Christmas Past

A journey into childhood 

The other day, I was in my basement searching for a orange and beige plastic 1970s fondue set I had bought at a garage sale 10years ago when I stumbled across a box marked “Christmas decorations. As I opened it, I found myself tripping down memory lane and thinking back to when I was a young boy and Christmas. Since I come from a rather large family, it was always a memorable event. Even after all these years, I still have vivid memories of Christmas, particularly the decorating of the tree ceremony, usually done three to four weeks before Christmas. My father would go in search of the perfect holly tree. We never knew where he found it but he somehow managed to bring one home, much to everyone’s delight. He would then set it up in the living room and I, along with my Mom, Dad and four other siblings, would help decorate it. My father (as every year) would have the honour of painstakingly putting the electric lights on the tree.

One of us kids would be recruited to parade behind him as a human electric light feeder as he marched around and around the tree placing the lights strategically on each branch. When it was finally completed we would all wait with bated breath, as my father plugged in the electric lights.  We knew, we were in for a long night of decorating if the lights were not “sitting” properly and needed to be re arranged. After several attempts and muffled swear words my father would come to the realization that perhaps the lights actually looked better with the first hanging. This maddening ritual would be followed by my mother taking charge of ornament placement! This usually took an enormous amount of time, as each placement of a tree ornament had to “communicate” or “tell a story” (according to my mother) with those ornaments that were already hanging nearby.

 

It didn’t speed things up, as my mother felt obligated to explain the sentimental value of each ornament before allowing it to be hung on the tree. She would say, “this ornament belonged to my favourite Aunt Mary who traveled all the way to New Jersey from California by rail in the hope of striking it rich by opening up her own “deli” next to a drive –in movie house” or . this star shaped ornament (with the broken tip) was a wedding present from the third wife of my ex-brother-in-law just before she died”. Of course there was always a casualty of war as one or even two ornaments “slipped” out of our hands and shattered on the living room floor. My mother would scream “don’t anyone move or you’ll cut yourself!” as she ran out of the room and came back with the super –duper high powered vacuum cleaner, able to suck up every fragment of glass. When all of the ornaments were placed on the tree and inspected by my mother, we would then proceed to cover the entire tree in a silver blanket of tinsel. In the end, it was our way of family bonding, of creating a tradition to pass on from generation to generation. Of course, the tree looked less grand which each passing day and by the time Christmas Eve arrived it looked like a wounded soldier returning from battle all lopsided and crooked. But hey, we were kids and that really didn’t matter to us. Nothing could prevent us from the feeling of joy and wonderment. So during this Christmas season try to reflect on fond memories of Christmas past

By Charles Anderson: Institute4languages