Christmas -- Every Memory Will Do

  • Tami Lange
  • December 12, 2010
  • 286
                        
I know Christmas is supposed to be wondrous and magical and full of silent nights and angels singing of high, but in our family, Christmas is usually synonymous with some sort of colossal un-seasonal sort of mishap. And after four-plus decades, not only have I come to expect these holiday follies, I actually have come to expect them and even cherish them. They prove to me your Christmas does not have to greeting-car perfect, just memorable – for whatever reason. I was thinking about Christmases past during this Christmas present. In the past few years, we’ve decided to go back to the tradition of having a live tree. In my family, having a “real” tree was a given, even though it was never straight and typically had a cat in it or under it, while the dog wagged a tailful of silver icicles inadvertently pulled off the bottom branches. Still, I can’t remember one tree ever following over, because my dad was smart enough to install a cup hook on the wall for the annual ritual of tree tying. Last year, our tree was straight, pretty and quite fragrant, purchased in Wooster after more than hour of comparing one to the other, going lot to lot and generally being merry while in search of the perfect blue spruce. This year, we were kind of crunched for time, so we scheduled the tree buying for a late Sunday morning after church. I’m sure you understand – if you have children, family, work and church obligations, Christmas does end up on a kind of tight timeline (starting right around the time the last dish has gone into the dishwasher following the Thanksgiving meal). So we had this allotted period of time, during which it was raining – the heavy rain that comes just before the mercury drops and the blizzard ensues. So we tree shopped in a panic in a downpour, which hardly made any of the three of us feel merry or bright . We buzzed up to Lowe’s, where we hoped to find a nice tree under the cover of the Garden Center. Apparently several dozen of other families who had planned better had gotten there ahead of us and our selection was, to be polite, a bit sparse. Husband, of course, stood in the rain inspecting all the trees outside the store, declaring each and every one “potentially perfect,” meaning it was pretty imperfect, but it was raining and we could deal with the issue/s at home where it was warm and dry. The most perfect tree, I declared, was right at the entrance, where two “for display only” trees stood in stands, the latter also available in store. “That’s a display tree,” Husband said. “It’s a real tree,” I maintained, “What do they plan to do with it, except sell it?” The nice, albeit soggy, clerk agreed. Minutes later, our perfect tree was on the truck and headed home. It was wet, we were wet and the store’s speakers were playing – without the least bit of irony – “Let It Snow. Let It Snow. Let it Snow.” That’s a pretty typical Christmas experience for me. Here are a few other classic examples: One year, my fourth-grade class was going to perform “The 12 Days of Christmas” for the school program. Unfortunately, we had many more “true love gifts” than students, so each of us were assigned more than one day. We were supposed to stand on our day and show our “gift” prop. I was a golden ring and a maid a’milking, meaning I got a big ring and a milk bucket. During the “five golden rings” part, I held up my bucket and then spent the rest of the song fumbling, perplexed and using the wrong prop. The entire audience howled, including my best friend’s dad, who teased me about it for years to come. As the daughter of a minister, Christmas was always “fun” – and I use that term loosely. My mother, The Reverend, was always looking for a new way to thank the congregants for a wonderful year at the church. One year, the church members came up with money to replace the old slate roof on our house. My mom thought it would be neat to keep the old pieces of slate and paint a Christmas poem and related artwork on enough of them to give every family. The task of painting fell to me. I painted. I painted, I painted some more. I finished two hours before the Christmas Eve service, about the same time my painting hand went numb. “Gee,” my mom said, looking over the stacks of slate, “I had no idea there were that many families.” I regained use of my hand just long enough to give her a little holiday swat. One other Christmas, my mom was struck by another “great “ idea. Wreaths were for some reason all the rage that year and she thought it would be “fun” to make one of each subset of families within our extended family. So there we were, the week before Christmas, with garbage bags full of wreaths – lots and lots of wreaths. We were headed south to Newark to visit both my mom’s family and my dad’s family. My mother drove the station wagon, while my dad rode shotgun. I, naturally, was stuck in the back seat with the bags and bags of wreaths. It was snowing and more than a little icy and we had nearly 90 miles to go. My dad was, at this time, unseasonally grumpy because he was trying to give up smoking. Halfway there, the weather turned particularly nasty and it was very slow going, so much so I decided to go to sleep nestled among the bags of wreaths. Some where between Mount Vernon and Utica there was a pretty treacherous curve. We started to spin out in the middle of it, so when I awoke, I saw treetops and gray sky spinning and spinning through the windows. The car came to rest perpendicular to the road, with its tires just inches from a very deep ditch. There was silence and moments later my mom gingerly steering car back on the road and the journey commended again. A few minutes later, my father said, “I need a cigarette.” And that was our next stop. There was no argument. I’m surprised my non-smoker mother didn’t take a puff as well. For the next several days, I kept picturing all of those wreaths flying out of the car and all over the icy road. It was 25 years before I made another one. So in these few days as we cunt down to Christmas 2010, my best wishes for you and you family. Remember, the holiday doesn’t have to be perfect – just memorable. Wooster Weekly News columnist Tami Lange can be reached via e-mail at tam108@hotmail.com


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