Stream of Yuletide Consciousness...

Some random holiday memories, in no particular order......

Life was stressful for the first couple of years after the boys were born. I mean, unhealthy stressful. I don't think I got two hours of sleep on any given night. I can't recall much about those years - the mind has a way of blocking out unpleasant experiences. But I do remember putting up a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve one year, and if you've ever seen my tree, it is a huge undertaking. After hours of work, I slid underneath to push it back against the wall, and it tipped over. Funny, I didn't have much Christmas spirit when I'd started the project. And at that moment, it wasn't so much sleigh bells jingling as it was a yuletide GONG that signaled my freefall over the edge. Ever seen the Incredible Hulk's Christmas Special? I took the tree, ornaments and all, dragged it through the dining room and out the back door, and tossed it as far as I could into the back yard. The headmistress wouldn't talk to me for several weeks after that episode.

Each year my older brother and I always try to outdo each other with gifts or calls to mom. You don't want to be the last person to make the phone call on THAT day. This year, he claims he really outdid himself. Told me that it wasn't even worth trying; that I should just send no gift and start focusing on next year; that if I do send a gift, I'll only embarrass myself. Oh, he's made a big deal over this one. And he won't tell me what it is. But he made one KEY mistake. Flying at 36,000 feet on his way to Norway this week, he crafted an email to mom telling her to expect a large package, and explaining the shipping arrangements, etc. Then he realized he didn't have the email address, so he sent it to me requesting that I forward it. What, are you kidding? Have you ever MET me, brother? You trust ME? Ha! After some clever editing, mom now expects a package from BOTH of us. Have fun in Norway 'Bro! Don't worry, I've got your back.

A friend once got a photo of my sister sitting on the potty. It was a classic pose - pants right down around the ankles. Yup, it was a sight. So this friend, she had the photo made into Christmas cards that year. You know this "War on Christmas" thing? Yeah, it started right there.

I used to love going to Grammy and Fat Leon's place in the winter time - we called it camp, they called it home. It was a small, dark brown house in Ossippee, New Hampshire, isolated at the top of a steep grade up a dirt road. If the snow was too high, you sometimes had to park at the bottom and schlep a mile or so up the hill on foot. We never went there for Christmas, but I do remember some winter visits. The thing I remember most is Fat Leon's Ford Galaxy. It was dark blue, with a purple haze from too much sun and salt, and it had two things on the dashboard that simply fascinated me - one was a tartan-plaid beanbag ashtray, and the other was a statue of the Virgin Mary. But what I really remember about winters there, is how the car sounded. In summer, he'd speed down the dirt road like the blazes, rocks rattling 'round the wheel wells like coins in a clothes dryer. It was a "hell of a racket", as he would say. But in winter, it was like you were driving on plush carpet. The car made no noise, except for the snow crunching under the tires.

The last time I ever saw my dad was the Christmas of 1991. I flew to Florida to spend the holiday with Mom and Dad, a brother and a sister. Christmas in Florida - very strange, especially for a Down-Easter. In his later empty-nest years in Florida, Dad got a real kick out of pretending he was a big kid at Christmas. He'd put a poster in the window every morning as the big day approached - 3 MORE SLEEPS! 2 MORE SLEEPS! Which is what we used to say as kids. Anyway, that year, the Christmas of 1991, we got my dad a new bicycle, and outfitted it like we used to do as kids, with clothes pins holding playing cards on the back rails, so that the spokes clicked the cards and made this motor-boat sound. We put streamers in the handlebars, and mounted a holster with a cap gun. Dad hated Muskovee ducks, and used to chase them all over the yard with a cap gun, trying to scare them away. He got a good laugh out of that bike, and we took his picture standing next to it in the driveway. It was the last picture we ever took of him. I'd never spent Christmas in Florida before that year, and I don't know what made me go. But I'm sure glad I did.