Since we lived in the snow belt of northern Ohio, just miles from Lake Erie, we were assured of snow. As the wind howled outside the kitchen windows, wrapping itself around the eaves and trying its best to find entry, we were snug as could be, munching on Christmas delicacies and waiting with anticipation for my older brothers and sisters to arrive with their families. They were scattered across several different states and we rarely saw them more than once or twice a year.
While our neighbors' houses boasted beautiful lights and Christmas trees with presents beneath, we had no decorations of any kind. Our church forbade anything that smacked of secularism surrounding the birth of Christ. Since I was from a family of meager income and many siblings, gifts were also not done. I looked longingly at the forbidden, marveling at the bright colors and wondering what lay wrapped under the beautiful trees shining behind the uncovered windows.
When my nieces and nephews arrived with their parents I forgot all about what we didn't have. Our house was filled with chaos, fun, and laughter. And always plenty of food. While the adults caught up with each other on the happenings in their lives, we kids played. There were no video games, no TV, not even a radio. Not because I'm so old they didn't exist, (well, okay, the video games had yet to be invented) but because, along with the decorations, we were not permitted any of those worldly distractions. There were board games like Sorry and Carom. There was hide-n-go-seek and leap-frog and whatever other game we made up on the spot. And there were always tall tales to be told and books to be read.
As the years passed, the last of my siblings left the old farmhouse and started families of their own. After Paul and I married Christmas was still celebrated with my parents and my brothers and sisters. No longer in the old farmhouse, but still with the chocolate-drop candy and all the fun and games of tradition. When our son and daughter were still toddlers both my parents passed away and everything changed.
With the feelings of loss and sadness came the resolve within our own little family that it was time to start a few traditions of our own, Christmas customs our children could remember when they reached adulthood and maybe some they could even carry on in their own families someday.
Probably in part because of the restrictions of my own childhood, I embraced the enthusiastic decorating of our house, inside and out, starting the day after Thanksgiving. While Paul grew up in a household even more restrictive than mine, he somehow failed to grasp the importance of the decorations and the role they played in a truly fulfilling Christmas experience. When I insisted on a trip to the local pine tree farm to cut down our own tree, Paul and the kids cooperated but made free to verbalize their reluctance to find the perfect tree. Any tree would do for them, certainly the closer to the car the better. I insisted on a search that usually lasted until we were all rosy-cheeked and numb from the cold. We followed this with a steaming hot-chocolate in the old barn where the trees were wrapped and paid for. The complaining usually evaporated at this point.
Another tradition was started by one of our neighbors. Wouldn't it be fun, she said, to have the whole neighborhood put out luminaries on Christmas Eve. And she even gave us all a hand-out on the meaning of the luminaries. The history of these candle-lit bags can be traced back to the 16th century when they were placed along the roadway to help people find their way to midnight mass. Later they were used to symbolically remember Joseph and Mary as they tried to find a place to have baby Jesus. And they look pretty. So most of our neighbors enthusiastically embraced the placing of the lights along their property and now our area of town resembles an airstrip on Christmas Eve, even though the person who started it all has long since moved away.
While Paul did his share of complaining the first twenty years or so, even he has gamely continued with the lights. Our daughter always helped him to carve the openings in the milk jugs and place the sand inside to hold the candles. Both our children are now married with children of their own. Soon it will be our granddaughter taking the place of her mother, helping her pappy with the lights. And, because of the lights, the kids spend the night here on Christmas Eve, with a walk after supper to admire the neighborhood in the cold winter air.
And then there are the tarts. We live in a neighborhood whose population has changed little in the past thirty years. At least in our immediate corner. And we like to give each other little treats during the holidays. The lovely lady who began the luminaries has given us a pastry wreath every year for decades, even continuing since her move to a different part of town. Pecan tarts are my delicacy of choice. Paul and our oldest granddaughter made the rounds; Kara, dressed in her red velvet Christmas coat, enthusiastically belted out a verse of We Wish You A Merry Christmas and then handed over a tin of tarts to each of the wonderful people we are privileged to live among.. They in turn graciously praised her efforts and made one seven-year-old young lady feel like a rock star.
I have heard a lot about the commercialization of Christmas, and I know there is truth in what is said. Yet, I can't help but be amazed and delighted that over two thousand years after the birth of our savior in a humble town and in even more humble surroundings, most of the western world celebrates this event in one way or another. Call it what you like, bemoan the failure of us all to celebrate it in a manner you may think appropriate, it is still being celebrated. Name any other person ever born whose arrival induces millions of people to spend over a month preparing for the party.
