Christmas Fictions, Christmas Truths - (Cheerful family memories!)

I honestly don’t know what is so threatening about Christmas to some. No matter how you spend your Christmas Season, if you belong to the vast majority of believing Americans, you spent it, well, somehow.

When I was a kid, the rule was we could not open the presents under the tree until my dad had his first cup of coffee. One year, when my mother’s younger brother was visiting, I convinced him to make coffee at about two o’clock in the morning. It didn’t change the rule in later years, but, I think, it made my uncle a little wiser . . . .

So, because of this rule, this is what Christmas was like for us. There were nine of us kids (all told, but, spanning about twenty years between oldest and youngest, it usually did not entail the full number of children in my family—suffice it to say, some of these anecdotes involve only the older among my siblings. The younger will just have to wonder, I suppose, at what Christmas was really like . . .).

Because we had to insure that my parents had coffee, the older among us—after the younger had awoken us—would put the coffee on. Then, as per our family rule, we’d creep out quietly to the living room where we were authorized to take down our stockings and open those gifts. These were from Santa. And required no labeling. All the presents under the tree (which was always real and NEVER put up until Christmas Eve—another family tradition) were from our parents, from other family members, and from each other. We could marvel at these, which appeared as if by magic between the time we went fitfully to bed on Christmas Eve and the time we woke the next morning, but we could not touch them. We had to wait until our parents had awoken and come down for the “official” beginning of Christmas.

Funny thing about that Christmas Tree. It did not occur to me till I was grown, married, and had kids of my own that you can pick up a Christmas Tree for, like, free, if you wait until Christmas Eve. But never mind. We put our Christmas tree up on Christmas Eve and it stayed up through the Twelve Days of Christmas—or, until Epiphany (whichever came first . . .). Family tradition.

What I remember especially was that my stocking—and that of my younger brother’s—always included a packet of green plastic army-men. My brother and I would set our respective army-men up in our room during the year, very carefully, and then shoot rubber-bands in turns to play “war.” Whoever shot the last man on the opposing side first was the winner. Then we’d set them up again, in better configurations and play again. Don’t know what happened to these army-men come September or October, but we needed fresh replenishments come Christmas each year and Santa always seemed to know it.

So, we’d open our stocking gifts from Santa in the dim light of the Christmas Tree before we ventured down the hall or up the stairs to my parents’ room to wake them. We’d wait till we could smell that the coffee was perked, or boiled, or cooked, or whatever it was that it was supposed to be. And then, again, according to “tradition,” we’d stand outside my parents’ door and sing “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” till they woke up.

And, then, when they still had not stirred, we’d start to sing the next verse (which NOBODY knows):

Okay. I have no idea what “Figgy Pudding” is and my parents never, ever “brought some right now.” And for those of you who would like to make some, I don’t think you have to have actual figs—but it must be “figgy.”

Nevertheless, a second verse was enough to bring my parents to their door and down the hall or the stairs and to their coffee so we could start the present-opening in earnest.

But then was it a couple of bleary-eyed grown-ups watching children rip through the myriad gifts under the tree with nary a thank-you or an “Oh, Look! Gramma Vera gave Chris another ‘Smerf-ette’ belt!’”? Not on your life! (Well, my brother did get a Smerf-ette belt one year, but that’s another story). Someone was dubbed “Santa’s Helper” for that year (usually the youngest who, as the most impatient, needed something to do between gift-openings) and then we opened presents in turn—from youngest to oldest.

It was a nice way to do things and meant that Christmas kind of lasted all day. Of course, we’d be finished just in time to put our new clothes on and go to Christmas Mass. Then, we’d come home and have some time playing with our new toys while my Mom fixed a Christmas turkey and all the fixins.

For the most part, my mother would cook and my father would try to help whichever kid received the most intricately challenging of toy—my dad is an engineer, so he was the right man for this job. We’d spend the day playing and enjoying Christmas for what it is—a time for family, for Christ, and for the making of those family fictions that become the truths we pass on.

About the Writer: Gregory Borse is assistant professor of English at Ivy Tech State College in Wabash, Indiana. Dr. Borse, a family man with "a beautiful wife and four beautiful children," enjoys writing, current events, media, politics, and disc golf.

That is very sweet. I will always remember the Christmas my mother said "This year we're leaving Santa Claus a beer!" I guess it had been a rough Christmas eve that year.

And I remember three gifts, my first book, the story of Christmas with the text from the Bible and rather stylized modern pictures, another book, a big, red covered, illustrated "lambs' tales from Shakespere" (I KNOW I have the Christmas book still, I think I still have both.), and the super-fancy doll I really, really, really, wanted, and NEVER thought I'd get!

2 posted on 12/27/2004 7:29:01 PM PST by jocon307 (Jihad is world wide. Jihad is serious business. We ignore global jihad at our peril.)

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