CHRISTMASES PAST

When I asked the genius what his most memorable Christmas was, he said the one we all were sick. Why is it that we always remember events that have negative connotations to them? That was one day I want to forget; instead, that’s the one we remember.

Two days before Christmas that year all of my extended family gathered at my cousin’s house for a pot luck feast. We had a great time, but between my parents and sisters and their family and us (seventeen of us altogether), fourteen of us were violently ill on Christmas Day. For some crazy reason, the five of us gathered on the king sized bed in the master bedroom and opened our presents. Every few minutes one of us would run to the bathroom and we would all moan and groan until he/she returned. I don’t know why we didn’t just put the gifts off until we all felt better, but noooo, we had to stay with tradition and open them that morning.

As we called to tell the other people in the family we wouldn’t be there for Christmas dinner, we learned that most of the others were ill, also. Amazingly, my parents had escaped.

One thing I remember from our high school Christmases was the sending of Christmas cards. In those days, the mail was delivered twice a day up until the 25th and then it was delivered only once. Yes, they actually delivered the mail on Christmas Day! The trick was to see if you could time the mailing so that your cards would be delivered on the day, itself. And it was awful to miss it and have them come a day late. So we usually played it safe and had ours delivered a day or two before. I remember the joy of receiving those cards. One year I even put them in a scrapbook which I still have.

When I was a child, my family had two traditions the memories of which I still cherish. One was that on Christmas Eve day, we three girls would pile into the car with all our presents, and Daddy would drive us to deliver them to our friends. He would work out the route ahead of time so we wouldn’t be doing any backtracking. It was so much fun to run to the door and present our gifts and usually receive our own. When we returned home, we had as many gifts as we started out with, but they were ours to place under the tree. We wouldn’t dream of opening them until the next morning.

The other ritual was to visit Lizzie late in the morning on Christmas Day. She was an ancient African American woman who had worked for us until she became too old to work anymore. She lived in a nice house with her niece who worked in a bank downtown. We always took her tons of food – fresh fruit, home baked goodies, a ham, and above all, some fresh fish. She loved fried fish. Her niece would tell us that Lizzie was always sure that “this year they won’t come.” And she was sooo glad to see us when we did get there. And we loved seeing her as well. It was a very sad Christmas after her death which occurred while I was in high school and we couldn’t visit Lizzie anymore.

So these are some of the memories I have dredged up about Christmases past. If others come to mind, I’ll write some more.