The Magic

 

Most of us have special Christmas memories that we cuddle up with on the couch. We sit around the tree and think back on the times we shared or the gifts we received. Each one of us, whether we celebrate for the season or the Reason, can access a lifetime of presents and moments and love. If you’re lucky, you can pull a memory from your head as if it was a book or file on your computer; Instant recall on those we hold so dear despite the distance in time and place.
Some people lock away their memories because they simply do not care. If it doesn’t affect them now, then it is irrelevant. Other people lock memories away because they hurt too much. It’s safer in a dark place when you fear the light. The bulk of us just live our lives never thinking to dissect our past. Then there are those who cherish memory. Whether painful or joyful, it is embraced like an old friend once thought long gone

Christmas is an individual event. It comes only once per year, so it abides clearer when we look back on it. Things are fresher when they stand alone. We can pinpoint and say with surety that ‘this happened’ or ‘that happened.’ Christmas is made from memory. Adults, unlike children, rarely think of Christmas in terms of here and now. We think on the spectrum of moments from Christmases past and revel in our emotional response. Christmas is an amalgam of Christmases gone by. Each blend a gift. Each moment you can touch and feel and see and hear, is a treasure bestowed on only you. No one else can see from your vision nor can another open their heart for the pieces of the past which fit only in you, and you alone possess.

I was 9 years old Christmas 1974. I don’t remember the weather that December. I don’t remember reports from Vietnam. I don’t remember one single lesson I learned in my grade 4 classes. I don’t remember the day Jack Benny died. I do remember the one Christmas morning when the most favourite gift from my early childhood rolled out from under the tree.

Long before the days of compact action figures, G.I. Joe and Big Jim ruled the toy store. Compatible in size with my sister’s doomed Barbie Dolls; I already had plenty of “Yo, Joe!” I didn’t even know a thing about Big Jim until the Simpson Sears Wish book arrived early that fall. By Christmas, the book was a maze of missing pages, large print names in crayon and the subtle colouring of squares about each wanted toy. Occasionally, a hole would miraculously appear centre page with no reason or rhyme. When I first saw the Big Jim Camper, I knew it must be mine. My sister had a Barbie camper, and I often stole it away as a headquarters for my toy heroes to strategize in. I don’t recall how much I begged and pleaded for that camper. I don’t remember if I sat on Santa’s lap spewing arguments for why I deserved such a gift. I don’t remember anything but that want, that wish and the waiting.

We had snuck down in the night to discover great wonder. My sister, my brother and I held like three kings, waiting for the babe. The Christmas tree was a beacon even in the dark. We couldn’t open anything, and we had to remember where everything came from, those were the rules. The next morning, I stood in my place staring at the package I had uncovered in the raid of the night before. I tried not to think about it. I had rushed so quickly out of bed I had forgotten my shirt. I stood in a pyjama top waiting for the magic of the season.
My Dad was always the best choice for Santa. When we got older, I was Santa for the most part, but Pop commanded fear and respect. He handed out each present and rested before grabbing another and another and another. Halfway through, he reached for “the one”. He carefully picked it up, both hands, and sat it in front of me for my surprise.

Some memories hurt and heal at the same time.

It was a harsh December in 1976. Snow had fallen deep and piled higher. The streets were a mix of white and brown and silently moved on their own, each flow shifting between frozen and not. We made igloo forts from shovelled piles and made armies in snow too deep for angels. I did not know it at the time, but 1976 was not a good year for my parents. I remember my Mom telling me that the gifts around the tree would not be in plenty like years before. I don’t recall thinking anything of that or caring. I don’t think I understood what she meant. All I knew then was that Christmas was coming; it soon would be here.

My strongest memory of that Christmas is not the gifts or lack thereof. It is not of the tree or all the snow or the special times we have shared. It is of my Mother. She was as strong in spirit as in person back then. She was formidable.

I miss the old Coke and Pepsi bottles made of glass. As a child, they were precious income after an allowance. Christmas 1976, my sister and I would share in piles of deposits, each one clanging like a silver coin as we loaded them. Mom then took that old grocery buggy, wrapped my sister and me up in winter cover, and headed to the strip mall about a mile away. The snow was deep and heavy that December. I can still see her dragging those bottles through mounds of snow and ice only to give my sister and me the money to purchase presents for family and friends. I bought her a faux China devilled egg platter and wrapped it with care. It lingers in frame on my kitchen wall.

There were not as many gifts around the tree. Mom was right. There were presents however and, to this day, those gifts stand out as some of the best I ever got. I don’t remember the lesser of things or that I was limited in this or that. I remember thinking to myself I got everything I wished for. Mom said Christmas would be less, but it turned out to be more. I look back on other Christmases with limited fondness, but this Christmas I recount each minute of. I thought with less presents Christmas would not come, but it did anyway. My Mom made the best of every Christmas.
When the packages we opened and the wrappings we tore apart had found themselves a place, my father came out with two more gifts. He handed one to my sister and one to me and we opened them with excitement, and the wonder children are supposed to have, even at 9 years of age. I can picture myself standing in the very spot I first found my friend. In both boxes were puppets, simple cartoon puppets. One was of the Bugs Bunny, all grey and cute and snuggly. My sister hugged her present with care. The other was a brown thing; it settled in my hand. Wile E. Coyote looked up at me and I smiled.

I still have that puppet. He is a reminder of that Christmas and the love I discovered instead of a Christmas spree. Every time I see him, one ear now drooping from time, I am transported to the magic of that season. Time has deteriorated the thing and I have had to place him behind glass. While there were not as many presents as we had known in years before, Christmas 1974 shines in comparison with the other celebrations to come. For me, this one Christmas, without, means more to me, within.

Memory takes us back to a place so we may see things at a distance. That’s what memory is for. It is for the purpose of reminding, of re-sensing those things which should be remembered. We all have retained negative and regrettable visions of our past, but we try to hide them and shun them away. Or we use them as weapons and motivation for hate.
When a memory is good, it can comfort you and bring you peace.
It can be hard to have certain memories. It is not the lack of desire for them or inability to reason them that drives the pain; it is the voyage back to another place. There is hope that time will take away the sting and leave the memory where it belongs. We hold onto good memories because of what they offer us. They allow us to trip back and relive, in a sense, the most important and the most real parts of who we are.

This Christmas time will be a mixed bag of both the good and the bad. Things are different this year. With the passing of time, I know that the things which haunt will lessen and the things which bless will magnify, but you must journey back to get where you are supposed to be. I will always call upon my Christmases past. I will always use them to guide me through today and prepare me for tomorrow. Today I find myself holding that silly puppet and watching my Mother in the snow. When your heart finds Christmas, the season is magic indeed.

I must admit that this season will not express Christmas to the same degree as it has in the past. Christmas will have to change due to circumstance but mostly by want. Considering health issues and my inability to recapture the season,  I will only set up the tree and some of the decor. I could use the break. There are so many boxes, so much stuff that it takes months to reintroduce it all then weeks and months to put it all away. I love Christmas but traditions aside, this year I'm reaching for some peace.

I’ll try to focus on the magic.

 

‘Setting our hopes on a big snow tonight
We’ll wake up to a world of white
It’s gonna be a Christmas to remember
Light up the fire, play some Nat King Cole
Always sentimental and don’t you know that
It’s gonna be a Christmas to remember"