Christmas Eve through the lens of memory

 Christmas Eve morning . . . a lifetime ago, every year, a straight-haired little girl was taken on a "very special shopping trip" with her daddy. "You can either get her dressed up like a perfect little black-velvet princess OR you can get us out of the way right now so you'll have time to finish up," Daddy would say to her ever-fussing mother. "I don't see a way for you to have both. She just doesn't need curled hair to go Christmas shopping."

The little girl learned later that the excursion was intended to get them both out of the way so her mother and grandmother could finish putting lights and bows and silver dragees and powdered sugar and tinsel on absolutely everything, but that need not concern us here.

Things were congested -- traffic was heavy, parking lots were largely full, cash lines were long. But anticipatory magic hung in the air, as strains of instrumental Christmas music permeated the atmosphere. After a gentle interrogation about whether the little girl had saved some of her allowance for Christmas-Eve shopping, the daddy usually managed to conjure up a few spare dollars for the little girl to buy a few last-minute gifts for her mother and grandmother.

Overheated indoor malls didn't dominate the retail scene; a few outdoor "shopping centers" ruled the day. And in those days, the gift shops at a local amusement park-cum-boysenberry farm were refined and aimed toward nice, hardworking middle-class people with decent taste. Their merchandise mix ranged from hideous plastic souvenirs to affordable, tasteful accessories. Usually the little girl and her daddy found some pretty earrings or a small porcelain box to give. Most years after the shopping wrapped up, they adjourned to the on-premises chicken dinner restaurant for a quick lunch. Toward the end of lunch (where "end of lunch" = "shared slice of boysenberry pie"), Daddy would consult his Eterna Matic watch and say "Well, Little Sunshine, are we about ready to head home and wrap these things?"

By the time they returned to their modest tract house in a modest suburban town, the mother and grandmother's talents for excess had reached full Christmas flower. Every surface was embellished; every package under the 12-foot tree shone like a beacon of metallic ribbon and sparkly paper; every cookie glistened with gold dragees, cinnamon Red Hot candies and colored sugar; and every pine cone had clearly been attacked by a glitter-spewing heavy weapon. In one bathroom, a lighted plastic Santa face stared eerily down at people who only wanted to perform a necessary function. Some years, the tension between the adult women in the house was palpable and frightening.

The little girl and her father shrewdly adjourned to their rooms so they could wrap the last gifts in peace and silence. Poor Daddy, soon he'd be rescuing nut roll from death by cremation, and the little girl would endure the long, lonnnngggg wait for Christmas Eve dinner (always something with Daddy's red sauce), a reading of "A Visit from St. Nicholas" and family presents. Sometimes the little girl’s aunts called from Pennsylvania to report on how much snow they'd gotten that day. Almost always, "nobody noticed" if the little girl swiped a few sweets from the holly-shaped ceramic plates that adorned every flat surface in the house. (She “accidentally” ate so many chocolate peanut clusters one year that she was almost retirement age before she could look at them without waves of queasiness.)

By the time the gifts were wrapped and it was safe to emerge into the shared areas of the house, the mother and grandmother had set aside their differences and chosen merriment over sulkiness and resentment (one or the other of them usually came to her senses and realized it didn’t REALLY matter if the Styrofoam candle was on the left or the right side of the stuffed Santa doll). Usually, the daddy gave his little girl a conspiratorial wink and said "Aren't you glad we got out of this mess for a few hours?"

While the early hours of the day were frenzied, a heavenly peace did descend on that house in the afternoon and evening. The dinner table was gorgeous, with beautiful linens, plates and glasses; Daddy’s food was flawless; and the conversation was free and happy. Some years, the little girl and her mother went to midnight church services (which began at 10:30 p.m. and the “little girl” still hasn’t figured out why they didn’t just call it the 10:30 service). No matter how tired they were, the last thing before bedtime, the mother and her little girl looked out her bedroom window. Every year – EVERY year – they saw in the distance a miniature sleigh and NINE tiny reindeer.

I wish my Christmas-celebrating friends ALL the magic.