Leading up to Christmas Eve, while others go crazy shopping for Christmas gifts until the stores close their doors, I go a little bananas binging on my favorite Christmas guilty pleasure: a marathon of Christmas movies. Be they classic or contemporary, nostalgic or nutty, heartwarming or heart stopping, or maybe all of the above, I try to watch all my favs to the point of exhaustion and major eyestrain.
Years ago, before I became a Christmas Curmudgeon and when Firstborn and Little Brother were still young enough to believe in him, I got Santa Claus to visit us at our house on Christmas Eve.
You don’t believe me? I suppose I can’t blame you. It does appear to be an outrageous claim–but I did it. Truly. I swear.
You may wonder how I was able to accomplish such a stupendous feat. As the saying goes: It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. I just happened to know Santa.
Actually, I knew three of them. I was a reporter on the staff of a local newspaper at the time, working on a feature story during the Christmas season. My story spotlighted the volunteer work of three local gentlemen who dressed annually as Santa Claus.
I interviewed all three and they told me heartwarming stories of their personal experiences portraying Santa and how much fulfillment they derived from bringing happiness to children. One of the Santas told me that he also visited the homes of family and friends as Santa on Christmas Eve. He asked if I had children. When I said yes, he asked if I would like him to visit my children on Christmas Eve.
Would I? You’d better believe I would. Firstborn was starting to show signs of not believing. I couldn’t wait to see the look on his face when Santa arrived on our doorstep.
On the day before Christmas, it was all I could do to keep my secret to myself. I finally told Macho Guy just to keep from bursting. Once the sun went down, we eagerly awaited a knock on the door, signaling Santa’s arrival.
The knock finally came, and I ran to the door.
ME: Look who’s here, everybody!
SANTA: Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!
MACHO GUY and ME: Merry Christmas, Santa!
FIRSTBORN and LITTLE BROTHER: [mouths hanging open, eyes wide as saucers, in whispered voices] Sa-a-anta.
SANTA: [Sits on couch with both boys] Have you been good little boys?
FIRSTBORN and LITTLE BROTHER: [nod vigorously in unison, both speechless]
SANTA: You have? Let’s See. Do you listen to Mommy and Daddy and do what you’re told?
FIRSTBORN and LITTLE BROTHER: [nod vigorously in unison, both speechless]
SANTA: Do you remember to say please and thank you?
FIRSTBORN and LITTLE BROTHER: [nod vigorously in unison, both speechless]
SANTA: Do you keep your rooms clean and tidy?
FIRSTBORN and LITTLE BROTHER: [nod vigorously in unison, both speechless]
SANTA: Do you do your homework when you’re supposed to?
FIRSTBORN and LITTLE BROTHER: [nod vigorously in unison, both speechless]
SANTA: Do you eat all your vegetables?
FIRSTBORN and LITTLE BROTHER: [nod vigorously in unison, both speechless]
SANTA: Do you remember to brush your teeth and go to bed on time?
FIRSTBORN and LITTLE BROTHER: [nod vigorously in unison, both speechless]
SANTA: Keep up the good work, boys. You’re on Santa’s Nice List. [standing, preparing to leave] I have to be going now. It’s almost time to deliver Christmas presents to all the good little boys and girls.
FIRSTBORN and LITTLE BROTHER: [nod vigorously in unison, both speechless]
ME: Thank you for stopping by to see us, Santa. We know what a busy night this is for you.
SANTA: [going out the door] Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!
MACHO GUY and ME: Merry Christmas, Santa!
FIRSTBORN and LITTLE BROTHER: [wave good-bye, both speechless]
ME: Were you boys excited to see Santa?
FIRSTBORN and LITTLE BROTHER: [nod vigorously in unison, still speechless]
MACHO GUY: If you two want to stay on the Nice List, you’d better be in bed and asleep when Santa comes back with your presents.
FIRSTBORN and LITTLE BROTHER: [shriek and make a mad dash for the stairs and to their rooms]
ME [to MACHO GUY]: You are so evil.
MACHO GUY: You’re jealous because you didn’t think of it first.
ME: Oh, right. It’s not their bedtime yet. We always let them stay up a little later on Christmas Eve.
MACHO GUY: They deserve to go to bed early. They lied through their teeth to Santa.
ME: Tell me about it. But you have to admit it took guts to lie to Santa’s face.
MACHO GUY: [Putting his hand to his ear] Listen. Do you hear that?
ME: What?
MACHO GUY: [smiling] Silence.
ME: [smiling back] Blessed silence.
MACHO GUY: Alone at last.
ME: This could be our best Christmas Eve ever. Remind me to thank Santa.
Christmas shopping is no longer the adventure and delight it was in my youth. The excitement of seeing the wonderland of glittering Christmas decorations in the department stores after Thanksgiving is gone, mainly because they are already on display when I shop for Halloween candy. I don’t get to enjoy Halloween or Thanksgiving first. The retailers want to rush me by those holidays and propel me straight to Christmas as soon as possible so they can get their hands on my money before I spend it on something inconsequential, such as the mortgage on my house
I do not care for giving the day after Thanksgiving such a downbeat name as Black Friday. I think Black Friday would be more appropriate in October at Halloween.
The first time I heard the phrase, I thought a disaster of major proportions occurred on that day in the past—for example, an extinction-level volcanic eruption such as Krakatoa or a stock market crash. A salesclerk patiently explained to the clueless that it was just the opposite of disaster: merchants coined the name because it is the biggest sales day of the year for them and is so lucrative it is the day that puts retail stores “in the black” [ink, that is]. Charming. Maybe it’s just me, but Thanksgiving and Black Friday are like oil and water. On the fourth Thursday in November, we gather our families together to be cheerful and thankful for our blessings, and then the day afterward is (gasp) Black Friday when many of us shop till we drop. Occasionally, some shoppers literally drop other shoppers who stand between them and one of a store’s few door-buster sales items. Perhaps Feeding Frenzy Friday would be a more descriptive name than Black Friday.
I’ve been shopping online for the past several years. The phrase Cyber Monday sounds more upbeat and benign than Black Friday, doesn’t it? It’s much more convenient and less of a hassle to go from one website to another than it is to drive from one brick and mortar store to another and hunt for non-existent parking spaces before one even gets to shop at all. When I shop online, I don’t have to camp out the night before in front of a store in the November frigid cold. I can shop when I choose on my computer, and I can shop in my pajamas while savoring a cup of hot chocolate with mini marshmallows. No one ever tackles me or tries to rip a bargain from my grasp while I’m shopping on my computer in my pajamas while savoring a cup of hot chocolate with mini marshmallows.
I’m a grandparent now. I take time out from being a Christmas Curmudgeon to enjoy going with my grandchildren and their parents to the children’s Christmas Eve mass, and I enjoy giving gifts to my grandchildren at Christmas and seeing their faces light up as mine once did at their ages. Those things are still meaningful and fun for me.
In addition to buying gifts for my grandchildren and close friends, I choose a tag each year from my church’s Christmas Giving Tree to provide a gift for an anonymous person, child or family in need. It rekindles my Christmas spirit, and it just plain makes me feel good to make a deserving person’s Christmas a bit merrier. 🙂
I no longer write a Christmas newsletter to send to everyone I know. [They’re probably grateful for that and who can blame them. Seriously.] I don’t mail out Christmas cards anymore. I send electronic Christmas greeting cards nowadays. They’re different, I like them, and my friends and family members say they are fun to receive. [The US Postal Service is undoubtedly unhappy about that. Well, they’re the ones who keep raising the price of stamps.]
Macho Guy used to be a Christmas decorating fanatic. Since he and I now spend our Christmases with our sons and their families in their homes, the Christmas decorations around here have been toned down considerably. We don’t hang wreaths. We don’t hang stockings. We don’t hang Christmas lights from the eaves. Our only decoration right now is a small artificial tree that we have on display in the living room. For years, we took that tree down from the attic, put it together, decorated it, and then reversed gears after Christmas. Finally, we decided to leave it decorated, cover it with a sheet, store it under the stairway to the lower level, and take it out each year in December. All we need to do is uncover it, put the Angel on top, and we’re done decorating. Spending Christmas with the kids and grandkids at their homes comes with an added bonus. Our grown children and their spouses do all the work. Macho Guy and I just show up with gifts and great big smiles on our faces and play with our grandchildren.
My Christmas season is fairly low key. However, I do make a few exceptions. For the past few years, I’ve been having fun on my computer counting down the days to Christmas with Jacquie Lawson’s animated advent calendar. Every December before Christmas, Macho Guy and I go with friends to quaint little Frankenmuth, Michigan for dinner, a bit of Christmas shopping in the quaint little shops, and to enjoy all the fabulous outdoor Christmas decorations and Christmas lights there. We attend several Christmas parties annually and make merry. We attend Christmas mass to hear again the Good News of Christ’s birth and take in the beauty of the almost-large-as-life manger on the altar. I watch my parents’ favorite uplifting Christmas movies every year without fail: It’s a Wonderful Life (1946), Miracle on 34th Street (the 1947 classic version), and Scrooge (the 1951 British version of A Christmas Carol starring Alistair Sim—the best Scrooge ever). Viewing those films takes me back to the Christmases of my childhood. I confess that Scrooge is my favorite guilty Christmas pleasure. It never fails to bring me to tears.
Oh, dear. I just reread what I’ve written and I am amazed to realize that I am not the complete Christmas Curmudgeon I believed myself to be. It appears that I do not entirely dislike the Christmas season. I have found different ways to enjoy it in the present than the ways I enjoyed it in the past. I am not a curmudgeonly Scroogette after all—but you never heard that from me. I have a certain image to protect.
I loved the Christmas season as a child. Christmas back then was merry, mystical and marvelous. My anticipation grew in proximity to the big reveal on Christmas morning. I couldn’t wait to participate in our family’s annual rituals—watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, going to Radio City Music Hall to see the annual Christmas show, making my Christmas wish list, writing my letter to Santa, visiting Santa and his helpers at Macy’s, shopping with my Aunt for Mom and Dad’s Christmas gifts, picking out a live Christmas tree with my dad from a local tree lot, decorating the tree, singing Christmas Carols, watching “A Christmas Carol,” reading “The Night Before Christmas,” going to midnight mass, getting to put Baby Jesus in the manger under the Christmas tree, and then waking up on Christmas morning and going berserk to discover Santa left me exactly what I wanted under the tree. My favorite gift of all—a toy typewriter. Merry, mystical and marvelous.
I was fond of the Christmas season as a young adult. It was still fun and festive. My friends and I would meet and go together to midnight mass. There was always a crowd at that mass, and inevitably we well-bred young folks gave up our seats to the elderly folks who arrived after we did. You would think that after the first time I had to stand for an hour during mass, I would learn to wear boots instead of pumps to the service. Oh, no. It was Christmas. It was a festive time. I dressed accordingly. After mass, my friends and I would trek through the neighborhood stopping off at one another’s homes where our parents had spreads of Christmas goodies for all of us. Between stops, we had half-hearted snowball fights—half-hearted because we all wore our good “Sunday go to Meeting Clothes.” At the last home of the night—early morning, to be accurate—we had a group breakfast, and then we scattered to our own homes to thaw out and then sleep in on Christmas morning. Fun and festive.
I wasn’t quite as fond of the Christmas season as a young parent. I wasn’t the one having all the fun anymore. I was the one providing all the fun and excitement. I was the one convincing a kid not to scream and cry on Santa’s lap so the photographer could take a decent picture. O joy. I had no idea how much work was involved. It looked so easy when my mother did it—the decorating, sending out the Christmas cards, the gift shopping, the grocery shopping, the cooking—so much cooking—and the baking (Did I mention that I cannot bake worth a darn?). And then there was the gift wrapping, the gift hiding where Firstborn and Little Brother couldn’t find them, being a kid wrangler for my two boys who couldn’t sit still during Christmas Eve service, and cleaning up the mess after the Christmas morning gift unwrapping frenzy. After a few years of this, I stopped looking forward to the Christmas season. Christmas equaled stress. I began to dread it.
I believe I know when I became a Christmas Curmudgeon. It was the last year we had a huge live tree—one of Firstborn’s friends dubbed it “The Christmas Sequoia.” On Christmas morning, I looked under the tree to see that Baby Jesus was missing from the manger. I alerted Macho Guy and the boys, and the hunt was on. We eventually found Baby Jesus behind a sofa in the family room—gnawed almost beyond recognition. The perpetrator of this desecration, our American Eskimo devil dog, had gone into hiding. We flushed him out and scolded him but the damage was irreversible. Of all the figurines under the tree, why did that wicked little monster choose to chew on Baby Jesus? I was appalled. It was sacrilege, no doubt about it. The boys, who adored the evil four-legged assassin, broke up laughing at what they felt was the absurdity of the situation. It was about then that I snapped. It was Baby Jesus’ birthday and instead of receiving a gift, he was chewed up by an unrepentant four-legged, white-furred spawn of Satan.
It struck me then that this incident was only one indication that the true spirit of Christmas was missing in action, replaced somewhere along the line by a secular white-bearded icon in a red suit who came down the chimney to become a symbol of crass commercialism. A holy day had become a holiday instead.
Until Christmas is once again the way it used to be, the way it should be, and the way it was meant to be, just call me Scroogette. Bah! Humbug!
To be continued next week.
