It is very early Christmas morning. For me Christmas is always a season overflowing with memories. When I was very young Christmas was a time that my grandmother and grandfather would come to spend the night. I spent many nights as a child with them, but it was such a treat to have them spend the night at my house. My grandfather suffered from Parkinson's disease and was very hard to understand because the illness effected his speech. He was good natured and loved to laugh. Alot of times when he would laugh out loud or yawn, his dentures would slip and fall from the top of his mouth. That always fascinated me. He loved my mom's peanut butter cookies with his coffee. My grandmother (Maw) was almost indescribeable. She was truly a character in the best sense of the word. Feisty, outspoken, extremely loving and very indulging. To get me to go to bed Christmas Eve which was much more of a celebration in my house than Christmas day, Maw would come in and sit on the side of my bed. She and I would talk and she would scratch my back better than anyone ever has since. She would tease me and say she was getting the fleas off of me. She would also bring my brothers and I baby aspirins and tell us they were sleeping pills. Kind of funny your grandmother administering placebo narcotics, but it was the 60's after all.
My mother would obsess and work her fingers to the bone preparing for Christmas. We had beautiful honey colored hard wood floors when I was really young, and at Christmas the livingroom was so beautiful with the reflection of the twinkling christmas lights against the floor. My mother would bake about four days leading up to Christmas Eve. My grandmother made something each year that when I think about it now, I wonder how any of us escaped a heart attack. She would make something called boiled custard. A southern thing that you drink that is LETHAL. Eggs, sugar, heavy cream, you name it. It was delicious but a little bit went a looong way. Momma would make cookies and pies of a wide variety. All of us had our favorites and she loved to make sure we all got what we wanted. By Christmas Eve my mom would be so exhausted and short fused, but as soon as everyone would gather and compliment how pretty the house looked and how delicious the food was, momma would get a second wind and finally relax and enjoy herself. From the time she was 16 momma wore a perfume called White Shoulders. Undoubtedly she would get at least one bottle each Christmas. She loved pretty nightgowns and collected music boxes. she was always so easy to shop for. As I got older it was always my thing to get her a new outfit to wear out for New Years Eve. I would always splurge on her and get her beautiful things that I knew she would love to tell all the other women her "baby" had taken the time to pick out for her. I loved making my mother happy. I loved watching her open up gifts. She was a person that was ALWAYS happy with anything that anyone took the time to choose just for her. She was very childlike in that way. My father has never really gotten excited about too much. They balanced each other out very well that way. Daddy was always pretty liquored up by the time the gift exchanging would roll around. He was appreciative but the gift giving thing never really sank in to him. Probably because my mom was the only person he ever really had to buy for and it was usually done with instructions from her. My favorite time would be late in the night after everyone had gone to bed. Momma would always get up extremely early to get the turkey started for Chritmas dinner and it would be just her and I. We would talk about the earlier gathering in detail. Who got what,and so forth. My grandmother would be the next to get up. There I would be, sitting with these two amazing women, loving them both so much. They both would be sitting at the kitchen table smoking cigarettes in their robes. Momma would always have to have something sweet, which would start another feeding frenzy. LOL. I would go to bed about 6am and wake up with the house filled with what I can only describe as Christmas smells. Dinner would always be early in the afternoon. My brother Shawn had collected every wishbone from thanksgiving and Christmas for as long as I can remember. After Dinner the holiday was pretty much over. It was now time to see friends and relax. Momma would usually take a well deserved nap until early evening when everyone would gather again for leftovers. My brothers and their wives and children. Extended family stopping over. People we most often loved to see and LOVED to hate to see other times. After I had grown up and moved to away, I would always have to figure out how to spend tiome with my family AND see everyone I needed to during the duration of my visit. My mom was great with guilt trips about spending time with the family. If I could take back time, I would have definitely spent that time right there at the dining room table. Just sitting around with my brothers and my parents. I would not trade those times for anything.
My mother has been gone for four years now. I made the mistake of going home just once for Christmas since then. I say mistake because the house is so empty without her. I would much rather remember Christmas the way I can, than wade thru the emptiness that is apparent everywhere I would turn. I have had the luxury and curse of not having to be in my childhood home for any extended period of time since we lost my mom. Maybe its easier for my dad and brothers because they are there on a more constant level. Then again maybe its ten times more painful because they do have to walk in and feel the loneliness that the house has so much of since her death. I miss my father and brothers and their families during the holiday, but have to say the pain of visiting my mother at a cemetary instead of at that diningroom table outweighs the need to go home and face that tremendous void. My family has never been the same since my mothers death. There is a distance now that has gone too long I am afraid to be able to fix. I don't know if they can feel it like I do. What I mean is they have wives and children and even grandchildren to occupy their time during the holidays. I feel like where they are concerced, I more or less stand alone looking in from the outside. I used to be so worried before going home. Afraid that things would change, that home wouldn't feel like home anymore. Every time I walked thru that door and sat at that table with my mother, I always was instantly comforted, that home would ALWAYS be home. I keep those memories locked away in my heart. I keep the Christmas I want to hang on to right beside it. It's safe and warm and full of love. Thats what Christmas is to me.