Christmas
It’s 15 days before Christmas, and no, this isn’t going to go into a poem of things being “all quiet throughout the house.” It just has me thinking. Thinking of how we want things to be. Thinking of how they actually are, and remembering childhood christmases with rose-tinted glasses.
I recently bought myself this really cool book by Lynda Barry, “What it is” from Bound to Happen books downtown Stevens Point (you should go and support local businesses ;)). It’s a book on how to become a better writer or at least, how to find a story, whether it be yours or a fictional one. I don’t necessarily want to write a book, but I find myself needing more of a creative outlet lately and this book was recommended. In the book, it has some amazing exercises on how to write about an image. That “image” being a memory, a person, a thing…..etc. For example, you have to list 10 mothers that you knew from your childhood (like your friends’ moms, or the neighborhood moms….etc), then ask yourself these questions regarding them:
Picture this person in a place where you’ve seen her before
Where are you?
What are you doing?
What is she doing?
What time of day does it seem to be?
What season?
About how old are you? About how old is she?
Is there anyone else in this image? If so, who?
Is there anyone who just left or may be coming?
What does she look like?
What kind of mood does this mother seem to be in ?
And then you have to put yourself in that place. Like, what’s around you, what’s to your left, your right, what does the floor look like…….you get what I mean. So it immediately made me think of Christmases “of yore” and why I think so highly of them….even though I know for a fact that there was fighting or things that didn’t go right, or let downs…..or something. It had me wanting to jump back into those memories and compare and contrast on how we do things now and how I hope I can create those rose-tinted memories for the boys.
Things I remember about my childhood Christmases….or at least the whole season. Smells of cinnamon, always cinnamon and the real Christmas tree (oh shit! I need to water ours…….). We always needed a frazier fur because apparently they last longer? Or the needles stay better? I don’t know, but we would go to Frank’s hardware (no longer) and pick one out…..crazy enough, I don’t really remember picking out any Christmas trees, but I do know we’d go to Frank’s. My mom always made a TON of Christmas cookies. We would get the premade, unfrosted, cut-outs from Copps on the East side to frost them ourselves with powdered sugar frosting. It always took me awhile to make sure all of the butter got mixed in and there weren’t clumps throughout the frosting. I have found in my wise old age of 41, that you can easily just zap that shit in the microwave and it’s much easier. My sister wasn’t always into frosting the cookies, but she liked to eat them. I tried to put the sprinkles on in certain ways, but inevitably, they’d end up slightly messy. There were also butterscotch melt-a-ways (my favorite, with the candied cherry on top), cheese horns….which is a weird name for them. They have ricotta cheese in the dough batter, but otherwise, they are just an amazingly delicious thin dough with a mixture of cooked sugar, butter and walnuts (I think?) in the center, rolled up, cooked and then topped with powdered sugar frosting. I mean! Come on! They are slightly a pain to make, but hot damn are they good. We also made spritz, peanut butter blossoms, gingerbread and I’m sure many others. Always enough cookies to grab a few after school, or have on hand when we went some place to celebrate.
There was a time that 5 of the neighborhood families would do a round-robin of a progressive party. Like, we would start at the Boehm’s for drinks and appetizers, go to the Radford’s for the main meal and then head to our house for dessert. Then it became easier to just stay at the Radford’s house since their family was growing with in-laws and grandchildren, as well as the Tauchman cousins over which added an additional 8+ people. It was so fantastic to be apart of that neighborhood and I just loved it so much. Every Christmas eve, after or before church (depending who went to what service), we would all get together. The adults would “adult” and the kids went in the basement and learned how to play poker or just run around. The Radford’s house was and still is, one of the most inviting places you could ever be in. It just grabs you in like a big, all encompassing hug. The light was never too harsh and there was always some sort of music playing in the background and everyone gathered in the kitchen with the big long bench on one side of the kitchen table. The cacophony of sound permeated into just about every room since there were probably 30 or more people there. Those Christmases were some of the ones that “you don’t know you’re in the good ole days, until they’re gone” kind of Christmases.
We would leave the Radford’s with homemade cranberry and walnut bread to eat in the morning, as we headed out of town to Manitowac on Christmas day. My personal family Christmases have a mixture of feelings and images that go with the memories. Getting dressed in our “Sunday Best” for Christmas eve mass. My mom helping to pull up tights that were never comfortable and always itchy, but you have to look good for God on Jesus’s birthday….*eyeroll. My home growing up had the 3 bedrooms down a hallway and we always set up the tree straight down that hallway, so at night, after everyone was asleep, I would peek out my door and make sure that Santa came, and my mom always let the tree lights on so there was a “magical” glow about it.
I could go on and on about those memories but I don’t really know why you’ve read this far, so I’ll carry on.
Now being the parent, and the main “memory maker,” it’s put on me to instill rose-tinted glasses for my kids on their childhood……or at least that’s what it feels like. I’m hoping they remember pulling out the ornaments and laughing or thinking about when they made them, or when they were from. How their tiny foot fit on that ornament to make the shape of a reindeer’s head back in 2017. Or taking that string out of that one ornament they made in kindergarten to see how much they’ve grown since then. I hope they remember that I didn’t care if all of the cookies were frosted with more frosting than there was cookie, or how the shapes became their own sculptural creations and less like a “cookie.” I want them to remember how, when our neighborhood had a progressive party for New Year’s Eve, how the kids were watching TV in the living room and yelling at the adults to be quieter in the kitchen, as we all danced on the countertops and sang along horribly to 80s ballads. Or how we made so much popcorn in the microwave that the glass plate broke from so much heat. I want them to smell blue spruce and winter pansies and have it bring them back to when they were little and I burned those candles during the holidays. I hope they don’t think about me yelling at them to “BE CAREFUL WITH THAT ORNAMENT! IT’S 40 YEARS OLD!” or that this holiday is stressful and think that they need to stress too when they get older. I hope a 20 foot blow up gingerbread man will always bring a smile to their face. Maybe they’ll think of all of the shenanigans our crazy Elf did and realize how crafty we actually had to be to get that shit done.
Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate around this time, if any…..can be intimidating. There’s a “keep up with the joneses” mentality at times. “They got their kids this” or “they’re going on a vacation to that place for christmas” or “our house isn’t decorated enough.” It’s so hard to figure out the balance when social media is blasting everyone’s highlight reel on a 24 hour loop.
So, I’m going to try and help make memories that my kids can maybe write about some day.
Where were they? At their home in Plover decorated with a 20 ft blow up gingerbread man
What are they doing? Making gingerbread cookies with their mom in the kitchen
What is your mom doing? She’s helping to roll out the dough evenly so they cook at about the same times while she dances to “All I want for Christmas” by Mariah Carey
What time of day does it seem to be? Evening, or late afternoon since it’s winter and everyone is dressed in layers
What season? Definitely the holidays because it smells like blue spruce and winter pansies and the house looks as though Christmas threw up in it
About how old are they? How old is their mom? 8 & 10, and in her 40s (but she looks like she’s in her 30s ;))
Is there anyone else there? Both boys, both dogs begging for scraps and cleaning up messes from the flour and cookie dough
Is there anyone who just left or may be coming? Daddy should be home from work soon, carrying his briefcase and ready to change into comfy clothes after sporting a button down and slacks all day
What does their mom look like? She’s always in leggings and maybe tennis shoes from running or walking the dogs, her hair is pulled up in a banana clip, she has on a comfy sweater that’s super soft, she looks tired, but doesn’t act like it and she’s always carrying around her huge blue bubba water bottle that’s covered in stickers that the boys put on it
What kind of mood do they all seem to be in? Happy.
