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Posted on 12/24/2015 9:28:24 AM PST by Sean_Anthony
Owning the Magnificent Mystery of Christ’s Birth
Christmas was, for me, a clear, cold night.
I grew up in a small Midwestern town during the 50s and 60s. There was never a better place or time to grow up. Of that I was certain. And my perfect childhood was never more perfect than at Christmas. I had a Peter Billingsley, Christmas Story Christmas every year. I was that chubby little kid with the horn rimmed glasses and nerdy clothes with the three buckle snow boots who wished for and got the Red Ryder BB gun on his ninth Christmas. My mom always told me that “being poor†was the best thing she and Dad ever did for my brother and me. But if we were poor, I never knew it, for my childhood was a happy one. My folks knew how to keep Christmas well. They saved all year so that they could pile presents under the tree and make Christmas day a joyous time for two little blond haired boys who waited behind the bedroom door at 5:30 in the morning anxiously awaiting Dad’s annual proclamation: “Well, it looks like Santa has been here again!†And there on the floor beneath the magnificent Christmas tree, illuminating the house and warming the living room with the radiant heat of 500 lights, and adorned with glass balls and plastic icicles, lay the cap guns, rocking horses, Radio Flyer wagons, sleds, paint sets and stereoscopes, chemistry sets and board games that would provide hours of endless enjoyment for us. Each year my folks vowed to cut back, and each year they never did.
My childhood Christmases were pretty much the same. My folks always said the same thing: “Going to be a slim Christmas this year.” But every Christmas morning that living room was a bright, glittering Christmas Wonderland. God bless them. I miss them very much and thank them for all the magical Christmases they gave us.
Wonder if people in past times who were fortunate enough to be born in and live through a Golden Age realized it? America in the 1950’s was almost certainly ours. Then Kennedy was elected and we exchanged the solidity of Eisenhower for the fake glitz of Camelot. Everything went to $#!+ from there, with the hiatus of the Reagan years like an Indian Summer, reminding us of better times before winter set in for good.
That really nails what we experienced, too. Dad and Mom always made Christmas a time of magic and love. May God bless them forever.
I was with you Bro. Merry Christmas.
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