This will be our 3rd Christmas living on the Mississippi River. Most recent memories of the river include water lapping up to nearly our door step 3 times this summer alone, eagles playing tag in my fornt yard and sunsets gleaming across the river. Getting into a Christmas state of mind always brings back many memories about the Christmas season and family traditions both long, long ago and of more recent times. Let me just reflect on a few of them for you.
As most of you know, I was raised on a small farm outside of a one horse town called San Jose, IL. I went to San Jose United Methodist Church for many of those formible years. Some of you also know the history of the two Methodist Churches in town, but we won't go down that path right now. Maybe for you outsiders you can ask me about that some other time. But in that small church the most vivid memories of Christmas circle around the Christmas Eve services we had there. Every year the young Sunday School kids were always assigned parts in the re-enactment play of the Nativity. Some kids were the typical characters of Mary, Joseph, the 3 wise men and shepherds. The rest of the kids were given speaking parts or "pieces" that they had to recite to coincide with the actions and familiar story of the Nativity. Every year starting shortly after Thanksgiving we would be assigned our parts and most every Saturday morning we would gather at the church and rehearse our part for the program performed at the church on Christmas Eve. It was always the same story ( I guess for that time of year there was only one story), the same cast of characters and the same people putting the production together.
I was like any other kid, antsy and wanting to be home watching Scooby-Doo or the Monkees, rather than being at the church on a Saturday morning. So these practices didn't ever seem to go very well at all. But some how come Christmas Eve we always seemed to pull it together and put out a great production. At least our parents let on like it was the greatest thing they had ever seen since the previous year's performances. After the performance we would all shuffle down stairs to the basement where they would give us each a Christmas bag of goodies. This bag was generally an orange, a candy cane and a pencil or something like that. But really looking back, I think we really did have a good time with the whole thing and it did get us familiar at a young age with the whole story surrounding the birth of Jesus.
As for my family traditions, I can remember a few things about Christmas that were more of a recurring event more than they were tradition. One thing we as a family always did when I was very little was go to Talbott's Tree Farm near Green Valley to trudge through the snow to cut down the family Christmas tree. I think they really used my family's adventures as the basis for the tree searching scene in Christmas Vacation. It always was dark when we would go out for the tree. It always seemed like a 5 mile hike to find just the right tree and we never could agree as to which one we should get. By the time I was finally old enough to get some sort of enjoyment out of the whole tree searching ritual, my dad had finally had enough and decided to just get an artificial tree and be done with it. But now, like any self respecting father does, I make my kids go out with me to pick out a fresh family Christmas tree as well.
Another aspect about Christmas that is so very important to kids is Santa Clause. There are 2 aspects to the whole Santa thing. One is the events leading up to Christmas in either the letter that you write to Santa telling him about how good you were all year and about the 150 expensive toys that you want him to bring you for Christmas, or the trip to see Santa to tell him in person. Obviously if you're reading this you know about my blog, but this is not my first attempts at writing, oh no. I was first published in 1973 in the Lincoln Courier as a letter writer to Santa Cluase. I know, I know you are green with envy. But I also had to always be sure to go see Santa as well. I could see him at the San Jose fire station where I again receive an orange, a candy cane and a pencil. The town of San Jose must have gotten an excellent price on oranges in those days, because again as most of you know San Jose is not any where near the tropics. I could also go visit Santa at the Logan County Courthouse in Lincoln, IL as well. This was my favorite visit. I always struggled, though, with the fact that Santa was at the SJ fire station at the same time he was at the Lincoln courthouse. Hmmm. I liked that visit because we would go at night and see all of downtown Lincoln lit up well...like a ...Christmas Tree. I used to love to go to the stores down town and see the lights and we walked every where.
The other aspect of the concept of Santa Clause was trying to actually see him. I would stay awake in my bed really late. Oh it had to be way past 10 o'clock. I would look to the sky outside just to see if I could get a glimpse of that sleigh sprinting across the sky. I don't know to this day whether my mom & dad knew this or not, but I even sneaked downstairs in the middle of the night to see if I could see him or to get a sneak peak at my gifts. My guess is that my parents had to of known due to the fact that I had to walk right past their bedroom to get to the livingroom where the Christmas tree was. I never did see the fat old man. No I'm not talking about my dad.
The last fond memory I have about Christmas is the events of the very Christmas Day. We would get up as early as possible or that my mom would allow any way. We would rip open our presents and in a flash it was all over. We kids would get so wrapped up in the toys that we got for Christmas and my mom would then force us to put on the new Christmas clothes that we just got so we could make the trip to my dad's sister, Pat's house to spend the day witht the rest of his family. I hated having to leave my new toys. At that time that trip to Peoria seemed like it took days to get there. In actuality in was less than an hour. We would go there, eat and finally open more presents and get the $2 that my great aunts would give us and the $5 that my grandma would give us and the next thing we knew it was time to leave. I really loved playing GI Joes with my cousin Gary, but that time always seemed to slip away in the blink of an eye.
A blink of an eye. Can you believe it's been more than 35 years since my letter to Santa was published, since I searched for those trees, since I was in those Christmas programs at church. Where does the time go. Where did the family gatherings go. For that matter, where did the people go. Grandma and her 2 sisters have been gone for years. My dad has been gone for, gosh, 3 years now. He never saw me live in the house on the Mississippi River. What would he say about living through 3 floods in 1 year. Idiot. He never saw me relive the same traditions that he made me do. I miss and love that old fat man.
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