Dec 25 2001
Merry Christmas
Happy holidays, everyone! We’re planning to spend the day in the traditional manner — at the movies. Hope you all have a happy day.
Even though (or maybe because) we aren’t celebrating Christmas this year, my thoughts keep turning to the past. We usually went to my mother’s parents for Christmas. I suppose at some point we must have stayed home, but in the selective way of memory, we always seem to be at my grandparents’ big white Victorian house in a small town in New York state. In my memory, it’s always snowing.
My grandparents’ house had a big double parlor, separated by pocket doors (sliding doors that disappeared into the wall if you wanted to throw the rooms together). In the front parlor, they set up the Christmas tree. The ceilings downstairs were 12 feet high, and the windows themselves were seven feet tall. So there was scope for a truly grand tree. The tree would be decorated and lit up, and then my grandparents would open the sliding doors to reveal it in all its glory.
From the front door, which you can see in the picture, you could look down the street to the town square, where the town’s big tree was lit up and decorated. We went to church on Christmas Eve night, which was quite exciting because we never went to church otherwise, and it was fun to be out late, under the cold stars, with the anticipation of Christmas morning still to come. When we got home, we could each open one present before going to bed. On Christmas morning, we woke up to find our stockings, filled with little gifts and candy, waiting on the foot of our beds. There was always an orange in the toe.
We had to eat breakfast before we could open the rest of our presents. Nana always made her own sticky buns for Christmas morning, baked in a Christmas tree shaped tin, but we just raced through them to get to the presents, while the grown-ups sleepily drank their coffee and thought wistfully of going back to bed. We played with our new toys by the fire, presided over by the glittering tree, completely happy. There’s nothing like Christmas when you’re a child.
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