The Joy of Christmas

by Amy Newmark

  The days went by uneventfully. Holidays are often difficult and lonely for people with children on the spectrum, and we are no exception. Big parties can be overwhelming, often isolating us from family gatherings and public celebrations. We lit Hanukkah candles when Aaron got home from work while Josh was sleeping; we knew having an open flame would be a safety issue, and while it wasn’t how we wanted to approach the holiday, we understood it to be necessary. Later that week, however, my holiday observance took a wonderful turn.

  I went to check my e-mail one day before Josh got home from school. In my Inbox was a message from one of the teachers at Josh’s school who runs the Jewish Affiliations Group. Since a formal Jewish education is impossible for Josh, this group gives children like him a chance to participate in activities and parties that mark the major holidays on the Jewish calendar. Most importantly, it creates an opportunity for these students to relate to a given holiday on a level that they can understand and enjoy, which makes the holiday experience at home far more inclusive than it would be otherwise. It meant the world to me.

  I opened the message that read:

  Josh had a great time at the Hanukkah party today! Here are some pictures of him playing Pin the Candle on the Menorah and decorating a dreidel! Happy Hanukkah!

  I clicked on every photo attachment; each one was better than the next. In the first one Josh was holding a candle made of oak tag, smiling brightly. In the next he held that same candle up to an oversized oak tag menorah that hung on a bulletin board while carefully placing it into its designated slot. In another, he was intensely engaged in decorating a cardboard dreidel. It wasn’t just that he was celebrating Hanukkah that got to me — it was how utterly engaged he was. His expressions of delight and intense concentration in those photos overwhelmed me with joy; and his active participation in each activity translated through every image on my computer screen.

  When Josh got home from school that day I gave him a huge hug and opened his backpack. Inside I found a tin menorah that he had painted in school. That evening, after sundown, I brought Josh to the window to light his creation and recited the accompanying blessings. It was the second blessing that deeply moved me: “Blessed are You, G-d, King of the universe, who has wrought miracles for our forefathers, in those days at this season.”

  It had been quite a while since holiday rituals felt more than obligatory. At that moment my son was able to connect to Hanukkah in a jubilant, meaningful way. In my mind, that was a miracle that needed to be celebrated as well. As we watched the candles flicker in the darkness I looked down at Josh, kissed the top of his head and smiled. “Thank you,” I whispered, offering up a silent prayer of gratitude; for there was no better Hanukkah gift that any one of us could have asked for, let alone receive.

  ~Jennifer Berger

  Confessions of a Holiday Hoarder

  Later is the best friend of clutter.

  ~Peter Walsh

  I live in a modest home, but we have enough decorations to deck the halls of a strip mall. Think I’m kidding? We have two trees, three manger scenes, snowmen of all shapes and sizes, and enough holiday teapots to host the Mad Hatter.

  We only actually purchased two of these items — the smallest tree and the humblest nativity scene. We were newlyweds and we had nothing — at least, for one merry minute. Then, recognizing that we had nothing, everyone gave us gifts and hand-me-downs until we had more Christmas decorations in our small flat than I had furniture.

  When we became new parents, people gave us “Baby’s First Christmas” items — personalized ornaments, commemorative angels, more snowmen. This repeated with each additional child.

  Then, my children entered the bauble and doodad factory that is kindergarten and grade school. Dozens of endearing holiday creations came our way — clothespin reindeers, Popsicle stick wreaths, papiermâché Christmas piñatas. Most bore the monstrous scrawl of a kiddo just learning how to write, often under the wandering inscription of “I love Mom and Dad.”

  Ask any parent of a teenager — these things are more precious than gold, frankincense and myrrh.

  When our grandparents moved to smaller living quarters, they gave us even more decorations, some very fine and some very corny. But they all have sentiment and meaning to us.

  My husband and I are sentimental people but we never intended to be “Holiday Hoarders.” Every January I vow to clean out the maimed and lame, but then I hold onto something my grandmother gave me or something my seventeen-year-old made when she was three.

  Heck, I struggle to get rid of the stuff even when it’s broken. The year my grandmother’s tree passed out on the living room floor, she was dying in hospice. I couldn’t bring myself to toss it, so I repurposed it. I took several boughs and used them to wrap around our staircase railing as a garland. That was two years ago and I am still doing it.

  To atone for my soft heart, I organize like a curator. Everything has its place, even if its proper place should be the recycling bin. We have our original Christmas tree upstairs and my mother-in-law’s tree downstairs, an ornament gracing every bough. I have a table just for snowmen and another for teapots. I even have my own island of misfit toys for all the decorations that have no theme. The funny part is, when it’s all out, the place looks downright jolly.

  It didn’t cost me much, except my crawlspace. And, one day when these kids of mine marry, it will all be theirs. They will probably toss most of it, but then again, they might not. After all, I already gave them something — my genes.

  ~Nicole L.V. Mullis

  A Magical Time

  Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful.

  ~Norman Vincent Peale

  To say Mawmaw liked decorating her home for Christmas is a vast understatement. That would be like saying Santa thinks cookies are okay or Frosty somewhat enjoys a snowy day. My grandmother was the Queen of Christmas Decorating, second only to Mrs. Claus herself.

  Every October Mawmaw would begin to purge the storage shed of its Christmas artifacts and fill the already crowded house to the brim. Patience was not a virtue when it came to Christmas. Plus, Mawmaw liked to perform this extreme home makeover by Halloween in order to, as she put it, “give the Devil a black eye.”

  Many of my favorite childhood memories are set in her tiny, cozy home filled with treats, tinsel and trees. As soon as I entered her house it was as if I were transported to the North Pole. Bright red, shiny wrapping paper covered the door, making it look like the biggest Christmas present ever. The family room was overflowing with nativity scenes in all sizes and styles — large and porcelain, small and crystal. Mawmaw had two Christmas trees. One was more traditional, and the other was a bright white artificial spruce complete with pink ornaments, the vast majority of them hearts. You could see both trees at the same time in her small house.

  My favorite decoration was a Christmas clock that she never took down. It played carols every hour, on the hour, the entire year.

  This is a warm, fuzzy scene no matter your age. But seen through the eyes of a child, its magic was magnified.

  The years went by, and after my grandpa passed away Mawmaw moved to a senior living community. I was worried that Christmas as I knew it was over.

  My first visit to Mawmaw’s new place put that fear to rest. The nursing home displayed an enormous tree in the lobby near its floor-to-ceiling windows. They also had plenty of large wrapped presents for decoration. It felt warm, cozy and homey.

  Mawmaw’s room was completely her. She had a lot of her most important possessions there, including Christmas decorations. A large, fuzzy snowman welcomed everyone into the room. The tree was now one foot tall and made of shiny plastic, but it was still there. The nativity scenes created a unique, miniature skyline across her windowsill against the snowy landscape outside.

  And my favorite decoration? The Christmas clock? Mawmaw gave it to my parents. Now, when I visit my childhood home and hear a Christmas carol ri
ng out every hour, I’m reminded of the permanence of Christmas. Places and circumstances change, time moves forward, but Christmas, family and the love that permeates them remains, no matter what.

  ~Traci Clayton

  Our Alluring Tree

  Perhaps the best Yuletide decoration is being wreathed in smiles.

  ~Author Unknown

  There was only one weekend left before the big holiday, and we were running out of time to get our tree. My husband, Paul, begrudgingly accompanied me to a local tree farm and we sawed down a blue spruce tree. Paul hastily dragged the tree through the snow to our pickup and hoisted it into the bed, oblivious to the nostalgic value of this occasion. In less than five minutes we were home, rushing so that Paul wouldn’t miss the big game on TV.

  Luckily, our son Reed was home when we arrived, so he seized one end of the tree and helped Paul push and shove the tree through our front door and then wedge it into the tree stand. I didn’t dare suggest spinning the tree to be certain the bare side wasn’t showing or the crooked trunk revealed. In a flash my two helpers disappeared into the basement to resume their preferred project, preparing the fishing tackle for winter storage. While they watched the Steelers, Paul and Reed changed or sharpened hooks on hundreds of wooden and plastic fish facsimiles.

  I stood by the aromatic spruce, resignedly pinning on the lights and questioning why I was doing this alone. As I descended to the basement to retrieve the musty old boxes of ornaments, I observed Paul filing the hooks on a bumble bee, a ten-inch oblong lure, painted like its name with mustard yellow and black stripes, a brilliant crimson streak just under the plastic lip. In that instant my mind conjured a Christmas tree display I had visited last year at our local library. Each tree portrayed a unique theme. Some trees wore items that weren’t even actual ornaments, but collections that the decorator had acquired.

  I spoke impulsively. “Why don’t we decorate our tree with musky lures this year?” It worked! Within the hour, our tree was bedecked with grandmas, believers, and spinners in kaleidoscope colors. I had never seen the guys participate with such enthusiasm in any holiday activity prior to this.

  Conveniently, the lures come right out of the tackle boxes with built-in hooks, so there were no boxes to open, no tissue paper to unwrap, and no hauling boxes from the basement or attic. Most of the lures spend the winter hanging from little ledges in our basement.

  We selected the lures for the tree based on color, their unique designs, or their nostalgic value. Just as families reminisce about traditional ornaments and their history, we talked about which lures worked in which lakes, the lure on which Reed caught his first fifty-inch musky, the lure that was lost in the bottom of a lake and found a year later by a friend of ours, and so on.

  We also talked about the next year’s fishing vacations and which lures to retire or get repainted by Sandy the lure painter. Our tree looked beautiful with the radiance of a glitter perch, a mother-of-pearl shad, and a hot orange crawdad nestled among the boughs in the glow of twinkle lights. No garland was necessary either. We had the feathery pink, chartreuse, and iridescent gold streamers of the spinners to add texture and elegance.

  Now that the tree was so macho, Reed even agreed to have his photo taken by the tree with his date for the Christmas dance.

  The musky lure tradition persisted for sixteen years, with the exception of one year when our black Labrador retriever was a puppy and we feared he would be hooked. I simplified the holidays in other ways as well. Over the course of subsequent years I eliminated cookie baking, mailing greeting cards, and excessive shopping. I give gift cards, lottery tickets, and coveted cash — not so imaginative, but apparently appreciated. If need be, Amazon will ship all the toys I need for my granddaughters.

  In 2011 the inventory of musky lures relocated to Ontario, now stored in Reed’s garage and used for fishing the St. Lawrence River. No sparkling glass balls or commercial trimmings could ever supplant those lures as prized Christmas tree ornaments.

  ~Cinda Findlan

  Tin Can Christmas

  You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.

  ~Kahlil Gibran

  When I was eight years old, my father moved our family from New Jersey to Massachusetts to start a business in the town where he’d grown up. At first, my brothers and I were unhappy about the move because it meant leaving our friends and classmates. The relocation was especially hard on my mother, as it placed her hours away from her mother and sisters for the first time in her life.

  Once landed in our new home, my brothers and I occupied ourselves with making friends, tackling schoolwork, and playing with cousins we’d never met before. It was harder for Mom, though, to meet new people. On top of that, we were short on funds while my dad worked to launch his business.

  As fall turned into winter and money remained tight, my parents were arguing more than ever and Dad was scrambling to work odd jobs while he got his business off the ground. Gifts were not really in the budget that year, and Mom’s spirits grew as gray as the skies.

  On top of all this stress and sadness, we discovered that most of our Christmas tree ornaments had broken during the move from New Jersey.

  My mother, ever resourceful, took an unexpected action. On a mild day in early December, my brother and I came home from school to find Mom in the back yard, assembling an impromptu crafts station on the picnic table. “We lost our Christmas ornaments,” she proclaimed, “so we’re going to make our own.” Mom had gathered spray paint, sequins, and glitter to adorn the unlikeliest of decorations: tin can lids. She’d spent the past week removing and saving the lids after meals, and that day she eagerly waited for us kids to arrive before cutting them with tin snips into stars, bells, angels, and trees.

  My brothers and I got to choose our shapes and decorate them as we laughed, sang carols, told tales about our new teachers and classmates, and basked in Mom’s renewed cheer. That December afternoon at the picnic table was more memorable than most Christmas mornings full of shiny paper and expensive gifts.

  To this day, my brothers and I speak fondly of our “tin can Christmas” as we point out the few surviving ornaments on our parents’ tree. Primitive, yet crafted with love and hope, they are more precious than most of the glittery, store-bought new ones.

  I recall that ornament-making party in the back yard as a glowing example of my mother’s creativity, resilience, and ability to bring love and light to our days no matter how dark her own were. Struggling with three kids, financial hardship, persistent migraines, part-time jobs, and a business to co-manage, Mom didn’t have much time or space to explore her passions during my childhood. But she was usually up for fun, and sometimes went out of her way to create it.

  The magic of that particular Christmas came directly through my loving mother, who could turn tin cans into angels, and darkness into light.

  ~Kim Childs

  Perfectly Imperfect

  The heart, like the mind, has a memory. And in it are kept the most precious keepsakes.

  ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  My mother-in-law was never particularly sentimental. When she passed away at ninety years old, after living for sixty-five years in the same house, she had one thin photo album, some dusty slides, and a small box of photos. A tiny enameled tin held a locket and a pair of baby shoes from her first child, Carolyn, who’d died at age one.

  Still, her Christmas decorations — spare though they were — stayed the same from year to year. A white porcelain nativity set. A garland across the mantel, adorned simply with a few flocked red birds. A Santa candleholder. And — peculiarly, I thought, for someone whose house was always impeccable — three ceramic elves, each holding a letter of the alphabet: N, O, and E.

  Once, she saw me looking at them and shrugged. “The L broke years ago, but I just like them,” she said.

  Had she held her baby daughter, and later, her two sons, up to the mantel to look at the merry
row of elves? Was my no-nonsense mother-in-law just a wee bit sentimental about those ghosts of Christmas past?

  The last time my children and I spent with Ma was Christmas. After dinner at her house, she wanted to get out the old slides, which had been buried in boxes in the closet for years. Nearly blind with macular degeneration, she had to stand with her nose nearly brushing the screen to see the images, but we spent hours with those memories. Afterward, we all agreed it had been our best Christmas together, ever.

  She died that February. When we cleaned out the house, I saved those three little ceramic elves, still smiling and holding up the holly-sprigged letters N, O and E. The next Christmas, I put them out, but somehow it bothered me. Their message seemed to be: “No L.” I wondered again about Ma’s loyalty to the damaged set. Why hadn’t she thrown it out or given it away like so many of her other imperfect or unneeded belongings?

  Photo courtesy of Antonio D. Wright

  Now she was missing from the family circle, just like her daughter. Just like that long-broken L. Had she looked at it as I now did, seeing a once-complete set that was forever missing a necessary piece?

  Year after year, I lined up the elves. But I never learned to accept the gap at the end.

  Nearly five years after Ma’s passing, I packed up the set with the other Christmas decorations. The holiday was over for another year. But this time, I had a thought. Maybe if I searched the Internet, I could find a vintage elf, holding up the letter L.

  It was a crazy idea.

  The elf set was at least sixty years old. Why would anybody save one letter all those years? And, if they had, what would be the odds of it being the only letter I needed? Who would they expect to buy it? Someone named Linda or Leonard?

  Still, I figured it was worth a try.

  For hours, I searched and clicked. “Vintage ceramic Christmas elf letter L.”