Christmas Stories

Childhood Christmases

I grew up in a two-story house in the Virginia woods with my mom and dad and sister and always a good Christmas. 

Christmas Eve we’d drive to my dad’s parent’s house where we’d eat and exchange presents with his brother’s family—the Coxes. That was a mixed bag, with neither of my parents liking to see Dad’s parents (the house smelled like pee because they rarely flushed the toilet, that’s at least how I remember it). We always enjoyed the Cox cousins, though.

What I especially remember from Christmas Eve is the drive home in the dark. I rarely was in the car in the dark anyway, and seeing people’s houses off in the distance in the countryside with lights in the yards and Christmas trees in the windows was a magical treat.  I’d be falling asleep in the backseat when someone would glance at me and say, “Let’s look for Santa!” Then we’d all point at the stars as we drove through the dark night.  

Christmas morning meant waking up early and tearing down the stairs, into the formal living room where I was banned, normally. That living room was my mom’s pride, all yellow with a lovely raised wallpaper mural on the back wall of an elegant flowering tree leaning over the stereo cabinet. Mom had this weird bunch of bare branches arranged like a tree in a planter in one corner, and the Christmas tree was always in the far corner. We liked trees. 

One year Mom had sewn a tree skirt out of red felt. At some point, an edge must’ve dipped into the tree stand, and one morning we ran into the living room to find Mom’s yellow carpet stained pink. 

Another year, our basset hound, Humphrey, had gotten into food under the tree and in the process had eaten a bunch of those silver strands of tree tinsel. All Christmas Day he’d go through his dog door outside to poop, then come in with tinsel strands hanging out of his doodie-shoot, as we called it. 

Christmas mornings, Dad would sit on the sofa messing around with presents, or more likely lie on the floor putting them together. Mom would make breakfast, and sometimes I would forget about the stockings hung over the mantle piece in the family room until after we ate!  What a treat. Always an orange in there, and some chocolate coins and candy canes, and sometimes something small and special, like jewelry. 

The big presents were all made by Dad, from the dollhouse he built and furnished with sample linoleum and carpet (Mom sewed the curtains) to the stereo cabinet he built for my first turntable. 

He was a hard man to buy for, or my mom always said, until the year before he died, when she bought him a fancy camera and lens, which we knew would keep him interested. He died in November before we could give him the camera, and I don’t remember that Christmas; we might have spent it with the Cox cousins.  I remember we did one year, at least, and I felt very much like an interloper, I’m sure despite their best efforts.

Every Christmas throughout my childhood, no matter what, my across-the-street neighbor Karen and I would talk on the phone about what presents we’d gotten. 50-odd years later and we still do this, but now we text each other. How grateful I am for that!

Kim Christmases

As usual with stories involving my sister, there’s a good one in my memory and a bad one.  Frankly, I don’t remember their order, so I’ll get the bad one over with.

Katherine had been in the hospital, and we were all trying to keep it hush hush so people didn’t try to visit her or Kim. People always think you want them in the hospital, that goodwill and cheer help. If you are a kind-hearted person and think this, I have news for you.  The pediatric hospital is a hell hole at the best of times, and even worse at Christmas, and that’s that. Katherine frequently managed to have pneumonia at Christmas so was often on a ventilator.

This one Christmas I’d had to spend eight days in a row in Katherine’s hospital room with her, and I can’t remember which reason that was, what state my sister was in to foist me into her terrible role. But I do believe that was the Christmas Eve that Paul and Finn spent at my mom’s newish house in Richmond, about an hour away from that hospital. How am I guessing this?  I have this piece of evidence, the year of the Doctor Who and Star Trek bathrobes, with a Minecraft something or other thrown in to date it especially well.  I remember feeling especially grateful for them both that year. 

That evening I slipped away from the hospital again for Paul family’s house for Christmas dinner and round #2 of presents, and I remember having to thwart their kind inquiries into how it was going at the hospital. I’m sure Kim had tried to kill herself, and I’m guessing Katherine was belligerent, and I feel confident the medical system of so many specialists without a clue what was wrong with Katherine was letting us all down, and no one wants to hear any of that. 

The good Christmas memory was the one we spent at Kim’s new (to her) old farmhouse in Charlottesville.

The year prior, she and Mom and I had gone to the movies together and shared our delight with the Lord of the Rings movies, so that next Christmas Kim hosted it with a LoTR theme. I gave Kim an Aragorn life-size cardboard standup. She gave everyone stockings stuffed with pippin apples and chocolate pipes. Someone gave someone a LoTR board game, which I found in a box of stuff Paul brought to me in Madison just a few weeks ago. That was a good Christmas. We had a total of four dogs there. 

Finn Christmases 

When Finn was little, Christmases were a whirlwind of planning presents, shopping, school break and work schedules, cooking, cleaning, yadda yadda, punctuated with fierce child enthusiasm.  I do remember Christmas Eves when Paul and I had set up the various elaborate shenanigans we’d planned for Finn to witness when he came down the stairs. I would be exhausted, but the house would be quiet and my work would be done, so I would sit with Jackie Boy on the sofa in the dark, with the Christmas tree lit up, and hold on to those quiet moments by myself while I had them, before the onslaught of presents and the holiday with my in-laws began the next day.  

My first Christmas after I moved out of the house at Harpers Ferry was in that apartment within walking distance of work, with beloved Jackie Boy and Finn for the week days. I bought a pretty white sparkly fake tree for the apartment, which I perversely loved after a lifetime of real ones. I remember distinctly the peace and quiet of sitting with Finn by that tree at night. 

Tracy Christmases

I know we had one Christmas at his house with a fire in the fireplace and Nutmeg the difficult foster dog still with us.  The next one was right before we left the house for the Airstream, so with Banjo, which I do not remember.  Katherine, Kim, and Mom had died, I was leaving my job and my life behind. 

It’s funny how you can always  measure Christmases by which dogs were living with you. 

And then, the Christmas I dreamed of, over and over.  Just me and my love, in warm climates. Always hard though, after all those Christmases so full of good and bad. 

2020 at Bonita Springs, Florida, on our way to the Keys: We were the kids of the 55+ RV resort we’d found a spot in, and a good spot right on the river thanks to Canadians not being able to drive their RVs into the States that year due to Covid.  It was cold in Florida though, and you had to watch above you for falling iguanas as you kayaked down the river.

2021 on Mars: We didn’t like Mars, and we hadn’t made friends with Shana and Marcus yet there.  It was lonely. The wind was really strong. 

2022 Brownsville at the trailer park: I believe we made food to take to the community center in the park for a potluck and to watch football, but no one showed up. I do know that Finn showed up for New Years and we sat outside the trailer in our lawn chairs and watched the traditional Mexican fireworks in the sky, the very night he arrived. Tracy made us margaritas and I made butter boards.  Yum. Poor Finn slept on the sofa of the trailer all the nights he was there. 

2023 Brownsville at the new resort: I’d ruptured my ACL and hadn’t had surgery yet. I was miserable. Finn stayed at a condo on the island, and poor Tracy had to shuttle us back and forth for so many doctor appointments and groceries. I was so grateful for both of them.

2024 Brownsville at the new resort, again: Looming thyroid biopsy, canceled visit from Mary Margaret, good trip from Finn, although the weather was cold and windy so we couldn’t be on the beach much.  I was stressed. Finn may have been stressed. Tracy once again had to drive us around. 

2025 Madison, in the apartment

Banjo has been playing with toys for the first time ever, and I’ve put a few old ones we saved and a new one the apartment complex gave us into a basket for her. We love it when she roots around in the basket and her tail wags, just like when she sticks her head in a tunnel in the ground to sniff out some critter.  She’s so excited about what she might find. So I bought her a special present for that basket.

It looks like a squirrel and moves like one, too. Except, clearly, it’s not a squirrel. Banjo is not fooled into thinking it is.  But then, what is it? She really would not like to find out. It’s like the faux-squirrels on our new high-end TV in the apartment: they’re nothing but a tease, running off the screen to who knows where.  Not behind the TV, not under the Christmas tree.  She has checked both places. So this one, too, is a mystery. 

Banjo retreats to her bed and eyes it, suspiciously.  Eventually, I just take it out of her basket of toys so that those aren’t ruined by association.

Rats for this Christmas.  I’m restless, Tracy is unhappy with not being on the road. We watch LoTR on TV to appease me. 

Like all years past though, Finn is showing up right after Christmas, and this time he will have his own car, so Tracy won’t have to drive us around. 

We’re going to spend nights at the empty house on inflatable mattresses, and I have bedding and small Christmas decorations left over from the trailer and stuff for morning tea all packed and ready, 

We’ll spend days at the apartment, me being able to cook his favorite dinners for him now that I’m in a full-sized kitchen, him petting Banjo as only he does (which is extremely respectfully: Finn is the only person we’ve not had to give instructions on how to approach or handle her). He’s going to spend the day at the hospital with me for my make-up infusion, and we’ll bring cards or a board game.  (I’ve already talked with my new therapist about how this Christmas hospital visit will not be like my past ones). 

We’re going to see lights, play trivia, walk around Madison.  Poor guy will be exhausted at the end of a multi-state driving Christmas tour. But his mom needs him, and I like to think he needs his mom. 

And the next Christmas will be different, and the same, as they all are.