Christmas present, Christmas past

~ by Marie

A row of Apples, not for pie but iMac Pros, are lined up across the front of the couch on laps.  My son sits at the table surfing the net on his iPad as others look on.  My niece sits in the rocker on a Dell laptop.  Others are checking their iPod Touches to share photos.  Later, my brother hooks up his iMac Pro to the flat screen so we can watch a video he put together of Christmases past and the video of last Christmas that my sister put together on her fancy Mac desktop and photo editing software.  We relish the old photos of our ever-expanding family as we grew in age and size.  Cameras are flashing from every direction and I’m scanning the rooms with my Flip Cam as we continue to record this history in the making.  In all, five laptops, a desktop, a netbook, an iPad, an iPod Touch, at least one iPod nano and at least two other Smartphones with digital cameras, a Flip Cam, a Sony voice recorder, seven or eight cameras ... ranging from simple digitals to fancy SLR’s ... are in the double-wide trailer home as we celebrate Christmas 2010 style. 

I remember that it started with getting the tree.  When Dad announced it was time, we rushed to put on our snowsuits, gloves, scarves, mittens and the rubber boots we pulled on over our shoes.  The boys would grab a couple of saucers and a regular sled ... you know, one with steel runners on the bottom and wooden slats on the top ... and a toboggan if the “little kids” were coming, too, so someone could hold onto them.  Dad would get the tractor, sometimes with the manure spreader still hooked on behind.  He’d attach the sleds to either the back of the tractor or the back of the manure spreader, which didn’t smell because it was way too cold for that.  Then the fun would begin as we bounced behind this get-up to the back 40 we could barely see from the house. Past the cornfields and hay fields, past the big ditch and the dirt hole where we liked to play during the summer, was a stand of pine trees.  There we could choose any tree we wanted.  Many of them were too big for our little living room, but we always managed to find the perfect one.  Dad would cut the tree and throw it on top of the manure spreader or tie it to the toboggan. Then came the adventurous ride back. Dad would speed up or drive side to side to give us a thrill.  Joe would sometimes fly off and then run to catch up.  Snow that had been kicked up from the path or blown by the wind would fly into our faces and sometimes stick. We’d come back to the house frosty but happy.  And Mom would let us help decorate.  First we’d cut out and decorate oodles of sugar cookies. One year she bought red bells and wrote our names in glitter on each one. She also let us help decorate the tree.  Maybe I liked that the best of anyone since, to this day I, still love to decorate anything I can. I loved to look at the little collection of angel ornaments and the beautiful glass balls with designs on them.  And the bells, of course.  

On Christmas Eve, the longest night of the year, we kids slept mostly in the same bedroom.  But how could we possibly go to sleep on a night like this?  Someone ... anyone ... would be on the lookout for Santa’s arrival. I remember, on more than one occasion, My brother waking me to announce that Saint Nick had arrived.  Since our room was above Mom and Dad’s, we’d tip-toe out of it and down the long set of stairs to check it out.  We were always amazed at the bountiful pile of gifts all around the bottom of the tree. My brother would try to shake some while I warned him to be quiet.  The only problem was that it was still only 3 or 4 in the morning. So we’d have to wait for Mom and Dad to wake up.  So three, then four and finally five of us would sit at the bottom of the stairs, peeking out from time to time to see if they were up yet and wavering between whispering and trying to make enough noise to wake them. Finally. after what seemed like light years, they were up and we could begin to make our Christmas wishes come true. Later, Mom would gather us around the crèche, as she had so many days prior, to talk about the baby Jesus and review the true meaning of Christmas . 

Christmas for our family has always meant a crowd.  After breakfast, we got dressed and took the Christmas drive to Muskegon to visit family.  At Grandma’s, we gathered around the baby grand in her piano room.  At least two other families of aunts, uncles and cousins gathered with us in the little room to sing Christmas carols as Grandma played. I counted one time.   We had 40 people in Grandma’s small house.  My little German grandma made pork roast for everyone, along with the German anise cookies she’d pressed with a special rolling pin with designs on it. And applesauce, of course.  When I was young, she had a little gift for each of her grandchildren. But when the number of grandchildren grew to 67, she had to give up that practice.  After Grandma’s, we were off to Aunt Lucille’s.   There we hung out and ate leftovers and I checked out all my cousins’ Christmas loot.  When it was getting time to milk Bessie, Dad would say it was time to go. 

We’d pile into the car and head back to the farm, looking forward to some time to play with our new toys before bed.  Memorable Christmas gifts from Christmases past were my brother’s Tinkertoys, my walking doll, my nurse doll, the rocking horse and Joe’s Lego blocks, with which he could build real-looking houses. My parents let him take them to Grandma’s that first year and he let me help him build a house. Then one year I told Mom I’d like a certain hat and scarf set for Christmas. That Christmas morning, the gifts were being passed out.   When it was my turn, I opened my first gift to find the beautiful hat, scarf and mitten set. I loved it.  As the rest of the gifts were passed out, I waited and waited. But there were no other gifts for me. I was disappointed.  Only one gift.  I was a young teen learning for the first time the value of things. Other memories from Christmases past include Mom’s fruity bread braids with icing on top for breakfast, wondering if we’d have a white Christmas, midnight mass, BLINKING tree lights, my youngest brother’s talking robot, My sister’s black doll, ham topped with glazed pineapple circles with cherries in the middle and the little pig bank my brother gave me, which I still have to this day.