I never really thought of Christmas as a learning experience, but the older I get, the more the holiday seems to have morphed from a time of pure, unadulterated magic into magic tinged with revelation.
Not that that’s a bad thing …
First, there is the beginning, when you realize that Christmas is a “thing,” and an occasion to look forward to. Maybe you are 4 or 5? You absorb this anticipation from your parents, and if they are good at it, they pass along the sense of wonder and magic to you. My mom was excellent at this — in fact, possibly too good! I remember several Christmas Eves when I was so excited about what was coming, I spent the day throwing up.
The entire month between Thanksgiving and Christmas was one, long stomach flutter. A snowfall brought me wide awake in the middle of the night to the blue-tinged windows that told me Santa was coming soon, and I didn’t think I could possibly wait! Those were the days when time crawled past, and I thought the holiday would never arrive. Nowadays, time passes so quickly that it’s here and gone in the twinkling of Santa’s eye.
Next comes the transformation which occurs when you stop looking through children’s eyes and begin to see the holiday more through the lens of a pseudo- adult. The magic is still there, but it becomes overlain with a veneer of sophistication. You try not to get too excited about things, because that’s so “childish.” You’re sort of proud that you are no longer naive and gullible enough to fall for the Santa Claus shtick, and you want to demonstrate that by appearing a little cynical and world-weary about the whole business. You’re not fooling anyone, but you have to make the attempt, for the sake of your dignity.
Or so they tell me. I skipped that stage.
Or maybe I just never grew out of the “childish” part. I still get that flutter in the tummy when I think of the holidays, even in July; and I will take the cold, frosty, anticipatory weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas over any tropical island vacation you could offer. I still believe in Santa Claus, firmly and unshakably. And you can’t persuade me that he doesn’t look and act exactly like Edmund Gwenn!
Next, you graduate to teenagerhood (is that a word? It is now.) This is a sort of odd phase, where you and your friends use the Yule as an excuse for riotous abandon and partying. Not that teenagers need an excuse. You still do some of the “old” stuff, like decorating gingerbread cookies and the tree, but that’s mostly because your parents expect it of you. (Once again, I skipped this phase. Let’s face it, I’m still in Phase 1, and probably will be for the rest of my life.)
After this, you’re sort of out on your own. Maybe you’ve gone away to college. You’re living on your own. You make some token attempt to decorate with a little tree, or lights in the window of your dorm/apartment, but some of that comes from homesickness. If you can get to the family manse for the holiday, you make the attempt. If not, you pretend not to care. But you’re lying — even to yourself. There’s no place like home for the holidays — if you’re lucky enough to come from a loving one.
Then you get to the part where you really are an adult, and the rush and bustle of life make it difficult to step back and recapture the magic. You’re paying rent, car insurance, food and gas expenses, going to work every day. You may be in a relationship with someone for whom you have to remember to buy a gift, but that is one of the few concessions you make to the event. Once again, going “home” for the holidays is the goal. (Funny how you still think of wherever your parents are as “home …”) Mom and Dad will supply the magic. That’s part of a parent’s job, even when the kids have flown the next.
And speaking of parents — now you are one! And abracadabra — the magic is back! You get the joy, the privilege of seeing Christmas through a child’s eyes again. You want to make the wonder of the holidays as mystical and glittering as you can for those tiny tots; you want to create a fairyland of enchantment for them, no matter how thin your wallet or how hurried and harried your days. And it’s a good thing; adults need to slow down and recapture the magic, too, or we’ll go stark, staring mad and become too jaded for kids to be around at all. No one wants to spend Christmas with a Scrooge.
Now, the cycle begins all over again, with you, the parent, as the observer and peripheral participant: the pseudo- sophisticate phase, the teenage-insanity phase, the temporary out-of-the-nest phase, and finally you’ve launched them successfully into the world, and they come back for the holidays to help you rebuild the magic. But when the grandkids come, all bets are off.
Now you’re the one traveling. If you have more than one child, and each of them has kids, you begin the whirlwind of sprinting from house to house, maybe even in different states, or trading off, one year here, the next year there. Your quiet, familiar holiday turns into a mad scramble involving frequent rest stops, worries about driving conditions, how to pack all the presents in the car, and whether or not fruitcake can survive six hours in the trunk. (It can survive 3,000 years in an Egyptian tomb, so don’t kid yourself.)
Then at last, the final phase: Christmas back in the old homestead, where you’re too old to travel, so the kids, grandkids and great-grandkids are back to making the pilgrimage. It’s peaceful again — and lo and behold, the magic is back! The family brings its own sort of ruckus and uproar with it — but it’s muted, because they know that old folks get startled easily, and can’t hear the conversation when there’s too much background noise. Now you sit and watch while the younger folk put up and decorate the tree. You eat the gingerbread, warble along to the carols — and somehow, you feel closer to the “childish” you than you’ve felt in eighty years. The older you get, the more of a child you become, where Christmas is concerned. And that’s more than OK.
Or so they tell me. I seem never to have left the “childish” stage. Not for a moment. And till I die, I never want it to change. Lights decking the front porch, the Robert Shaw Chorale on the phonograph, stringing popcorn and cranberries, Christmas cards and carolers at the front door and the spicy fragrance of cinnamon, clove and nutmeg. I can conjure them all, even on the hottest dog days of summer, and till get that flutter in my tummy. Don’t ever lose that, I tell myself — but I don’t even have to try.
May that spirit live in all our hearts this season. May joy and peace float in your soul, whatever holiday you celebrate. And may we come to love one another all year long as we do at holiday-time.