Feeling Christmas

The Angel from 1945

Feeling Christmas

My mother’s house is decorated top to bottom with every ornament, every Santa, every wreath and elf and angel she owns. But it doesn't "feel" like Christmas, she says. 

There are reindeer of every size and shape, from the 1920s to modern day, from Avon bottles to plastic Rudolph’s. I have watched her for a week frantically put lights and themed decorations on 6 Christmas trees ranging in height from 3 feet to 6 feet, and at least 9 tabletop ones. She has worn herself ragged putting plastic poinsettias in old bottles as vases for each step on the 12 stairs to the second floor; hanging ornaments on trees, along doorways, or displayed in bowls. Once you step into her home, there is no doubt she is singularly focused on Christmas.
Yet after the last ornament was in place, and the last proverbial stocking was hung, surrounded by empty ornament boxes, bags of bows and wrapping paper, the house glistening from floor to rafters with red, green, gold and silver at every turn, she says, "It doesn’t feel like Christmas."
And therein lies the problem. As we age, Christmas can look the same, we can use the same ornaments, the same trees, the same recipes, but it often doesn’t feel the same as we once remembered.

Her statement made me wonder: could I put in words what Christmas feels like?  It feels like family, it feels like snow crunching beneath your feet as you approach the door of those you love, laden with presents and food and special holiday grog. Eggnog. Chocolate Fudge. Homemade Christmas shaped sugar cookies with pastel colored icing and those hard silver balls called dragees we all ate despite the lead warnings. Christmas feels like fellowship and laughter and the sound of people stomping their feet on the doormat before coming through the door with snowy boots. Christmas feels like cinnamon and cloves and oranges and coffee and bacon. Christmas is timing the various parts of the holiday meal just right so that everything gets to the table warm and ready for the large crowd of smiling faces at the table, which is set with dishes used only on this one day.

All these things are in the past for my mom. At 91, her active participation in the overall family Christmas is minimal. She no longer hosts the family dinner, she no longer spends hours in the kitchen creating her favorite snowball cookies, frangipanis, or banana bread. There's no popping in town for last minute stocking stuffers, or the forgotten lime Jello for her holiday molded salad, or for anything at all, for that matter. She no longer concerns herself with wrapping—or even buying-- presents and arranging them under the tree with only the big packages in the back, and the rest arranged forward by size and color around the base. And then rearranged every time new presents are haphazardly added, disrupting the well planned symmetry of a perfect tree.
This is what happens when you outlive your generation’s family traditions, when people die, when family dynamics change, when you've outlived your ability to play Santa, to care about watching It's a Wonderful Life one more time, to enjoy the chaos of the season--to multi task and juggle all the expectations. Without those things, do you lose the feeling of Christmas? Does it end up feeling like just another day, the meaning lost along with the traditions, the loved ones, and the ability to keep up with an ever-changing distraught and torn world randomly caught on disturbing videos that go viral.

How does someone who experienced the results of the Depression, saw the evolution from radio to color TV, experienced the emotional and economic effects of several wars, marveled at the advance of medicine and technology beyond their w ildest imaginings, how does someone like that manage the meaning of Christmas today? My mom raised a family in much simpler times, when homemade flannel pajamas, a board game, and a doll was about as elaborate as the gifting needed to be. She had a loving husband, a large rambling farmhouse, her garden, her daughters and the family dog. She ruled it all from her position as wife, homemaker and mother. She made all the decisions on decorating, gift giving and wrapping, the Christmas dinner menu, when and where we would be on Christmas Eve.

Today, that same woman makes none of those decisions, but she can decide where to put that Santa that came from Fishman’s back in 1952. So, she decorates.

She decorates because she can, and while she pulls out decorations from 20, 30—oh, who are we kidding – 50 years ago, she gets a memory back of a certain Christmas past and perhaps a fleeting moment of how Christmas used to feel.

And how many of us feel the same? That the holiday season is no longer completely in our control and therefore, the feeling of Christmas has escaped us. So we put up 6 Christmas trees and every Santa we ever owned.  We patch the holes in our hearts --at least for the day-- and focus on the one thing we can control. As my mom says, it may not feel like Christmas, but I can certainly make it look like Christmas.

These days for me, Christmas is almost having a heart attack watching my 91-year-old mom climb a stepladder to put the only angel she’s ever used on top of the tree, and letting her do it. And later watching her fall asleep in her chair, chin rising and falling on her chest, after a hard day of non stop decorating. That's what Christmas has come to mean to me. And when I look at my mom, still alive and not only thriving but also still striving for goals, like trying to feel Christmas, I think that must be what Christmas means. Some days it’s not pretty, some days it’s downright scary, but it is an incredible journey and I am grateful she has given me the chance for the ride. Keep on decorating, Mom. Christmas is right here.