A Christmas Collection

I’ve been struggling with developing a new idea for a Christmas blog this year.  While I do have a new one to post on Christmas Eve, here’s a series of excerpts from Christmas blogs since I started writing.  It’s a long read so get a new cup of coffee and settle in.

2017 My earliest memory of Christmas – beyond attending mass and opening Christmas presents – was traveling to Detroit in the late afternoon/early evening for Christmas with the Barner family.   While my aunts and uncles rotated the hosting of Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas was reserved for my grandparent’s house.   Thanksgiving was important because that was the day that our family members “drew names” for our Christmas gift exchange.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed eating Thanksgiving dinner just as much as everyone else, but the true excitement of the day was “drawing names”.  

 My Aunt Millie and her family were living in England for part of this time because my Uncle Joe was in the Air Force.  They were included in the “drawing” so for some of the years there was an international flavor to our family Christmas. Adults drew adult names and kids drew kid’s name.  I don’t know who came up with the plan, but I thought it was perfect.  There was a $3.00 limit on each cousin gift and a $5.00 limit for adults.

I secretly wished (until now) that my cousin Gene or Ruth Ann would draw my name.  Gene was a boy, so I was sure to get something that a boy would like because the gift would come from that family.  One year I received a train car with a working search light for my Lionel train set from my cousin, Beverly.  After that I thought that it would be ok for her to draw my name too.

2018   One Christmas afternoon, while we were at our Grandma and Grandpa Barner’s home my cousin Gene asked if I “still believed in Santa Claus.”  I was about nine or ten.   (maybe eleven) I lied.  I said, “No.” I have never questioned the existence of Santa Claus.  He’s real. 

When I was growing up, I knew that my parents couldn’t afford to purchase all of the things that my sisters and I received on Christmas morning, so he had to be.  If you have ever seen “that look” on a child’s face on Christmas morning, you know that he’s real too.

2019   It’s Christmas 2019. You should be hanging out with your family, so I’ll be brief. This is a unique day for me. For the first thirty years of my life, I spent Christmas morning with my mom, dad, and sisters. Ruth was with me the last six of the thirty. We stopped waking up in Royal Oak when we wanted the kids to celebrate the morning in their own home. We still traveled to Royal Oak for a portion of the day for several years, and then things changed again. That’s what time does. It changes things.

This Christmas morning Ruth and I are in Florida. It’s the first time we won’t be with at least one of the kids since Christmas 1975. David and his crew are in Michigan. Michael, Kate, Elizabeth and Sutton are in California where they’ll spend part of the day together.   My sisters and their families are at their homes. Ruth’s sister, Kathy, and her husband, Dan, are in New York City. Everyone is with someone they love; we just aren’t together. I hope if this Christmas has brought changes to your annual celebration too, you get to spend at least a part of the day with someone you love.

2020 Back in the day Elizabeth wrapped all my Christmas presents.  This was after Santa Claus and pre-Sutton.  She like doing it, and I appreciated her completing a task I wasn’t very good at.  I was ten thumbs and she was precision.  It was a perfect match. 

The first couple of years after her move to California, I waited for her return to Michigan for Christmas.  Our Christmas reunion brought the five of us together again.  We got to see her, and she provided me with a valuable service. 

Almost twenty-years have passed since her wrapping days ended.  It’s a Christmas tradition I miss. Eva has been in Florida for a few days, and she’s done a great job of picking up where Elizabeth left off.  She recently helped Ruth wrap presents (I’ve already wrapped mine.)  While she was wrapping, she took me back to the days when Elizabeth worked for me.  I took her picture and sent it to Elizabeth to see if it reminded her of anyone.  It did. If I don’t study the picture in detail, I see Elizabeth back when, she too, was thirteen and a willing Christmas helper.

2021 My first Christmas was spent in the rental unit my parents had in Centerline, Michigan.  We lived there until the spring of 1950 when we moved to Royal Oak.  I received a teddy bear from my dad on that first Christmas, and several months later, my mom took my bear and me to a photographer for a formal portrait.  While I don’t recall the sitting, I still have a copy of the portrait and the bear.

When my three children were born, I bought a brown bear for David, a shaggy haired blonde for Elizabeth, and Winnie the Poo’s twin brother for Michael. They each received their bear on their first Christmas morning.  I took my dad’s initial purchase of a teddy bear and made it a family tradition.

2022 This year’s Christmas tree is very different.  It’s the first time in seventy-five plus years that I’ve put one up alone. I didn’t like the way it felt.  I’m not sure I would have one at all if David and his family weren’t coming to Florida for a few days. But they are, so I do.  And to tell you the truth, it feels good. When the kids were here for Ruth’s Florida Celebration of Life, and a decision needed to be made, we often asked, “What would Ruth do?”  I asked the same question to myself.  She would have put up the tree.

I’ve had several people tell me how difficult this Christmas will be.  I know they mean well, but I don’t need to be reminded. Ruth’s passing is the hardest thing I’ve ever faced.  It’s left a void that won’t be filled.  Christmas is a time of reflection.  I savor the memories of Christmas’s past, but long for what might have been.

2023 On Christmas Eve of 1958 or 59 our family drove to Mt. Clemens to visit my Grandma Tebo. We loaded into the family car for the trip after dinner, and as we were pulling out of the driveway, my mom stopped my dad with the words, “Wait Tony, I’ve forgotten something.” She got out of the car and went back into the house.

Our delay was short, and soon we were on our way. As we headed north on Stephenson Highway, we saw Santa Claus driving a car headed south. Mom made the initial sighting, and sure enough, it was him. There was no snow on the ground so Mom speculated that he must be driving a car to make his local deliveries. Made sense.

Our visit lasted about an hour, and we went directly home. There were no stops for anything else. We entered our house through the front door and to everyone’s surprise Santa had come while we were away. I was the first to speak. “Let’s get to bed.”

Sharron and Jackie protested. “Let’s open our presents!”

“No.”, I fired back. “It’s not Christmas. Let’s open our gifts in the morning.”

The two girls begged Mom and Dad, and faster than you can say “Lickety split” my parents gave into the girls. We opened our gifts and were in bed by midnight.

The following morning – Christmas morning – there was nothing to do. It had all been done the night before. While the rest of the world was enjoying the excitement of opening their Christmas gifts, the joy was gone at our house. It was just another day. Our tradition of opening gifts on Christmas morning had been thrown out like yesterday’s trash because of my two over-anxious siblings. Poof.

Of all the childhood Christmases that I shared with Sharron and Jackie, that Christmas holds a solid place in my memory bank. While I remember favorite gifts, gatherings at my grandparents’ home, and other bits and pieces, I don’t recall any Christmas in our childhood family home except that one. Perhaps that’s why Christmas turned out that way that year – so it would be remembered.

2024 I had a mini revelation on Christmas Eve. Michael, Kate, Jackson and I were getting in the car to join Elizabeth and Sutton on the beach at Dana Point for the second year in a row when I flashed back to Michael’s first Christmas.

Ruth and my David was almost the same age as young Jackson James when we loaded him, Elizabeth, and Michael for that 1978 ride to my parent’s house. The age gap for our three is three years and four months.  Jackson is three years and three months.  While I don’t discount the work involved in caring for a single child, we had three.

That 1978 Christmas was the second in thirty-one years that I didn’t wake up in my childhood home.  Elizabeth was born in 1977 and with her birth Ruth and I decided it was time to start our own family traditions.  Even then we spent the evening at my parents’ house.  We just didn’t wake up there. That continued until Elizabeth, and then Michael, moved to California. Ruth’s parents opened their gifts on Christmas Eve, so we went to Plainwell on Christmas Eve for our first six married years.  David joined us for the last two, but after opening Christmas Eve gifts we headed to Royal Oak.

Traditions are funny things.  They’re established by adults, who for the most part, have good intentions.  Once they take hold, they’re difficult to change.  I think most are brought about as a family’s structure changes.  Many occur with the addition of a child or the passing of a parent.  One is a celebration, and the other brings heartache. On my seventy-seventh Christmas, I found myself caught in the middle.  Reliving my past, while looking forward to my future.        

The past year has been a different one for me, and this Christmas will be too. I started following my own advice and have been living differently.    I altered my diet and exercise regiment, lost some weight and gained some friends. Last year I ended my story with the words “looking forward to my future”.  It’s arrived.