and giving a nod

Mike would remember Christmas 2008 and with God’s blessing will continue to make new memories.  Our celebration would bring what will now be a new Christmas tradition of baking, cooking and passing down family recipes on Christmas Eve.  We were fortunate to have both of my parents with us for the holiday so Christmas Eve was spent in the kitchen with my mother, Grandma Nana.  Michael, Nathan, Emily and Sylvette learned the art of making old fashioned fudge and the secrets of baking the best Hello Dollies ever! We made sugar cookie dough, rolled it with a rolling pin and then with the cutters they used as kids, pressed their favorites - Christmas trees, candy canes, trains, birds, holly and snowmen. We made icing and decorated our works of art with colored sugar, sparkles and sprinkles.  There were chocolate chips, peanut butter, chopped nuts, pounds of butter, sugar and flour all over the kitchen - the ingredients for so much more than sweets. These were ingredients to store in our book of Christmas memories forever.   

All too often we forget what value lies in simplicity. A sign of our times, not necessarily a sign of who we are as people.  The best gift we can ever give is our time and guaranteed it is what we will miss the most.  A Christmas without her Mother, the daughter won’t miss that video game, those new Ugg boots, that new Coach purse but she will miss her Mom.  The Father won’t miss that tie, those new cuff-links but he will miss the son when he is no longer there. As much as we think our families need all the “stuff”…they need us, they want stuff. There’s nothing like losing or almost losing a loved one that makes you realize that stuff is really just stuff. Doesn’t matter how you try to fill the void, how much stuff you put under the tree - it’s still just stuff.  Be there. Really be there…it might make a difference to someone you love.

We had plenty of gifts under the tree - probably as many as we’ve always had but it was different - we were changed. It wasn’t about opening presents - it was the excitement of being so “in the moment”. We were never more in “the now”.  We savoured the moments…we took our time and didn’t open gifts all at once…the twelve days of Christmas was our cue. I would begin the song “on the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me…” then we would race to the tree to find a gift with our name on it and while the oven timer ticked away the minutes we would have time to open two maybe three then back to the kitchen to make more cookies and more memories with Grandma. My mother happened to be “five golden rings” so the middle was always dramatic.  We never did get all the numbers connected with the ”lords a leaping” or “drummers drumming” but the laughter that sounded was just right and so much more fun! Santa comes to our neighborhood between 8 and 9 pm and one of the highlights of the evening was watching my Mother jump up and down waving at Santa as he passed our house on a fire truck. Papaw told us stories, oh maybe quite a few and as the years have turned his full head of hair white, I couldn’t help but notice the visual resemblance to Old Saint Nick.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow.

Last year when we arrived at Mt.Vernon Hospital to spend Christmas day with Michael, he had no memory of spending Christmas Eve with us.  He didn’t remember. No memory that one friend had been there, much less how many. He didn’t remember that he opened gifts and spent hours in the family waiting room with his “Brady bunch” family. He didn’t remember.  I could tell when I saw him seated at the nurses station that morning that something was wrong. The head nurse said Mike had been a quite emotional before we got there, thinking that he was there alone with no family or friends for Christmas. They tried to tell him we had been there the day before but he had no memory of it.   

Not everyone believes the way we do and that’s ok.  But for us, a bright shining star led the way to Bethlehem where in a small stable Jesus Christ was born. So on Christmas Day we celebrate a birth - we celebrate life.  Although December 25 is the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus, since the 18th Century there have been arguments that December 25 was chosen to correspond with the Winter Solstice or perhaps it was 9 months after the supposed date of conception, March 25- who knows.  As history is recorded it is left to the interpretation of the writer and it seems with every interpretation another group has a different platform to solidify their case. No one really knows for sure, one can only believe. 

We believe.

We would all remember Christmas 2008.

xxoo

On Christmas Eve, Mike’s very good friend Matt lost his beloved grandfather.  Matt lost his father earlier this year.  Rest in Peace Charlie Cornwell.