My Parents Made Christmas Special
Mamacita says: Both of my parents grew up in near poverty, and I think that’s one reason they were both so determined to make Christmas such a special time for their own children.
Mom used to tell us how she would have given ANYTHING for a bicycle, but it wasn’t possible. Oh, how she wanted a little china tea set, but it wasn’t possible. When she played with the little rich girl down the street, the mother would sometimes give the girls a Twinkie and a little bottle of Coke, and Mom’s eyes would go dreamy with memory as she told us that story. Such a treat.
All of us siblings always had bicycles. My sister and I had a little china tea set. There was a Twinkie in my packed school lunch almost every day. She bought Cokes when it wasn’t a birthday or holiday.
My parents had many stories of sad birthdays and sadder Christmas mornings, but they made sure their own kids had glorious holidays, and took 8mm home movies to remind us how much fun we had and probably took for granted. Neither of my parents had much Christmas guidance growing up, so they created their own Christmas out of their imaginations, movies they’d seen, advertisements from stores, decorations they saw, and things they just wanted, by golly.
I remember Christmas as a time of intense wonder, huge glowing tree, bells in the window, the same stocking every single year (I still have mine) and two ever-young parents watching their children experience the holiday they themselves never got. In this way, they got it, too.
The Winter Solstice, 2020
Mamacita says: Today is the Winter Solstice, the shortest day and longest night of the year. It’s also the first official day of winter.
I love thinking about how the planet and the universe affect our lives, pretty much dictating when we wear a coat, turn on a light, and a kazillion other mundane – or are they? – activities that we call life. The earth under our feet is spinning faster than we can comprehend while simultaneously hurtling around a ball of flaming gases, yet we do not feel it and take for granted the beginning and ending of each day and night, and even consider it routine. That there are people who are not lost in wonder at the majesty of all of this both saddens and gobsmacks me. Because how can they not SEE it?
I Really Miss My Dad At Christmas
Mamacita say: I really miss my dad at Christmas. I miss how he would lie on the floor under the tree just looking at its beauty and wonder. I miss how he would pick up and shake every package and guess what it was, and he was usually right. I miss how he would pretend to be so surprised when he opened a present from little-children-us, which added to the excitement of Christmas. I miss how he took the tree out in the back yard and hammered together a huge wooden stand that wouldn’t let the tree fall over if a child happened to pull at an ornament. There is a role of wrapping paper I still have that I wrapped his gift in, that last Christmas. I will never part with it. I miss how he would read “A Christmas Carol” to us and explain all the customs and traditions and some of the big words to us – Dad was a wonderful reader. Thanks to Dad, I’ve known what a doornail was since before kindergarten, and how if Marley was dead as a doornail, boy howdy he was really dead. I still remember every single poem, song, and explanation he made. Whenever I read or hear a poem by Robert Frost, I think of my dad, and his voice explaining whose woods those were and why the man stopped there. I miss the sound of his hushed voice on Christmas Eve, late at night, as he examined the toys from Santa that he and Mom were placing around the tree for the two younger siblings after we had all gone to bed. Dad was a man who loved Christmas. Which is partly why I love Christmas. It brings my father back to me, just for a little while. I can close my eyes and see him there, by the glowing tree, like a child himself, loving it all. I really miss my dad at Christmas.
