The Christmas tree is lit and presents lie colorfully around its base. Soon this morning — Christmas — everyone else will awaken and hustle up the stairs to the living room for coffee, hugs and gift opening. Our 6-month-old grandchild will tear holiday paper for the first time and get gifts from all of us who love her so dearly. With families, jobs and miles that divide us, it is unclear how often — when next — all of us will be together on this holiday. Simply our being together this Christmas morning is an extraordinary gift.
I can’t help but reflect on Christmases past.
In 1982 we celebrated our child’s first Christmas. His gift to us was the raw joy of watching him tear at the wrapping paper then, like everything else his hands could grab, putting it in his smiling mouth. That Christmas was different than any before, better having a “wee one” to share it with.
Three years later a new baby arrived. His older sibling agreed to “help” him by opening all the infant’s gifts. “This is how you tear the paper,” the 3-year-old told his brother, “Next year you can do it yourself.”
It was absolutely dark. The night was quiet except for little feet walking toward our bed. “It’s Christmas, Dad and Mom,” a tiny voice said. “Can we get up yet?” It was 4:15 a.m. We walked up the stairs together, parent and child hand-in-hand. Once we reached the top, where the tree could be seen, the boys released our grips and ran to the front room. Suddenly they stopped, wide eyed, having made a great discovery. “He ate the cookies! Santa ate the cookies! And look! There is some grass from Rudolph’s hooves right there! He brought a reindeer in!” We parents wondered if Christmas could ever be better.
With a new family rule in effect — no waking Mom and Dad till 5:30, even on Christmas — at 5:31 two children climbed into our bed. “Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad, I love you,” a young boy said softly. While outside it was dark, the children’s energy, love and enthusiasm lit up the room, and their parents’ hearts.
Some years later we parents awoke before the kids and were waiting near the tree, coffee in hand, as the two pajama-clad youngsters rushed into the front room, stopping at the sight of the gifts Santa had left the night before. Almost speechless, the younger child said to no one in particular, “We must have been very good this year.”
Many Christmas Eves were spent putting toys together. The dreaded words “Some assembly required” made me wish I was fast asleep downstairs and the boys were assembling the (to me complicated) machines. Fortunately, the kids could quickly spot and remedy most of my assembly errors.
As the children got older the rhythm of Christmas changed. They slept in. The exuberance and excitement of youth was replaced with a natural warmth of a family being together on a holiday. Before we knew it they were gone to college. When they came home we shared time with their friends. The boys were now men with very independent lives.
Then, as happens with young men, two extraordinary women joined our Christmases — each boy’s love. The girls blended easily into our family, adding joy, energy and enthusiasm unique to women at Christmas. Suddenly mom had female companionship during the holiday. The girls laughed and yelped with contagious excitement as gifts were opened, bringing back the wonderful feeling of years ago when a 5:30 a.m. curfew was needed.
This year a grandchild joins us for her first Christmas. She will give her parents, aunt and uncle and grandparents the joy of watching her tear at the wrapping paper then, like everything else her hands can grab, putting it in her smiling mouth. This Christmas is different, better, having our new grandbaby — and the rest of our family together — to share it with; remembering fondly when her dad was that age; seeing the circle of life completed.
Earlier this year I read an article about a family who had a wonderful four word Latin phrase inscribed above the entrance to their home: Quod Cupio Mecum Est — “Everything I have always wanted I have.”
Suddenly five adults and a baby, all wrapped in brightly colored pajamas, complete the trek up the stairs and join me near the tree. The young father says to his baby “Look, honey, Santa came last night and brought you presents. You must have been a very good girl.”
Quod Cupio Mecum Est.
Merry Christmas.
