I love Christmas. There is a part of me that will always be the child using the gold garland as a boa, dancing around the house and skipping over strings of lights my dad was testing. More than any one present on Christmas morning, my best memories are of getting ready for Christmas, the decorating, the cooking, the mounds of presents to wrap. For most of my life, it was not uncommon to be up to 2 or 3 in the morning Christmas Eve trying to help my mom finish wrapping presents. We would drink coffee and often call in reinforcements, my cousin and then later, my sister-in-law. We would drink coffee and snack and talk over It’s A Wonderful Life playing in the background.
Not to take anything away from Christmas morning. From getting up as a child to see the wonder of all the packages under the tree to later, gathering at the house with our spouses and children and grandchildren. The party ever growing bigger and bigger and the children getting lost in the mounds of torn wrapping paper. Christmas dinner served after the paper was gathered and cleared away. Everyone playing with their new toys and other family and friends stopping by throughout the day.
This year has been different. There was no traditional late night wrapping fest and no trip up to the ancestral home. I will not see my siblings until they travel down over the weekend. After dinner at my house last night with mom and our dear friend, we spent the evening with my step-dad. He was not happy. Other residents had been allowed to leave and come back. He couldn’t understand why he could not. He was angry and frustrated and what can you say? We say that he has to have the doctor’s approval to do that and he does not. I think that there is no way we could do it. He is tended in every way, requiring assistance in every manner. I understand his frustration and what to think that maybe we could, but we can’t. We cannot do it physically and psychologically it would be so much harder for him to ever leave and have to go back. I left to go get him a shake. He is fed with a feeding tube, but we are “pleasure feeding” him small little tastes of things that he loves. I drove to three different places before finding a place open. Driving back, I went by closed stores with the signs dark. I drove by a Wal-Mart with the parking lot empty.
Then I understood the joy of Christmas for me is not about so many of the other things. It is about how for just that short little moment, so very brief, that everything stops. There is no place to shop. Restaurants close. You can’t just run out and pick up that one more thing. Sure, there are places open, more and more each year. Yet, in general, things stop. People are forced to pause and take a breath. If we are lucky, we have those that we love around us to share this moment. As I drove down the streets that seemed so much darker without all the neon signs, I realized that I did have that. It may not be the normal Christmas with all our traditions, but I have gotten what I need. I tucked in my boy after he put out cookies and milk for Santa and my husband and I set to work doing what parents all over the world do, creating little bits of magic by eating cookies and drinking milk and putting out gifts. And it is magic. To see the boy get just what he asked Santa for and all the things that he wished for from us. He smiled and played and ripped into everything. Mom was there watching, too. It was just the four of us, so much quieter than when we are all together, but still the key is that we were together.
Now I am at work and my mom is with step-dad. Not everything stops. Still that moment was shared and stored away for all the times throughout the year when we are running and scurrying about and we need to reflect back on what it means to pause and come together.
Traditions change. Somewhere in all those years of late night wrapping binges it became a tradition for me to wrap the last package – one of my own – out of the scraps. (I never peeked to see what it was.) I would use all the bits of paper and ribbon discarded from all the previous packages, mixing and matching into some horrific combinations. Remember, we are talking late nights. I guess I got a little giddy, but it the tradition stuck. This year, my siblings and I insisted that our mom not buy us gifts. So, I didn’t even think about this little tradition. But this morning I got a picture sent to me on my phone. My niece wanted me to know that she had wrapped her last present to keep the tradition going. She will never understand what that little gift meant to me. I will say that her package looks much better than mine ever did!
the joy of christmas
Tags: Christmas, dementia, family, Parkinson's, traditions
I love Christmas. There is a part of me that will always be the child using the gold garland as a boa, dancing around the house and skipping over strings of lights my dad was testing. More than any one present on Christmas morning, my best memories are of getting ready for Christmas, the decorating, the cooking, the mounds of presents to wrap. For most of my life, it was not uncommon to be up to 2 or 3 in the morning Christmas Eve trying to help my mom finish wrapping presents. We would drink coffee and often call in reinforcements, my cousin and then later, my sister-in-law. We would drink coffee and snack and talk over It’s A Wonderful Life playing in the background.
Not to take anything away from Christmas morning. From getting up as a child to see the wonder of all the packages under the tree to later, gathering at the house with our spouses and children and grandchildren. The party ever growing bigger and bigger and the children getting lost in the mounds of torn wrapping paper. Christmas dinner served after the paper was gathered and cleared away. Everyone playing with their new toys and other family and friends stopping by throughout the day.
This year has been different. There was no traditional late night wrapping fest and no trip up to the ancestral home. I will not see my siblings until they travel down over the weekend. After dinner at my house last night with mom and our dear friend, we spent the evening with my step-dad. He was not happy. Other residents had been allowed to leave and come back. He couldn’t understand why he could not. He was angry and frustrated and what can you say? We say that he has to have the doctor’s approval to do that and he does not. I think that there is no way we could do it. He is tended in every way, requiring assistance in every manner. I understand his frustration and what to think that maybe we could, but we can’t. We cannot do it physically and psychologically it would be so much harder for him to ever leave and have to go back. I left to go get him a shake. He is fed with a feeding tube, but we are “pleasure feeding” him small little tastes of things that he loves. I drove to three different places before finding a place open. Driving back, I went by closed stores with the signs dark. I drove by a Wal-Mart with the parking lot empty.
Then I understood the joy of Christmas for me is not about so many of the other things. It is about how for just that short little moment, so very brief, that everything stops. There is no place to shop. Restaurants close. You can’t just run out and pick up that one more thing. Sure, there are places open, more and more each year. Yet, in general, things stop. People are forced to pause and take a breath. If we are lucky, we have those that we love around us to share this moment. As I drove down the streets that seemed so much darker without all the neon signs, I realized that I did have that. It may not be the normal Christmas with all our traditions, but I have gotten what I need. I tucked in my boy after he put out cookies and milk for Santa and my husband and I set to work doing what parents all over the world do, creating little bits of magic by eating cookies and drinking milk and putting out gifts. And it is magic. To see the boy get just what he asked Santa for and all the things that he wished for from us. He smiled and played and ripped into everything. Mom was there watching, too. It was just the four of us, so much quieter than when we are all together, but still the key is that we were together.
Now I am at work and my mom is with step-dad. Not everything stops. Still that moment was shared and stored away for all the times throughout the year when we are running and scurrying about and we need to reflect back on what it means to pause and come together.
********************************************************
Traditions change. Somewhere in all those years of late night wrapping binges it became a tradition for me to wrap the last package – one of my own – out of the scraps. (I never peeked to see what it was.) I would use all the bits of paper and ribbon discarded from all the previous packages, mixing and matching into some horrific combinations. Remember, we are talking late nights. I guess I got a little giddy, but it the tradition stuck. This year, my siblings and I insisted that our mom not buy us gifts. So, I didn’t even think about this little tradition. But this morning I got a picture sent to me on my phone. My niece wanted me to know that she had wrapped her last present to keep the tradition going. She will never understand what that little gift meant to me. I will say that her package looks much better than mine ever did!