..........and to all a good night

           If you’re very lucky you have some wonderful Christmas memories.   I am very lucky.

My Mom, Dad and I always went to my grandparent’s house in Kentucky for Christmas.   As  little girls my cousin, Theresa, and I loved to crawl under the live Christmas tree, lie on our backs and look up through the branches at the bubble lights.  I thought they were the most beautiful things, and I still find those lights mesmerizing.  (note to self: shop the after Christmas sales for some bubble lights!) 

I think I must have been nine or ten the year I so desperately wanted a record player for Christmas.  I had a small one as a very little girl, and I had one record for it.   “The Bear Went Over the Mountain” was the song, and I can hear it to this day. 

At my grandmother’s house that year there was one box under the tree that was big enough to hold my dream gift, and I begged for clues from my Mother.   “Just tell me the first letter, just the first letter,” I begged.   My Mom thought a while and said….”Okay…the letter is P.”   I was crestfallen.   I wanted a RECORD PLAYER.   That Christmas morning I tore into the gifts.   The first, and largest, box I opened held a grey suitcase record player.   My Mom laughed as she introduced me to a new word… “phonograph”.   It was my treasure, as was the first 45 single I bought, “Wake up Little Susie” by the Everly Brothers.  

I think it was at Smarts Records on Main Street back then, when you bought 12 records they gave you the 13^th free.   Each week my Dad would let me pick out a record for 48 cents.   I became the proud owner of a punch card, and every week I would present it to the clerk so he could punch another hole in it that put me ever closer to the cherished number 12.   All week I would count the holes, then recount as if another might have magically appeared.   I still have some of those old 45’s with my name scrawled in a childish hand, all part and parcel of that special Christmas.

I’ve had a lot of Christmas gifts since that year, but none sticks in my mind quite as clearly as that phonograph.   After that year it seems that my memories jump forward to putting together bicycles, tiny tin kitchen appliances, wrapping gifts till the wee hours and stuffing stockings for my own children.   Those pre-Christmas evenings began with bathing three excited, wiggly little ones; working to get them stuffed into pajamas and tucked into bed.  While I herded the kids, Larry would start the process of deciphering toy assembly instructions, breathing a silent prayer that all the pieces were in the boxes. 

There’s nothing to prepare you for Christmas Day like advanced Christmas construction that keeps you up half the night.   Our kids were all pre-dawn Christmas celebrators.   I seemed as if I had no more than just closed my eyes (nearly crossed from trying to fit tiny screws into holes that didn’t mesh for a minimum of four hours) than the bed would explode into motion with three little ones squealing, “Mommy!…Daddy!.....Santa was here!!!   Get up…call Nanny and Grandpa!!!”    We would call my parents at some ungodly hour, and they would come over to watch the kids open their gifts.   Dad would unload another car full of packages while the kids danced and chattered with excitement.    It really didn’t matter if it was the middle of the night, we four adults sat drinking coffee while the kids ripped and shredded everything in sight. 

After the unwrapping carnage ended, Dad was always the first one to grab a garbage bag and start picking up ribbon and paper and torn boxes.   It was “his job” every Christmas, and the first year after his death none of us quite knew what to do; no one had the heart to be the one to pick up a bag and start cleaning up.    Somehow we got the job done, but we all knew that none of us is quite as good at it as my Pop was.

Our Christmas celebrations have certainly changed.  My Mom still bakes her pumpkin cake her grandchildren love, but our children have become beautiful adults.   They are loving and thoughtful, giving of their time and strength to friends and family all year long.  Our own seven grandchildren are growing tall and strong.  Everything has changed but the love, and that is the true gift to all of us this Christmas.   Looking around me on Christmas Day I am thankful for each one as they open gifts, laughing, teasing and enjoying each other’s company. 

Oh, my yes……Life is Good.