Childhood's finest, Post 3

(Read Post 1 and Post 2.)

No Christmas memory is complete without mentioning Mom's sugar cookies. Her, rolling out the dough onto wax paper on the island in the kitchen, and me, deciding whether we needed more angels or Christmas trees, green sprinkles, red sprinkles, or the Christmas combo. Her floured hands are Christmas icons.

And then there's the Christmas I found out the truth about Santa Claus. I had been wavering on which Corolle baby doll I wanted Santa to bring me. One afternoon, Mom pressured me to decide. Why does she care so much?
I decided on one, and then a few minutes later, I followed Mom to the back bedroom. The door was closed and I could hear her on the phone. Ordering my baby doll. I sat on the stairs and waited for her to come out.
"He isn't real, is he?"
"Who?"
"Santa Claus."
"No, Chicken, I'm sorry, Santa Claus isn't real."
I cried.
But then I entered into the privileged land of: You know something about Santa Claus that your little cousins don't, so play along.

Play along we did.

Every year, Aunt Susan, Aunt Melissa, Uncle Ted, and the girls came over to our house for Christmas Eve. Christmas traditions never shone brighter. It started with Drew and me sitting in the chair by the window in the living room, watching for the family's headlights to round the corner (the Saved by the Bell Christmas special playing in the background).

"They're here!"

Ten times he'd fool me, and then it would be for real. They came and we ate: Honey baked ham, baked green beans, sweet potato casserole, baked rice, creamed corn, and Sister Schubert's. Meg only ate tan foods. AR was caught on camera enjoying a roll one year and never lived it down. All of us hid food in our napkins to escape the three-more-bites ploy from moms and dads. Who wants green beans when you have a little wooden basket of M&Ms sitting above your plate?

After dinner, the kids went upstairs to watch last year's home video of Christmas and our recording of Frosty the Snowman. I watched Frosty every Christmas Eve until I turned 30. No lie. (By the way, Frosty's ticket to the North Pole cost $3,000.04.)

Drew, the girls, and I never could decide what was best, the Frosty movie or the 80's McDonald's commercials that interrupted it, where the little boy ice skates with Ronald McDonald and the cartoon animals, or where he's disappointed about his Christmas sweater from Grandma until she turns around and gives him McDonalds gift certificates. We can recite every line.

At some point in the evening, the adults would come upstairs and say it was time everyone got home so Santa Claus could come. He wouldn't come unless you were in your own bed asleep. That made so much more sense to me post the Corrolle-doll episode.

Drew and I would leave a plate of cookies for Santa, resort to my room, turn Christmas music on the radio, and lie awake for hours, too excited for sleep.

On Christmas morning, we woke up Mom and Dad, and I was certain they took ten times as long to brush their teeth as they did on a normal day. Dad would roll the video camera, Mom would oooh and ahhh about Santa's gifts downstairs, and then finally, Drew and I were given the green light. Down the stairs and around the corner, our presents were on display, the only difficult thing, deciding what to go pick up first.

Childhood's finest moment.

I have to be honest, a part of me dreads Christmas this year because of how different it will be, for so many reasons, the most of which is the one person who is missing.

But this is one of those times when you have to give your soul a pep talk. The Psalmist did it all the time.

Here goes.

Foremost, let me never forget what Christmas is all about. Our tree, food, and present traditions may have been all about Mom (and I love her for it), but Christmas is all about Jesus. "For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16). That's reason numero uno for not dreading Christmas. Those words don't even belong in the same sentence! Thank you, Lord, for Jesus!

And the other (albeit much smaller) reason there's no room for dreading the Christmas season this year is because Mom would never have it. She spent years giving me tradition, showing me how it's done, and loading me up with ornaments--cats, shoes, angels, trees, tassels, everything beautiful and Anne-like--to ensure that my Christmases would always be filled with a little bit of her. She set me up for a lifetime of enjoying Christmas. How loving and thoughtful.

She left me no room to dread Christmas.

The thread she started weaving is longer still.

May I weave it half as well as she did.

Drew and Mom Christmas morning. No date on the pic, but I'm guessing 1994.

1981. Dad and Drew (2) at Mama Bette's house.

1984. Susan (2). Drew (5)

1985. Susan (3). Drew (6)

1985. Susan (3). Drew (6)

 

 

I'm guessing 1993. With Chrissy.

Guessing 1992. Anne Rogers, Me, Meg, Drew, Betsy

1998. Me, AR, Betsy, Meg, Drew

2001. Aunt Susan, Aunt Melissa, Mom