December 23, 2005

• Mike's Christmas Story. A personal journey through my reminiscences of the holiday season

  
  
  
  
  

   

  
  

  
  The Snowman
  I remember the snowman pretty well. For the first four Christmasses of my life, my family lived in Nampa, and then Caldwell, Idaho, where it snows during the winter. When one has as an overactive imagination and a fairly lucid memory, sometimes experiences from the past can take on added embellishments as the years pass, and I remember the snowman had coal lumps for eyes, a big stovepipe hat, and a carrot for a nose. This might not be the actual snowman as it was in reality, but "memory's snowman", diffused through many viewings of "Meet Me in St. Louis" and looking at Christmas cards over the years. I am pretty sure there was a snowman, and I can clearly remember the subtle sound of sleighbells in the snow, accompanying my earliest of Christmasses in Idaho.
  At five we moved to California, and while there is snow in California during the winter, it is over 5000 feet up in the mountains, and we moved to Los Angeles, in a valley that begins at the base of the foothills and extends to the sea. By the time the Spirit of Christmas really unleashed itself on my siblings and I, the snowman was only a dim memory. The crisp cold crackle of snow under my small boots and those sleighbells faded from the picture on the front of the Christmas Card of my life, replaced with cotton facsimiles lining the shelves and tales of how Santa Claus visits homes without chimneys.
  Santa Claus
  I believed, as did my sister and brother, in the idea of Santa Claus, a jolly fat man in red who brings toys and goodies to well behaved children on Christmas. The first Christmas I really remember would have been about 1959, when I was merely six. This was the year I got an electric train set from "Santa". In our childhood, my parents, strict as they were, never letting us leave the yard, and watching over us almost like guards at a prison, did instill in us a sense of Christmas Spirit from the very beginnings of our lives. I might have a clearer picture that what Mother was really instilling was another lesson on how to "be good". Like the ever present "belt" that my Father only had to unbuckle in order to insure we were well behaved, the threat of Santa bypassing the house, or worse yet, setting out toys for two of us but not the other, helped to force us into obedience, and Santa always came on schedule, and that early Christmas in 1959, the full size American Flyer train set that wound itself around the base of our real Christmas tree, speeding through homemade tunnels and shunting across bridges fashioned out of popsicle sticks, past trees with green painted foam leaves, gave me one of my earliest "real"  Christmas memories, the kind that helps to reinforce the good tidings of the season.
  We always received lots of gifts at Christmas, neatly wrapped by my obsesssive compulsive mother, and piled not in disarray, but in a tidy artistic mountain under the tree. These gifts sat under the tree from the first week of December through the 25th, each week a few more would magically "show up". We would carefully remove them from their space, shake them a little, admire the wrapping and the ribbons, and then replace them. But the major "gift" each of us three kids received did not arrive until Christmas morning, set up completely, like my electric train set, and the pram with twin baby girls my sister received, or the cowboy hat and gun set my brother saw laid out on the chair next to the overstuffed sofa. These were the gifts that Santa Claus brought us. These were our "special" gifts. We wrote Santa a letter, and gave them to my Mother, who "mailed them" about three weeks before the holiday. Santa brought them the night before Christmas, and we always marvelled at how he must be able to make the time to visit all the little kids in the world and do the fine job of surprising all the youth of the world like he did at our house.
  

  
  

   

  
  

  The Nativity
  Santa brought us gifts because we were good children. But we never forgot the "real" reason behind why we celebrated Christmas. We learned this in Sunday School and Church during the Holiday, and from the movies that we were shown in elementary school in the cafeteria in the weeks before we were let out for Christmas vacation. At school, films like "A Christmas Carol", and "Silent Night" were shown repeatedly. In Sunday School, we memorized the Christmas Story, from the book of Matthew in the Gospels, and were awarded plaques when the recitation was perfect. I still have my plaques from these experiences, gained by "fishing" each one out of a fishing bowl following the performance. We always had a Christmas Program at school, attended by all the parents, with each class either reciting Christmas stories, or singing carols. The idea that the Holiday was really the celebration of the birth of the Christ Child never left our minds. We believed in the twin secular and religious ideas of the Holiday together, and the ideals and wonder of the Holiday were instilled in us from an early age.
  

  
  

  The Christmas Tree
  In 1965, my father brought home our first "artificial Christmas tree." My wonder at the holiday season started to deteriorate that Christmas, when I was in the fifth grade. Although Mother would string popcorn, and we had lots of antique decorations and ornaments, which looked fantastic on a real tree, enhanced by the smell of the evergreen branches, the "fake" tree, which came out of a box, and was a blinding silver "color" looked less like a "tree" and more like an oversized automotive ornament to me. The house was always decorated to the hilt. My mother was involved in Craft of the Month clubs as long as I can remember, and we always had lots of Christmas decorations. We didn't hang lights outside. In the 60s, there were some folks who decorated the outside of their homes, but it was nothing like I see today. Our home was decorated for us, not for people driving by the house. Our ugly silver tree, however, never ceased to depress me. We had that tree up until we celebrated our last Christmas in 1971. It always serves as the Anamoly of the Season for me. When Dad unboxed that tree for the first of many times the Christmas of 1965 I began to see the "commercialization" of Christmas firsthand.
  Rain on the Roof
  "It never rains in California", as a rule, and the first rain in December was my clue that Christmas was around the corner. LIstening to the rain on the roof, seeing the splash of raindrops in the puddles in the driveway, the sudden feeling that the air was getting colder at night. There was always a definite "feel" of Christmas. Those years that it didn't rain during December, which were rare enough to be almost nonexistant, were years that Christmas didn't "seem" right. I like to meditate sometimes, using my memory as a tool, and memories of looking at the blinking lights on the tree, reflected in the shiny foil packages beneath it, with the lights of the house all turned off, at night, with the sound of the rain coming down outside, is still a meditation memory I use often. It made me feel good, like life was just beginning, full of promise and wonder, and good times would always visit me during the Holiday season.
  Santa's Legacy
  We stopped believing in Santa Claus possibly later than a lot of our peers. Dad spent the night before Christmas morning wide awake, fueled with coffee, assembling Santa's Gifts. Some of these gifts still shine through memory's thrall. Both my brother and I loved what we called "set ups". The local toy store would display these on sheets of 4x8 plyboard, angled at 45 degrees, out from the walls of the store. There were setups of western towns, WWII battle grounds, 1930s gangland Chicago (The Untouchables was a popular television show), and castles with knights in shining armor, complete with drawbridges and trebuchets.
  My favorite "set up gifts", which "Santa" would display on the living room floor, were "Cape Canaveral", which included spring loaded "rockets", the "Moonbase" which had little green men and a working control room, and the Civil War setup, which included so many pieces that I don't think I ever actually "played" with it. It used to take about three hours just to position all the men. Sister always got dolls, and her bedroom was filled to the brim with them. She collected Tammy dolls, Ideal's answer to Mattel's Barbie. My brother received the castle set with knights who had snap on armor. One Christmas, Santa brought both my brother and I G.I. Joe "action figures." (Boys never called them "dolls") and I even had a helicopter for my G.I. Joe to ride around in. On Christmas morning throughout our elementary school years, Dad and Mom must have been very tired when we would awake them at first light, having stayed up most of the night "preparing" Santa's surprise. I even remember my sister and brother and I laying awake in the middle of the night "listening for Santa". My Mother told us she left the back door unlocked, and kept the cookies and milk on the kitchen counter, because we didnt' have a chimney for Santa to crawl through.
  The Films of Christmas
  I still get a warm fuzzy feeling when watching my favorite Christmas movies. I've always loved to watch and study films, and collect them when they became available though home video. The first Christmas films I remember watching were at school. I still try to catch the old 1938 MGM version of "A Christmas Carol". The first time I saw "It's a Wonderful Life" was when I was in junior high. We watched that film every year. "The Wizard of Oz" is remembered by me as a Christmas movie. It always aired during the holiday season, and is my favorite movie of all time to this day. On television in the late 60s, what are now called the "classics" aired for the first time. The stop motion animated "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, with Hermy and the island of lost toys, "A Charlie Brown Christmas," with the ugly little tree, and "Frosty the Snowman", who always elicits the voice of Burl Ives, became staples of Christmas entertainment. The entire family would gather around the television set, as if it were an old hearth, and watch these perennials. My favorite Christmas television show was Mr. Magoo's Christmas Carol, in which the blind crumudgeon voiced by Jim Backus was Scrooge. I would love to find this on DVD or broadcast again during the holidays. It was a musical, and had some fantastic songs I can still hum.
  The Last Christmas
  Right before my mother had her stroke, the family had moved, and we spent our last Christmas together in 1971. By now, Dad, who had been so robust a "Santa" was quite feeble. He would pass away in three more years. In 1971, I had already graduated from high school, and I worked full time as a garden manager at Oles' Home Centers in the town in which I grew up, so I had money to buy gifts. That last Christmas, we siblings bought each other gifts for the first and last time. I remember my brother's "gift" to me containing the wrath of the god Cthulu, from H.P. Lovecraftian literature. I wasn't supposed to open the gift, which I did, because it would release evil into the world. We had a good laugh, not realizing that our own little world would soon be crashing down about us, so perhaps this was a warning. I shopped for my gifts in the gift shops along Glendora Blvd, where we were now living, and also back in my hometown of Rosemead, where I still worked. I also attended college full time at USC during this time. In those times between school and work, I hung out with Gabriella, an ex high school friend, at the gift shop where she worked, and I bought a lot of my gifts for the family that Christmas in that gift shop. Christmas of 1971 was wonderfully joyful, filled with jokes, laughter, and good cheer, even in spite of the fact we still used the silver artificial tree.
  The Spirit Leaves Our Family
  When mom went into the hospital following her stroke, I don't have any solid memory of celebratiing Christmas for the next three years. Dad finally passed away, and I moved from the family home into an apartment. Sister got married. I gave the bride away. Brother stayed in the family home until we had to sell it because my Mother couldn't receive Medicare benefits for her stay in the nursing home while she owned property. I still watched the holiday films, and I still gave assorted gifts to family and friends, but the Spirit of Christmas quietly left our lives. Sister took the boxes of my Mother's Christmas ornaments and decorations with her. Since she was the first to leave the house, which had ceased being a home, she removed most of what I would call our "legacy items" including the photo albums and a lot of the furniture. I didn't care too much about "legacies" in those days, since I had just turned 21 in 1974 when my Dad died. I soon grew completely tired of Christmas, as well, because I worked in the Christmas Tree lot at Ole's Home Centers and saw enough of Christmas at the retail store.
  Bah, Humbug
  For many years following the breakup of our family, I didn't "celebrate" Christmas. I became as old Mr. Scrooge, berating the holiday. This was rather easy in the 70s, as the holiday seemd to becom overcommercialized. I always found myself managing the tree lot, and instead of Christmas cheer, I seemed to witness that old evil of Cthulu that I released from my brother's present, as I witnessed seemingly fine human beings grabbing trees out of each other's hands and quarrelling over which was the "best". As each year passed, the tree lots got bigger. When I was a manager for FedMart in Culver City in 1980, we lost about a hundred thousand dollars in the tree lot, which saw hundreds of trees being tossed off trucks, and very little security. I was even involved in the "investigation" since I managed the lot, among other departments, including the toy department. As memory of these times washes over me, I can plainly see why I wasn't in the "spirit" when managing toy departments and tree lots during the holiday. People can get really mean when they can't find the right Cabbage Patch doll or Teddy Ruxpin for thier kids. Christmas shopping is brutal, and I humbugged along through many years.
  I did give at Christmas time, however, during the 70s and 80s. I would give my friends little bags of marijuana, tied with ribbons. I never bought a tree, and didn't decorate my apartments. "Pot" only cost 10 dollars an ounce in those days, so giving away "dope" was not a very expensive thing to do. I would say that I "celebrated" in my own way. I wasn't really interested in the Holiday again though until I got out of retail in 1987.
  After my parents' death, I did spend Christmas day with a variety of the families of friends, so although I say the Spirit left, it did not go away completely. My friends Tom and Mark, especially, invited me into their homes, and their parents always made sure I had a gift to open on Christmas day. Tom's family especially became my surrogate family for many seasons. I have never lacked for company during the Holidays, and actually I look back and thank God that I have had so many wonderful giving people in my life to help make my holiday a happy one, no matter how "humbugged" I might proclaim myself.
  The Annual Christmas Party
  When I joined my present employer in 1988, as a technician wiring control panels, I cemented what has become a 16 year association. I became the panel shop manager within 6 months of my employment, and the family who owns the company, has always presented their employees with a big Christmas party. I attended the most recent one yesterday. We only have 20 employees now, but at one time in the mid 90s, there were over 50, and most of them were technicians working for me. We always stop work at 11:30am, turn the phones, off, and head out to one of Long Beach's fancy restaurants for a fantastic meal, door prize drawings, gift exchanges, and the giving out of the bonus checks. We sing Christmas carols. Usually "Jingle Bells" drowned out by our CEO's booming voice. We drink alcohol if so inclined, the only time anybody "at work" loosens up a bit, and we get to see faces of our workmates on a more friendly basis. We all hug after the party is over, and we always get quite a few days off before returning to work. This ritual has been my "Christmas" for the past 16 years, and I sometimes think that the "gift" I receive is engineered by the family, since I have received telephones, and computer gear when I really needed them. I have won television sets, which I have given up so that somebody else less fortunate could have the television, since as a movie buff I have two bigscreens at home already. I always "get another chance'. Just yesterday, I won a TV/computer monitor, which I could have  used a few weeks ago before buying my present one. I let them raffle it off a second time, and our controller gave me $150.00 in cash to compensate. My bonus is always a great gift, and is really needed this year. I didn't get a "raise" for Christmas as I had hoped, but I can beg for that next year. For now, I'm satisfied with the gifts I've been given,. and with the camaraderie and friendship of my workmates. In 1999. I bought a tree for my home and decorated it, placing gifts under it for my roommate and closest friends. I haven't seen my sister since 1990. and I don't know where my brother lives, but someday I plan to search them out and maybe surprise them with a Christmas gift of my "presence", which has been missing in our lives for many years.
  The Ghost of Christmas Future
  Perhaps I'll have a family oneday. I doubt that I'll ever be able to play Santa Claus. But the hope is there. As I age, I kind of miss the fact I've not sired progeny. My releationships are few and far between, but this doens't stop my love of the Holidays now, or my love of humanity. As I walked from my car to my front door yesterday, with my Santa's cap still on my head from the party, one of the neighbor children, a toddler, waved to me. "Santy Claus" he whispered. "I bet you didn't know Santa Claus lived in the complex." I boomed. "Have you been a good boy?" "Yes, sir" he replied, as I shed a small tear, and waved vigorously.
  I started this life with awe and wonder at the Christmas Holiday, and I believed in Santa, and in the glorious power of Christ at the same time.
  For many years, following personal tragedy, I became a bit of a Scrooge myself, but I still always had good will and the love of my friends, and my "surrogate families".
  This year, I attended another wonderful Christmas party at work. I met my ex girlfriend Pat during one of these parties in 1991 and I will probably be calling her in Virginia to wish her a Happy Holiday. We broke up long ago, but we still talk to each other yearly, usually during the Holiday.
  I asked Liz to accompany me to Christmas Mass at the new Los Angeles Catherdral. Usually Cardinal Mahoney gives the mass. I am not Catholic, but I've always wanted to visit the new Cathedral, and this seems like the wonderful way for me to spend this coming Christmas morning. Of course I'll bring along my camera.
  The Holiday is a special time of year, and whether I'm alone, or having dinner with friends, I look back on my life, my "wonderful life" and I pray that each person in my aura can be touched with the love that has touched me during this most glorious of Holidays.
  

  
  

  God Bless Us Every One.

  • 10:32 am
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