Christmas Nostalgia

I have made it this year all the way to Thanksgiving without having a Christmas tree up yet.  I vowed I would make it!  Although, I assure you, it goes up on Friday.  I know it’s ridiculous to attempt to fast forward through one holiday to get to the better one, but I think those of us who rush to hang our lights and stockings do so because of the way it makes us feel.  It’s the cozy comfort of twinkling lights, shimmering ribbons, fuzzy blankets, and crackling fires.  It’s the one time of year people are a little bit nicer, (for the most part).  I remember hearing on the radio a few years back that during the height of foreclosures, some banks were halting all seizures from Dec. 23^rd to the 25^th and thinking, “Well, isn’t that special?”  See, even banks can have heart that will automatically self-destruct in 3 days during this time of year! 

There’s just something special about it.  I don’t know if Christmas will ever feel like it did when I was a kid, but I still get the warm and fuzzies because of my kiddos and watching them have the same delight I once had.  I would get so excited on Christmas Eve, I drove my brother crazy.  He was always cool and never got too giddy about anything.  I, however, would lie there sleepless, flailing my feet under the covers and wondering what was in each box I had shaken and debated unwrapping and tapping back together for weeks.  My family wasn’t exactly “The Cleavers” but there were special Christmas traditions.  One Christmas Eve, I asked my mom if we could all dress up for dinner.  She humored me and I felt like we were a real live TV family.  In the 80’s, my mom looked and dressed like the mom from “Growing Pains”, so for that night, I had decided we were “The Seavers”. 

We always had a real tree.  I would go with my dad on the four-wheeler to ride around the woods until we found the perfect tree.  He wasn’t always willing to give me his time, but when he did, I took full advantage.  Even he softened on Christmas.  I would always pick the most massive tree I could find – a Griswold tree.  To his credit, he never told me it was too big.  He’d mostly just say, “Is that big enough for ya, Bub?”  Then he’d hack the top off because I had chosen one 13 ft. tall and shave off the branches beneath to expose the trunk.  I loved decorating it and the smell was the best part. We would play Christmas music, string lights, and hang ornaments.  We wore out that Brenda Lee Christmas album.  Yes, ALBUM.  Ryan and I had our favorite Christmas specials we would watch on TV.  I have tried to collect some of these old favorites on DVD for my kids to enjoy.  I can’t begin to tell you how disappointed I was when my children didn’t give a flying fart about the ultimate classic, “Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas”.  I almost got belligerent in my interrogation as to why they weren’t completely enthralled.  “What?  Not enough bright colors for you?  What’s the problem?  You’re too good for Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas??” 

I would spend weeks before Christmas in a fog of excitement not much different than Ralphie Parker’s.  White Christmases were common and I can remember the view out of every window -- that special rush of waking up to find everything blanketed in snow and knowing we’re getting closer.  Hopefully a school cancellation was to follow.  Ryan and I had some of our most fun and were at our most creative on snow days.  Our snowmen were elaborate and fashionable.  We even used pompoms to give them hair.  We would make recorded tapes and the best on record was our news station, W-VEG.  We created all kinds of characters.  We had the sports caster, Bubbles – the advice columnist, etc.  We played music in between and if I’m not mistaken, Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” made it in there somewhere.  What I wouldn’t give to sit down and listen to that tape but it’s lost somewhere and that kills me.  I remember exactly what it looked like.  I remember it as being the funniest thing in the world.

Other funny memories around this time come up because obviously, it would be cold at this time of year and we didn’t have central heat and air.  For a long time we only had base board heaters until my parent’s put in a wood burning stove.  It sat on a brick pedestal that went up onto the wall.  Ryan was chasing me through the house once and broke his toe on that brick pedestal.  That stove was highly effective.  I stood in front of its door once to warm my backside and I must’ve stood a tad too close because it embossed the seal on the cast iron door to the butt of my pink bathrobe.  It would heat up the house so well that I can remember having to take breaks from watching “Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas” to go stand in the snow and cool off.

Eventually Christmas morning would come and we were up before dawn.  Mom was a step ahead of us because she was already in full makeup.  There were going to be photos taken and you weren’t catching her bare-faced, I can tell you that right now.  My mother is a lady – she smells nice, hair done, face on.  I would rip open my presents as fast as I could.  I had an ongoing love affair with Cabbage Patch dolls for many years.  I would rip open my new one and smell her.  They always smelled like vanilla.  I had several Cabbage Patch dolls over the years.  Some came after they had upgraded to synthetic hair instead of yarn.  The kind you could lengthen or shorten.  But I never loved any of them the way I loved my very 1^st, Cheryl Dawn.  She had yarn hair but she was still my favorite.  My Granny Faye restored her for me and I still have her.  She lives in my cedar chest.

I had 2 massive families.  We would visit both sets of grandparents, opening more presents, and eating till we’d bust.  There were cousins, aunts and uncles by the boat-load – food everywhere.  The Ott side of my family was a bit more subdued than the Rorie side.  There was laughter in both houses, but far more yelling and general loudness at the Rorie’s.  It’s just the way they are.  Every year my Papaw Henry would taste the turkey and say and I quote, “This turkey’s dry ain’t it?”  Then everyone would laugh because he said it every year.  My cousin Michael eventually began beating him to the punch which was even funnier.  Everyone would again laugh but it was a certain kind of laugh – a Rorie laugh I can’t describe, I can only duplicate in person.  Granny would follow up with, “I wish you’d shut up!”  He would never respond, really.  He’d just take his dry turkey and go back to his chair.  It’s one of those “it’s funny because it’s true” kind of things.  Yes they were characters, loud characters, who were rough around the edges, but they were my family and I remember feeling like it was special. 

Times change and traditions fade.  As my cousins and I have aged into adulthood, married, moved away, and some grandparents have passed, the traditions have adapted but I’m glad I have those memories.  It has made Christmas always hold such a special place in my heart.  I hope the traditions I’m setting now will be something my children will always look back on with that good old warm and fuzzy feeling.  I don’t think a year goes by when I put up my tree that I don’t feel the same way I used to feel when I did it as a kid.  I’m still that same girl inside.  She’s just a bit older and maybe a hair more cynical.  But now I let my kids put the ornaments on.  I do my best to bite my tongue and not say a word if they put too many of the same kind of ornament in one spot.  My mom never knit-picked me for it so why be more worried about a picture-perfect tree than to marvel at something my children enjoyed doing?  I play music like my mom used to and hope it makes it as special for them as it did for me.

Like I said, it’s a special time.  I guess that’s why I feel nostalgic now and why this blog fell out.  My Christmases now are spent at my house with Jason and the kiddos.  Mom and JC come down and occasionally Ryan makes an appearance.  *Fingers crossed for this year*  I’m grateful for what is now and I’m grateful for what was.  Yes, I’m a bit more cynical these days but I still love lights that twinkle, ribbons that shimmer, and a fire that crackles.  I still want what I always wanted around this time of year; for everyone to just be grateful for one another, families to be families, to create memories that will last a lifetime, to slow down a little, and be a little kinder.  Tis the season…