This holiday season has seemed a bit strange to me.
We haven’t had a lot of snow so far, which is good … but also bad, because I think that helps me get into the holiday spirit. We’re 21 months into one of the most confusing, contentious and exhausting events I can ever remember — the COVID pandemic, of course.
I have a lot to say about that, but I won’t. No good can come of continuing pointless arguments about how sick this virus can make people, or whatever internet meme-driven conspiracy theory some folks are buying into at the moment.
In my opinion, we’re too far apart to reach consensus, even when some of the people decrying the vaccine for the populace have themselves been vaccinated.
What’s missing, in my opinion, is that feeling — “in the air there’s a feeling of Christmas,” as the song says.
I remember, as a child, feeling the “Christmas magic” that people write songs about — the thrill of Christmas lights and decorations that ramp up excitement, the smell of baking cookies or bread, the sound of old-fashioned Christmas music sung by Burl Ives or Bing Crosby, the taste of peppermint from candy canes and the sharp poke of the needles of a Christmas tree.
It was always chilly in our house on Christmas morning. The house was heated by a wood stove, and my mother would get the fire going after she was awakened by eager children, ready to see what Santa brought.
Plastic sleds were always part of the loot. We had a steep hill above our front yard, and a hill down to a lower section of the yard. We’d make a sled-riding trail that went across the front sidewalk. My parents didn’t complain. With as many kids as they had, it must have seemed like a Christmas miracle to have them all outside playing for the day.
On occasion, my mother would make homemade cinnamon rolls. It was labor-intensive, but so wonderful to come in from a busy day playing in the snow, to warm cinnamon rolls and hot cocoa.
We would spread out on the floor, on blankets and pillows, and watch Christmas specials, like A Charlie Brown Christmas, How the Grinch Stole Christmas — the good one, with Boris Karloff and songs by Thurl Ravenscroft, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas — the 1974 animated version, and Frosty the Snowman.
As I got older, and made a family of my own, I began to realize the work that went into making Christmas so magical for children. And I remember my own daughter being unenthusiastic and overwhelmed by Christmas when she was a toddler. She would open a gift, then stop to play with it, uninterested in opening anything else.
Perhaps it’s the loss of my mother in September that makes this year a little less magical. I feel a lot more like listening to Elvis Presley’s Blue Christmas than Burl Ives singing Have a Holly Jolly Christmas.
I have never made homemade cinnamon rolls; Pillsbury does a good job of that. And this year, I haven’t wrapped a single gift. Gift boxes and gift bags are mixed with Amazon boxes and reusable grocery bags under the tree at my house.
The gift bags are pretty special, though. It turns out that my mom had saved every gift bag that she had been given, and ones that others left behind. So each gift bag under my tree is recycled from my mother’s stash.
Some bags say happy birthday, others have various sayings about springtime or Valentine’s Day. It doesn’t matter. They mean so much to us.
This Christmas, our celebrations will be quieter than in the past. Things may not be as merry, but it’s a good time to count our blessings.
And to be thankful to know that my parents taught me well enough to recognize all the blessings I have.
Have a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. Whatever your religion, whatever your beliefs, may good tidings and joy fill your holiday season and new year.
(Marcie Schellhammer is assistant managing editor of The Era. She can be reached at marcie@bradfordera.com.)
