cheer, I begged my parents to bring everything down from the attic. They were sitting on the couch, watching t.v., dozing, and they looked at each other first, then at me and shrugged. Mom explained that there was really no point in decorating now only to turn around and take it all down again in just a few days. Powerless I marched off to my room to devise another plan.
I plunked down on my yellow and orange shag carpet to think this out. I spied a block of colored construction paper under my bed and suddenly had a plan. Returning to the living room, I emptied a long black rectangular bookcase and flipped it upright so that it almost touched the ceiling. I glanced back, my parents were still napping, so I pressed on with my plan. Removing the entire section of green paper from the block I set about covering the bookcase to make it look like a tree. Sometime later, I had finished the makeshift tree and stepped back to admire my work. It. Was......Awful. It looked nothing like a tree. I draped scarves around it for garland and glued colored cotton balls to it for ornaments, then stepped back to look again. Still garbage. At this point my parents woke up and saw what my brain had wrought. At the very least, I hoped it might guilt them in to getting down the real tree, but no. Instead they balked at my displacement of the books and insisted I return the bookcase to its original position as it had already started to lean. I refused. Instead I piled the presents around it and promised to make it all right after Christmas. I didn't. I remember scurrying by as my mom finally dismantled my creation sometime in mid-January, hoping she wouldn't see me and make me help.
The other Christmas that comes to mind is the one when my parents were struggling financially. The 1980s were a difficult time not just because there was a major recession going on but also a drought which meant that our farm was constantly on the verge of collapse. It was the year when my mom would say things like, "Thank you for doing all your chores this week, children. I can either pay you your allowance or I can use the money to go buy some groceries to tide us over until next week." I'm not sure that was an actual choice being offered, but of course we always opted to let her keep the money to buy food. So, it wasn't a surprise when my parents told us that Christmas that year would be rather light that year. We made our peace with it because it couldn't be helped.
Over the weeks leading up to Christmas we saw a number of presents find their way under the tree and so even though there wasn't much, we were still excited. Christmas morning came and my brother and I rushed to the tree. My brother grabbed a gift and said, "this one's for you," then slid me the box and kept digging to find his own name on a brightly wrapped gift. I tore the green and gold paper open to reveal the corner of a set of gourmet plastic food and squealed with delight, just as my mom walked into the room and gasped. "Oh, no," she said, "that's not for you, that's for your cousins!" She grabbed the box and began inspecting the tear to see if she could tape it closed or would have to rewrap it. Unable to find anything under the tree, my brother sat back for a moment and we looked at each other. My dad walked in, apprised the situation and then sat down on the couch. Having fixed the torn gift paper, mom returned it to the tree and then turned to us.
She pulled our stockings off the wall and handed them to us. Inside my brother's snowman stocking was a very small pocket knife. Inside my strawberry stocking was a small wrapped rectangle which contained a New Kids on the Block cassette tape. That was all. My parents were so ashamed of our financial situation that they had spent most of the Christmas money getting gifts for their families so that no one would know we were in dire straits. My brother and I mustered all the sprakle surprise magic we could to open those small gifts, said thanks, and left the room since Christmas was over after all. Our rooms were on the right side of the hallway and our doorways were right next to each other. I went to my room and he went to his. A moment later, my brother appeared in my room. We had no doors, so there was point in knocking. "Hey," he said, and took another step inside. Then, looking over his shoulder to make sure no one else was lingering outside my doorway, he continued, "let's not let mom and dad know we're disappointed. They tried really hard. Okay?" "Okay," I said. We went back into the living room and there for only the second time in my entire life, I saw my dad crying. My mom was holding him and trying to tell him it would be alright. My brother and I looked at each other and knew without speaking what we had to do. We rushed into the room exuberant, we thanked, we praised, we gushed. We tried in our childlike way to tell our parents that the gifts weren't what mattered, the people were and that we loved them and appreciated them because we knew it wasn't easy for them. Dad cheered up and mom made a nice breakfast. Afterwards we spent the day at relatives' houses handing out their gifts and never saying a word about the rest.
I remember these two Christmases not because they were bad but because they taught me so much more than I learned in all the good years. The hard times taught me that it is absolutely worth the effort. Make the effort, whatever that means to you. If it means making your home look beautiful so that your family is filled with Christmas cheer, then do it joyfully as the gift and the sacrifice that it is, and that sacrifice part is especially apparent when it comes time to take everything down and pack it away. If it means cutting some people in your life (including yourself) a break because you know they're struggling emotionally or financially, then do it because your love has no strings attached. Make the effort to make this time something that you and the people you love will remember and cherish forever.
Merry Christmas!
