Christmas morning

If you have a low tolerance for sappy, you probably really don’t want to read this.

I’m 30 years old, and I’m about to spend my very first Christmas away from my family. In fact, I’m about to board a plane in five hours, and will be almost as far from my family as it’s possible to be without leaving the country; they are in New Hampshire, and I’ll be in Los Angeles.

I’m certainly not religious about the holiday. It’s just that my family has the best holiday traditions ever. From the trails of Hershey Kisses my dad would leave every Valentine’s Day leading from our bedrooms to the dining room where big chocolate hearts awaited us at the table, to how special every birthday was, my parents did an incredible job of building wonder into every excuse to celebrate. More…
Christmas is the big one. Christmas carols began in early November, and the house was decorated the day after Thanksgiving. And by decorated, think Nation Lampoon—inside and out. Yes, rainbows of outdoor lights, but also Christmas-themed bathroom soap dispensers, dish towels, tissue-box covers. Two trees, tiny ceramic Dicken’s Village and Santa Village arrayed like department store window displays; even stained-glass angels that hung on every lampshade. You’d never guess my that mom is Jewish: or maybe growing up without Christmas contributes to her enthusiasm.

Because I’ve never seen anyone as enthusiastic about Christmas as my mom. I mean, my dad is obsessive about Christmas music, lights, movies. But in a reflective way; he taught me to take off my glasses to stare at the out-of-focus glow of the multi-colored tree lights, describes with soft reverence the blown-glass ornaments that hung on his parents’ tree. But my mom becomes a kid about Christmas. Normally, growing up, she was the enforcer; my dad was like a teasing big brother. But at Christmas, running around the tree farm hunting for the biggest, fattest fir (which every year my father teases her about, calling it her “Chanukah bush”)—my mother’s joy is irrepressible.

This was every Christmas morning: my little brother is the first awake. It’s 5:30 am. We’re not allowed downstairs, and we’re not allowed to wake up our parents until 6. (Later it’s 7, then 8 or 9). So Danny comes running into the room where my sister and I are sleeping. My bedroom is downstairs, so every Christmas Eve is a sisterly slumber-party. We whisper and plot and squabble until it’s time to wake up mom and dad; then we tumble into their room, bounce onto their bed, get them moving. After Santa’s out of the picture, I’ll have gone into the kitchen and made my mom and me coffee by now, waking her with a mug of it. But in this version of the story, we all still believe in Santa (or maybe my sister and I are just pretending to for Danny’s sake, his five years’ younger). So my mom goes downstairs to make coffee while dad rearranges furniture and sets up the video camera in the den. While he adjusts the lighting, my siblings and I sit on the very top step of the carpeted stairwell and Christmas songs fill the air; my mom is flying between the den and the front hall, exclaiming at inimitible decibels about the quantity and size of our gifts, how good we must have been this year, squealing “Santa must have accidentally left ALL the toys for the whole town under our tree!!” as Stephie, Danny, and I slide sneakily downwards a couple of steps at a time. Dan’s youngest, and always first in line on the stairs. He always opens the first gift, too. There’s no free-for-all here; we take turns, youngest to oldest, exclaiming over every present, each child shining as center of attention in turn.

Finally, our parents are ready for us to explode through the hallway into the den. And our mom’s promises of Christmas bounty, every year more hyperbolic than the last, never disappoint. All of our gifts from Santa are wrapped in solid red wrapping paper; presents from parents and family are patterned. We start pulling boxes from under the tree, piling them up according to their nametags around us. We dig in. When we’re finished, the puppy is allowed back in the house, and she’s excited by the giant piles of wadded colorful gift wrap. Sometimes there are presents for her: a squeaky-toy or rawhide chew. My dad brings in four or five huge plastic garbage bags, which we fill to bursting with shed wrapping paper while he makes breakfast. Breakfast is dad’s specialty, and our pancakes will be shaped like snowmen and candy canes and Christmas trees this morning, with blueberry buttons, chocolate-chip ornaments and syrup garlands.

Of course, it’s not about the presents; it’s about that feeling, that wonderful contagious joy, the anticipation, the being so special and so loved. I know that being 3,000 miles away on Christmas morning won’t alter any of that. But there’s still a sadness of not experiencing that firsthand for the first time in my entire life. And I’m building new traditions: I’ll be with my boyfriend, his sister and her husband, their kids. I utterly adore my boyfriend’s nieces. They’re 4 and 7, which are just about the best ages you can possibly be on a Christmas morning. I bought them wonderful presents, and am so excited and lucky to be around little kids, and that magic. And you can’t argue with the weather in southern California—especially if you’ve been in New England the past few weeks. But I miss my mom and dad, my brother and sister, all those Christmases past that are always in me.