Christmas Countdown

Time again for shameless self-promotion. I realize it’s in bad form, but I figure, what the h*ll. It’s my blog. If I’m not going to promote myself then why have it?

Christmas is a time for nostalgic thinking and feelings. We remember what it was like to be young and sitting before the tree waiting for the go-ahead to begin presents.

In our house Daddy handed out presents. Nobody else. After a few years, when I was older (and so was Daddy) I helped by crawling under the tree to get the hard to reach presents. Also, Daddy would hand me the presents to hand to those who weren’t sitting within easy reach. That way he didn’t have to crawl all over the floor. When Helvie got older she helped, too. I didn’t like that. I liked it when it was just Daddy and me.

We were poor, but things cost pennies in those days. For $5 my parents could buy six presents for every child (there were seven of us, and although Ranlen was up north he still had presents under the tree). Every year one child would be picked to get a special Christmas. Their presents cost a bit more than the others, but they didn’t get so many either. But we often had both sets of grandparents and Aunt Cile with us. And sometimes another aunt and/or uncle. We could have as many as fifteen or twenty people there. And with each person getting at least five presents, that meant a lot of presents under the tree. But think of this: seventy presents for less than $200. That’s what we were able to do back in the 60s.

So what has all of that to do with shameless self-promotion? Uh, nothing. I got off on a tangent. I think I’ll stay here and save the self-promotion for another post. You don’t mind. Right?

In The Old House, we had that giant living room (25’ x 15’) with the 12’ ceilings. This meant we could have very large trees – which we did. They cost nothing, so why not? While hunting up north Daddy and Alfred would go out into the forest, find a tall white pine, cut it off at eight to ten feet off the ground, and that would be our Christmas tree. They only guessed at the height, and twice we had to shorten it to fit in the living room. But they were wide. Quite able to hold all of the presents beneath.

We had blinking lights, but they didn’t flash on and off. When I say ‘blinking lights’ I mean blinking lights. As in, why don’t the d*mn things work this year? Now we have to find the one bulb that is keeping the others from lighting.

There was nothing more magical to me than to sit before a 12’ decorated Christmas tree with a monstrous pile of presents beneath. Never mind that only a handful were for me. Never mind that nearly every present I got cost less than a dollar. Maybe two. Except, every so often, when it was my turn to get the special Christmas.

I realize that Christmas, as a concept, is about the birth of Jesus, but let’s be real. It’s one thing to know that (we all do, right), but it’s quite another to see it as the primary focus of the season. Christmas is for children. Even Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me.” There is nothing wrong with Christmas being a season for children. Personally, I think it far better to keep Christmas for children (and we all have a child in us some place, right?) and the entire year for God, rather than the other way around. I am aware that Christmas is the time when we acknowledge the birth of Jesus. But even as a Christian, I have to admit, when I think of Christmas I think of children sitting before a decorated tree with presents beneath. It’s a magical time. Anything could be in those packages. Even when you knew it couldn’t. But it is a wonderful time for believing. And speaking for myself, I need that more than anything.

There. That was much better than what I was going to talk about.