Celebrating the Low Moments of Christmas

Dec. 28, 2005

Now that Christmas and Hanukkah are over, how about taking a minute to write about your
holidays. And don’t leave out the low moments. They’ll give you the most laughs.
When my brothers and sisters get together, we like to share our old stories of growing up in
Davison with eight kids (born within 10 years of each other), not quite enough money and my
grandma living in an apartment attached to the house.
My brother, Kevin, reminded me of how dad used to trim up our Christmas tree with a chainsaw
— inside the house. He revved it up in the living room and cut off the bottom branches of the
tree while one of us kids held up the picky trunk. The noise was ear splitting. It took all eight of
us kids (my five brothers, two sisters) to pick out the needles and branches from the long shag
carpet—a tri-color  black, white and gray blend that defied the trendy earth tones of the day.
(I’m sure Mary, the oldest, got out of the needle picking. She got out of everything, including
cleaning the boatload of smelt that my dad caught one year. She claimed she had to go to the
prom.)
We spent a lot of time picking stuff out of the shag carpet at Christmastime. Once our yellow
lab, Rusty, was sniffing around some gift-wrapped chocolate and got a cord wrapped around
his neck. My brother walked in on him and Rusty tried to run off—guilt, panic??—and dragged
the tree across two shag-covered rooms. The icicles (whatever happened to icicles?) were
particularly hard to pick out.
One Christmas, our extremely rotund friend, Dickie Williams, dressed up as Santa Claus. I’m
sure my parents thought it was a special treat for us, but my younger siblings, Laura, Steven,
and Kevin—they were around 5, 6 and 7 years old—recognized  him right away. Perhaps
unwisely, my parents kept up with the ruse, and forced them to sit on Dickie’s lap. They just
wailed. Dickie looked as if the last thing to come out of his mouth would be “ho, ho, ho.”
The week after Christmas, we prayed for cold weather because that meant we could skate on
the crick (the word “creek” only came into my vocabulary after a high
school boyfriend ungraciously corrected me on so many of my words, including expecially for
especially, warsh for wash, dint for didn’t …).
We often used to get skates for Christmas, and I dreamed of skating in a short, frilly dress,
twirling and jumping like the girls in the Olympics. In reality, I played hockey with my brothers,
wearing figure skates, of course. We flooded the ice by knocking holes into the side of the crick
and shoveling a thin layer of water on top.
A lot of times the creek wasn’t completely frozen and we’d skate on the edge, around the open
water, usually with no problem. But sometimes we’d get a soaker. Someone’s foot would go
through the thin ice, and it always happened at least half a mile from home. Which reminds me
of how my brothers used to put on bread wrappers to make it easier to get their shoes into
those big rubber black boots. I think they considered it humiliating, but were thankful when it
protected their feet from the soakers.
But ice skate soakers were a different story. I’d arrive home, limping into the kitchen, sitting
down and scraping the ice off the laces with numb fingers and peeling the skates off my foot,
white, damp and frozen. I’d warm up with cocoa made with real cocoa, but howled as my foot
thawed out, the pain poking like icy needles from all different directions. Grandma called those
chilblains and I always wondered if that was a real word.
I remember a particularly great Christmas when the yard flooded and froze again. We were able
to skate in the backyard! And in the spring, the creek flooded the yard again and my sister
jumped in a raft and paddled around. The fire department came and pumped out the basement
that was waist-high with water.
The good memories aren’t as funny, but they’re fun to think about. We used to fill big black
garbage bags with popcorn balls, all different colors. To make it, we’d shake the popcorn in
grocery bags so that the “old maids”—the unpopped kernels—would  sink to the bottom.
Grandma used to cook the green or red syrup, but didn’t use a candy thermometer. Instead, she
plopped a spoonful into a cold glass of water and appointed one of us kids as the official tester.
Every year, one of the eight kids would get a new bike and you always knew when it was your
year. My Grandma sewed nightgowns for the girls each year, and my little sister and I would
wear them the whole day prancing around like princesses.
We’d go to midnight mass and all eight of us lined up for “inspection.” So exciting to stay up
that late. And then the huge, huge piles of gifts. We were impatient with passing out the gifts,
and would just tear into them after a certain point. One of my friends, watching us openings
gifts as “mature” adults, was aghast at the chaos.
Some of the not so funny memories: my mom, a nurse, would sometimes work on Christmas
because she would make triple pay for the day. The money was just too good to pass up. We
felt bad about the sacrifice she had to make. And that pit of the stomach feeling of
disappointment (and guilt over the disappointment) that you didn’t get what you wanted for
Christmas, but knew your parents were doing everything they could.
One Christmas my older brothers and sisters learned the value of surprise. They discovered the
gifts in an upstairs closet where my dad made shotgun shells. As “punishment,” mom forced
them to wrap all their presents. They were a little quieter that year.
My husband told me about the time that he and his sister, Debbie, got up around midnight and
thought it was morning. Without waking their parents, they ripped open the presents with joy
and abandon. Their mom and dad, in fact, were across the street having a celebratory drink
with the neighbors when they saw the gift wrap flying and kids laughing.
So get out your journal and start writing. Some of your less than Rockwellian experiences might
make you moan now. But you’ll be able to laugh … say, in 20 years.