The older we seem to get; the memories of life bring on a fondest to them. We sit and reminisce of times of old. A smile begins to form across our faces and wishing for a moment we could go back and live that moment again. We seem to see those moments differently now. Some of the sting has been replaced by age and thoughts of everyone doing the best they could for all the knowledge that they had at those moments. Grace becomes part of our vocabulary now.
The Christmas season seems to always take us back to the season as a child. The memories seem more precious as we see things through the eyes of a child, including our own. I will always cherish the manger I made with my dad. Those moments looking at my brother and sister looking through the glass patio window and thinking, this time I am not left out, I felt love during those brief moments with my dad. Even now I tear up thinking how he finally picked me. I put that manger scene up this past weekend and all those emotions of that welled up as a happy time. I see the best my dad could do for me, and I find grace
The memory of Santa Claus coming to a broken home was the best experience ever. We saw hope that day and realized Santa Claus saw broken and he brought wholeness to a family with children losing hope inside their home. My grandma had come for a visit while we lived in Virginia. We moved there from New York and the safety of our neighborhood because my dad said, he had changed, he got a job and had stopped drinking, and best of all he said, was he found Jesus. My mom packed all of us and drove a uhaul to a new home and a place in my heart I felt no safety. I was scared for this move because how was I ever going to get back to my home on North St with my cousins and grandma.
Like everything new, life was good for a moment and then the alcohol came out again. We were all vulnerable to the wrath of the bottle that took over and now became all of our daily fears, of what will happen today, let alone the next and the next. The Christmas season came, and my grandma came to visit us. I can't explain how safe I felt while she was there. She could see what we were living in and the condition of our lives with my dad back to the bottle and back to the mean words, that I didn't belong to him. I heard my grandma and mom talking about how no Christmas presents would be under the tree for us this year. That the money was really tight and that she had to hide it from my dad. I would learn later on that my grandma was there to come up with a scheme to get us out of Virginia and back to New York. I learned for the first time that Santa didn't give you free toys, but you needed to pay him like a bill and my mom didn't have anything left over to pay for Santa to come to our house. I wonder if other children knew that.
One evening all of us were in the Living Room talking to my grandma. I was sitting next to her knee wanting to be as close as I could be to her as she felt safe to me. It was late in the evening, we heard a knock on our door, my mom got up and we all ran to the door with her because nobody ever came to visit us. When she opened the door, we saw Santa Claus running to a station wagon and a garbage bag sitting at our door. We all didn't know what to think with what just happened. I think back to that moment with fond memories. Someone paid Santa for us to have Christmas presents. Nothing my dad could take to buy beer, they had our names on the gifts, and they were ours. Someone gave to the misfits in the neighborhood and blessed them with a Christmas to never forget. I felt loved in those moments. As that station wagon drove away, I wish I would have been old enough to thank whoever brought love into a hurting home, that didn't know if there would ever be hope within our walls again.
I can't talk about fond memories of Christmases without talking about a very special doll that played such an intriguing part in my life. A little girl that was broken and full of secrets, nobody to share them with until a very special Christmas day so many years ago. My mom made my sister and myself a different kind of doll every year. She worked hard to come up with doll ideas for my sister and me. Some of them were porcelain, others were toilet paper dolls, and dolls that were knitted and put over a bleach bottle. Each one was special but nothing like the box that was under the Christmas tree with my name on it. When I opened I saw the most precious rag doll. Mine was dressed in blue and my sisters were dressed in green. I was in love with mine the first moment we laid eyes on each other. I named her Josephine after a girl in a movie I saw about an orphan that had to pretend she was a boy to make money on the streets of NYC as a paperboy, until one day she boarded a train that would take her out west to be adopted. As I got older her significance would become my lifeline, she would become my security blanket and my secret keeper. Later on in life she became the title and focused on my first book. That present from my mom has a precious memory. forty-seven years later when I walk into my guest bedroom and see my tattered doll, I am reminded of that Christmas day that years later gave me a voice to tell my story
Middle school was a tough season in my life, as I am sure it is tough for any of us. We are trying to find our way and in the midst of trying to find our place, we are bullied and going through puberty with pimples and periods. We are trying to find ways to fit in and feel included. I tried diet speed pills for the first time and marijuana, then decided to sell oregano to younger kids that wanted to feel "high" . I ate junk food, then vomited it up in the bathrooms to keep the weight off. I was bullied a lot and ran home so I wouldn't taunt me again because of our poverty and my name.
My mom asked each one of us what we wanted for Christmas, all I wanted was a pair of Jordache Jeans like the rest of the girls in my school. I wanted to feel important walking into school with a pair of those jeans. I wanted to show everyone that I was as good as they were and now, I would have those jeans to prove it. I was so excited for Christmas morning; I knew I wouldn't be let down because that is all I asked for. After we did our traditional "Happy Birthday baby Jesus" we were allowed to open our presents. I was so excited as a box was handed to me knowing it was a piece of clothing by the shape of the box. I tore it open with such vigor because I knew in moments, I would fit in with all the rest of the girls in school, when we went back from Christmas break. When I got the box opened and saw a blue and red knicker outfit, I was so crushed and my mom saw my expression and said, ": didn't bring drum rolls, did it" I wanted to get up and run to my room. I wanted to scream, "You did it to me again" But I couldn't, I had to sit and be thankful. I had to pretend that this knickers outfit was the best thing ever. But all I could think about was the shoes I had that I would have to wear with them and how I would have to wear this outfit two times in the same week because we had to wear our clothes two and three times before we could put them in the wash. I was mortified at the thought of what the kids would say to me on that first day back to school, where everyone showed off their new clothes. My mom went to the store during winter break and bought me red tights to wear with my Jordache outfit. For years I had not been able to forgive her until we talked about it and she told me the jeans I wanted for five dollars more than the outfit and she needed to make sure each child got something for Christmas and the jeans were just too much money for our family. I learned a valuable lesson that day.
When I was a single mom, I spent the whole summer going to yard sales to find gifts for my children for Christmas. I had no money to buy extra gifts for my children either. I felt the ping of my mom each Christmas as I gave my children the best I could. I know there were times My children would feel the same way I felt on that Christmas day so many years ago. I would try and make other things memorable so that maybe the gifts wouldn't be a standout for my children but the other memories we would make on that day.
There are so many quotes about Christmas because it hits each of us in ways that either warms our hearts or brings tears of memories past. But each one-of is always trying to find that magic in the Christmas season. We are longing for what we had or trying to recreate something to take away the brokenness that the season sometimes brings. None of us are different from the other and we see it so much more in this season. We all have a longing for the Spirit of Christmas in our homes and our hearts.
Christmas my child is love in action-Carrie Fisher
let us go out and love and Christmas will be there
. It is in the tenderness of the past, courage for the presents, and hope for the future-Agnes Pharo
That is Christmas
