To those who have endured my occasional rants on the subject of politics I ask for your tolerance. Two years ago my youngest child passed beyond that magical age of Santa Claus, a time and place that can never really be returned to, except in wistful memory, and as an indulgent and sentimental father I felt the need to mark the occasion with a short commentary. Forgive an ageing, nostalgic old man for re-posting it now. MY LAST OLD CHRISTMAS November 22, 2012 at 10:44am Thanksgiving is here, and that means Christmas is now closing in on us with its usual vigor. And with the youngest of my four, now past the ripe old age of eight, I find myself approaching this one with some trepidation. It will be strangely different for me this time, unlike any I’ve had for the past twenty plus years. Understand that for all these many years, to my good fortune, I’ve never had to put up a Christmas tree. Never had to buy one, never had to struggle getting it to stand up straight, never had to curse it when it didn’t. I did not have to untangle even one string of lights that were packed so carefully the year before, and I never even had to hang a single ornament. This is not because I’m lacking in Christmas spirit, in fact I like to think I’m quite awash in it. You see our Christmas always began on Thanksgiving morning that is the day when the much fabled and extremely rare Christmas Tree Pine Cones are known to drop down from the evergreens. If you’ve never had the opportunity to seen one of these rare coniferous cones among the trees they are can easily be spotted as they are all golden in color and sparkle red and green in the light. Foolish people might suspect these are nothing but regular pine cones some father had spray painted gold and sprinkled with common glitter from a craft store, but of course they’re just being silly and wrong. So after breakfast, off we would go to tramp through the trees on our annual hunt. Brown after brown, reject after reject would be found until sometimes I felt the need to call off the whole expedition telling the children “Well, they really are rare phenomenon, and I guess this just isn’t our year to find one, we’ll just have to go home and struggle through Christmas without one.” Then the slow depressing trudge would begin back to the car. Could Christmas survive? Somehow, however, on that sad lonely trek back to the car, by some Christmas miracle one would always be found, nestled among the pine needles on the ground, stuck in a bush beneath a tree or in the low hanging branches, and one, amazingly, dropped from a tree, just as we were passing beneath, striking my son on the head! Secure in the knowledge that Christmas was saved, we could turn for home with a pine cone that was always even bigger than last year (it looked to me exactly like the pine cone from last year, but what do I know). Thanksgiving dinner would be eaten, the pine cone safely ensconced atop the clock on the mantle, and soon would, if not forgotten, largely ignored until…. Christmas Eve has climbed up on us almost unexpectedly and the youngest is chomping at the bit, eager to get at “his” pine cone, so after dinner, the rug between the two front windows is rolled up, the empty tree stand is disinterred from the bowls of the basement and placed on the living room floor, and with proper solemnity the pine cone is brought down from its mantle perch and the youngest ceremoniously marches in to “plant” the pine cone in the empty tree stand. His older siblings then follow, each in turn to anoint this Christmas Tree cradle with special mixture of rare exotic spices (no don’t ask, it’s a closely guarded secret) and every one save myself is then marched up to bed. When I’m sure all is locked up tight, I too retire for my long winters nap, leaving the house in empty darkness. It always seemed to happen around seven, sometimes even six in the morning someone, one of the children, would wake up because-- they heard a noise! All the kids would soon be awake and a conference held. Yes, definitely those are noises downstairs, a plan, a plan is needed, and a consensus is reached. A procession is then formed and slowly it trembles its way down the hall, just to peak, just to be sure. They always swore to me they saw him, a big, fat, white haired old gentleman in a silly red suit whose face had not seen a razor in many a year. From a gaily colored sack he had strewn an impossible number of brightly wrapped packages, but the pine cone, that small colorful seed of Christmas, with the magic belonging to Santa alone, he had raised it into the most wonderful Christmas tree they had ever seen, each year bigger and better than any past tree could ever have been. Now I myself, have never seen Santa Clause do any of this, while he was cavorting about my living room. I was always sound asleep, a large, inanimate lump under my comforter (that’s my story and I’m sticking to it) but I take my children’s word for it because a lot seemed to happen down there while I was asleep. Huddled at the top of the staircase they all would stare and giggle as long courage would hold out or until Santa Clause took his first step toward the stairs and then PANIC, mad dash to the beds, jump in, squeeze the eyes shut, tighter than a miser’s wallet. Now they would wait in dim light and stark terror as the heavy footsteps thumped up the stairs coming ever closer, the bedroom doors slowly creaked open and he stepped in. Eyes closed even tighter now while an extra present, a small toy or candy cane would be tucked into their tightly curled up arms while they “slept“. The he would be gone, quick steps up to the attic, out the window, hooves tapping on the old tin roof that sounded just like pebbles being thrown down on those metal sheets and it was over, all done for another year. Sometimes as much as ten minutes would pass before courage was recovered and they would rally to storm my bed yelling that I would never believe what they just saw. They would not be put off, not dissuaded, not resisted and I was dragged reluctantly from my warm bed and pushed to the stairs. I was properly and predictably amazed at the sight below me. I always went down first, just to make sure everything was on the up and up, gave the signal and an avalanche of youth commenced down the stairs. I always noted, however, first they always stopped. Their eyes wide like dinner plates, presents momentarily forgotten and stared in awe at the glorious Christmas tree, towering over them. Every bulb glowing, every ornament shinning, every hanging Christmas character, tiny train and novelty, grinning back at them from green pine boughs. Christmas was good and would last forever, and in their memories perhaps it will. It is all going to be gone now, my offspring are waiting now to make our last ever Thanksgiving morn trek out into the pines to look for a last magic cone to hang every year now as a memory. Santa will come once more time this year, but I’m told he’s on a different schedule now and he’ll come this year in the middle of the night when no one is awake. I now have to learn to buy a tree, set up a tree, curse the tree, untangle lights and hang ornaments, with everyone’s help of course, but for some reason I think I’m going to miss that white haired old goat that used to do it for me.
Posted on: Thu, 27 Nov 2014 08:43:32 +0000
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