Ghosts of the past
I don’t remember how old I was, but I don’t think I was more than five. It is the first Christmas that is in my memory. We always talked of Santa and slay bells and honestly I can recall the believing that I could hear them far away up in the sky, at night while trying hard to fall asleep. I was trying real hard to fall asleep, because Santa doesn’t come if boys and girls are awake, or so I was told.
My sister and I shared a bedroom, with our mom and dad in the bedroom next to ours. My brother slept in the garage that my father had transformed into a bedroom for him, after he had bought the house. The house with the fruit trees all lined up in the backyard, as pretty as you please and the honey suckle that grew on the chain linked fence, with a mighty oak in the front yard, next to the street. Also, in the front yard was a Pine Tree that my brother and father had planted together in the center of the yard and had grown now to being at least 10 foot tall.
My brother, sister and I were all three adopted at birth; with four years between us. There are things that I know and I am not sure how I know them. For instance, I know that when my parents bought the house, they knew the State agency would be paying them a visit. They also knew that my brother could not, as it was against the law, even though we were young, share the room with my sister and I. It was then, my father had decided that he could transform the one-car garage into a bedroom for our brother; and daddy would park the car in the driveway and he was happy with that idea, as they both loved the house.
My sister and I sharing a room, I’m sure there was trouble between us, being siblings and all, but honestly I do not remember a one of those. However, she was an instigator and she loved to make me laugh. Laughing when we are suppose to be sleeping, was a huge no no, where mom and dad was concerned. She could do it and she would, get my ‘giggle box’ turned over.
On one occasion that this had happened, daddy called out from the bedroom, ‘you girls pipe down in there or I’m coming in with my belt’. As it was though with my giggles all about and try as I might, sister would say something else that I thought was funny and off I’d giggle once more.
We had a little dog, her name was Tiny and Tiny didn’t like daddy then, as she was still working on getting use to him. True to daddy’s word, I got to laughing and he got up and found his belt and into our bedroom he came, with a ‘now I told you two to hush and go to sleep’ and just at that moment, our little dog Tiny, jumped into the middle of the bed and bared her little teeth at him, growling her stay back or else. And that did it for him …
He couldn’t help but laugh and he said, I’ll get you too, he said to Tiny, turning as he said it and laughing himself back to bed over the notion, that that little dog was willing to take him on to protect his little girls. Of course my sister and I, both laughing just the same, said, good girl, you can sleep with us tonight.
The first Christmas I remember was one that I woke early before dawn. Something had stirred my sleep. While I lay there trying to go back to sleep as it was still dark out, I could see mama and daddy, leaving the bedroom and going into the living room, where the Christmas tree sat, in front of the living room window. With them they carried presents. Curious as to what they were doing, I could not fall back asleep. I lay there and watched, listen to their whispers as they made there way numerous times from their bedroom to the Christmas tree.
When my sister woke I said to her, Santa is not real. She said, yes he is. I said, no he isn’t and I told her what had happened and what I saw. She said, Santa needs helpers when he delivers the gifts, because he can’t stay very long. They were putting out the gifts that Santa brought. Come on, let’s go see what he brought.
With mama and daddy already up and our brother not too far behind us, we all went into the living room to open gifts for the start of Christmas celebrations. In the middle of us opening gifts, smiling and laughing as each gift brought us joy, I made notice of my sister sitting on the couch with mama and a whisper in her ear, ‘she knows’.
The gift I remember from that morning, because it remained special to me, was the gift my brother had bought for me. It was a stuffed white cat with long hair made of yarn, its body a rectangle in shape, and the yarn hair flowed out about one foot on each side, when you sat the cat in the middle of the bed.
While I have received many gifts over the years and have had many of a Christmas celebration, that is the Christmas I remember most and that is the gift, I’ve never forgotten, as time moves forward.
Christmas Present
As we grew into adults it was a mandatory requirement that we spend our holidays with mama, daddy and grandma. That was expected and it was a non-negotiable as for as our mother was concerned. However, as it turned out that was not a bad thing. Because no matter what we were going through, whatever, drama had been cooked up within the year between, before the end of the day all was forgiven between us siblings one to the other and we found our giggle boxes turned over once again.
My sister would come with her daughter and me with my husband, and my brother would always bring Lynette, the family friend of his, that we always knew there was more between the two, than friendship and that’s okay, because she was family.
While my brother, sister and I live very different lives, our holidays have not been the same since our parents and my grandmother’s passing away from our lives. I knew in my heart as time moved forward and it was inevitable they would not be in our lives forever; that the day would come that we would live separate lives and be like ships passing in the night, one to the other.
However, I do believe and my sister and I have talked about this, that it was daddy, he was our rock our foundation, that held us all together and to be there always, for holiday celebrations. Daddy was the first to go and our Christmases shared as a family, seem to dwindle after that year. I remember Christmases with mama, grandma, my brother and Lynette, complete with my three babies and my husband. However, my sister wasn’t present.
Time moves forward and our mother married twice, after daddy passed away. It wasn’t but a few years after daddy that mama passed and grandma to follow a few years later. Our Christmases were shared more in with our families at our homes, with Christmases that were once shared by us three, but now a memory of Christmases past. The drama, it is still there, between the two I care about the most.
As always in the past, the present Christmas at sometime in the day I will give a pause and a remembrance of our Christmases past. While I may not be able to recall all of them, I will recall the highlights and for me today, it isn’t just the Christmas past of my family in growing up. Those Christmases now include the ones I spent with my three children, whom I love more than life itself.
They’re little faces all lighting up as I too became, Santa’s little helper passing on the tradition of my parents on to them. Christmas Eve was always the best time as I set all up on display and after I was done, I would work real hard at falling asleep and again I believed I could hear the sleigh bells, far up in the night sky, with Santa in his sleigh.
The Best Christmas, ever
I can not talk about my first Christmas that I remember, without talking about the best Christmas of my mind’s memory and another of a first. My children now grown into adults, far surpassing the young adult stage, but 13 years ago, this Christmas, was the best one of all. How it came to be, my ex-husband and my three children with me too in a house together is a story in itself, that maybe one day to tell.
However, for today, there is the one Christmas spent with my first born grandchild a baby girl, the apple of her grandmother’s eye, yet I’m sure she doesn’t know it, as the ability to spend time with one another has been scarce.
You never forget your first. Your first kiss, your first love, your first car, your first job, or your first child that was born. With any luck your memories will hold strong, and you can remember all their births, one unlike the other, they too are firsts within themselves.
The best Christmas ever for me, was the first Christmas with the whole family, together under one roof and seeing my grand baby girl, sitting in her mother’s lap. And I know in my heart, my mama had something to do with that, as the spirit of Christmas past.
Future Christmas:
As I began this post, I did so utilizing Charles Dickens a Christmas Carol, and while I can relate to the spirit of the past, and maybe somewhat to the one in the present, I’ve yet to feel one of the future. While my father had told me once that I should be a writer, because of my gift of imagination, I do believe a gift like that, is like any other that may come to a person naturally, that if they do not use it, the day will come, where it will pass away. Or maybe its like a person once told me that the future will take care of itself. Even though that may be, I can’t help but think, the future is what one plans on in the present, for it to be.
On that note, I have but a prayer, that may every one in my life that I hold dear, in my heart, the future Christmases bring to them the joy I feel each time I think of them. I have a hope, that Christmases will be as it should be that all things in the year before, that might be of illnesses, pass away and a rebirth of all things that were made good and whole and fresh, to continue with them throughout their lives. I have faith, that they will know forgiveness and to be able to forgive others but most of all, love. The kind of love that hurts with all its being, because to know that hurt is to know life and all it has to give us. This is Christmas, the birth of love in life, past, present and future, for all that will be, will be.