Christmas Memories

During lunch today with two close friends, we shared about Christmas’s past and present. I teared up when I shared one of my favorite Christmas memories and they encouraged me to write a blog about it. So here goes.

The one time during the year that Mom and Dad tried to make special for my brother, Phil, and me was Christmas. When I was six through eight and Phil five through seven, we lived in Sidney, Ohio. We attended Christmas Eve service as a family. That in itself was a big deal because Dad didn’t come with us any other time.

While we attended church, our neighbors, John and Celeste and their daughter Annie, put our presents under the tree. When we arrived home, they told us they heard Santa’s sleigh flying overhead and wanted to see what presents he brought us. It didn’t take my brother and me long to figure out what was really going on, but we didn’t care. Sharing this special time with the Voress’s was what mattered. We loved them like family.

We moved away from that neighborhood when I was nine. But we carried on the tradition of opening our gifts on Christmas Eve and sharing the evening with neighbors or family.

We were not a rich family and Phil and I knew not to ask for extravagant gifts. But Mom and Dad did their best to get at least one special item we asked for. I remember asking for a boy doll during this time, not a doll often seen in stores. But they managed to find one wearing boys clothing. I don’t remember it being anatomically correct. This was the 1940s after all.

We moved to New Bremen, my mother’s hometown, when I was ten. My most special memory came when I was thirteen, several months after my Uncle Wayne married. So that particular Christmas, my newly married uncle and his bride, Aunt Rosie, joined us. I wanted a watch but didn’t expect to receive one, thinking that was too extravagant a gift to request.

My best friend also wanted a watch. (I’ll spare her the embarrassment of identifying her.) Under her family’s Christmas tree was a beautifully wrapped gift with her name on it. She became curious, and one evening when her parents were out, she opened it. She got her watch. And it was a fancy one. She, however, couldn’t re-wrap the gift so that her parents wouldn’t know she peeked. When they discovered her transgression, they grounded her. We were both relieved they didn’t go so far as to take her gift away. She still received her lovely watch.

When our family gathered on Christmas Eve that year for our gift opening ritual, I was allowed to open one small gift but had to wait until everyone else opened their gifts before I could open the package shaped like a shoebox. I thought it contained a pair of house slippers and grew irritated that Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me open it. They all seemed to take delight in my irritation which only irritated me more.

Finally, they let me open the shoebox. You guessed it. It contained a watch. It wasn’t as fancy as the one my friend received, but to me it was the best watch in the world. I felt so loved and valued, I burst into tears. 

Soon all the adults in the room were tearing up with me. For years, Uncle Wayne and Aunt Rosie referred to that Christmas as one of their all-time favorites. Mom and Dad sometimes relished in that memory, too.

And obviously, that Christmas continues to be one of my favorites. After sixty-one years, the memory still brings tears to my eyes.