Memory lane
While walking Grady this afternoon, for some reason I thought back to Christmases of my youth...
Christmas Eve: The first order of business was the preparation of luminarias. Every year our entire community would light luminarias on the evening of Christmas Eve (in retrospect, I don't know that I ever asked my Jewish friends what they thought of this tradition), for which sand was dumped on each street. We would fill our alloted bags with sand and a candle and arrange them along our sidewalk and driveway (I, being particularly anal, would often use a yardstick to maintain precise spacing...clearly not a task to be left to my brother). Once we were finished, we would get in the car for the two-hour drive to my grandparents' house in Newport Beach. There, our entire extended family would gather each year. It's not that I was even that close to my cousins since we only tended to see each other a couple of times a year, but my grandparents really indulged us, and c'mon, it was Christmas so of course it was great! (It was only many years later that we discovered that there was any hint of dysfunction beneath this Norman Rockwell portrait...at the time we were blissfully and thankfully unaware.) We would play with our cousins, eat a good dinner prepared by Grandpa, and open presents--it was pretty much a guarantee that we'd get a combination of pajamas and/or slippers and/or a robe every year. But we couldn't stay too late because we had to make the drive back to San Diego that night. Inevitably, as we were driving back we would listen to a radio station that alternated Christmas carols with reports of alleged Santa sightings, so of course we assumed every airplane we saw had to be the fat man himself. If we were lucky, when we got back to town the luminarias would still be lit (a neighbor always had to light ours for us) and we would take a quick drive through town to see them. Then to bed, where we would try to fight the adrenaline and sleep so thatour parents Santa could prepare the house for the next morning.
Christmas Day: Before going to bed the night before, we would engage in negotiations with our parents for a wakeup time. Not surprisingly, we would want to be up at the crack of dawn for presents, and they would want to sleep as late as possible. We'd typically come up with something (completely unreasonable, in our eyes) like 8:30am. Prior to the appointed time, I would wake up and find my Christmas stocking outside my door. Let the fun begin! I would then take my stocking down the hall to my brother's room--being careful not to peek downstairs--to compare our haul and prepare for the big moment. At the agreed time, and not a second later, we would jump up and down and yell and scream to wake up our parents, which was fairly straightforward since my brother's room was right above theirs. We would then have an excrutiating wait as they made themselves presentable, brewed coffee, etc. When at last they were ready, they would light candles that in turn rang a bell, which was the signal that our interminable wait was finally over. We would clamber over each other to get the first glimpse at what came to be known as our "Santa present"--unwrapped, it was usually the thing we wanted most that year. We would tear downstairs, our parents would take embarrassing pictures of us jumping up and down in our pajamas, etc. And then...more waiting around. We were ready to tear into presents right then and there, but no--first came breakfast. We would wait and wait and wait and wait for our parents to fix breakfast, and only then could we finally open our gifts. Usually we were completely finished by noon, after which followed the usual "now what?" sense of disappointment that it was all over. Luckily, when you grow up in a place like San Diego you could typically go straight outside into the sunshine to start playing with your toys. We would generally eat a nice dinner (turkey, if I remember correctly) that evening, but for all intents and purposes Christmas was over and all we could do was start counting down until the next year.
Boxing Day: Just kidding! This was one of those holidays we didn't get in the States. Oh, the unfairness of it all.
Now I reflect on how different things are from when I was growing up, and not just for me. At the time almost my whole extended family lived within close driving range of my grandparents. How true is that for most modern families? In our case, by the time our grandparents passed away, my aunts and uncles were already grandparents themselves who were starting their own family traditions. In addition, divorce and employment have scattered us all over the country (not to mention the world). If this all sounds melancholy, I certainly don't mean it to--in the same vein as another local blogger (who put it much more succinctly and eloquently than I could), I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have already spent so many Christmases with Gretchen. With each passing year hopefully we will build our own traditions.
That's a very long-winded way of wishing those who celebrate it a very Merry Christmas, as well as a Happy Hanukkah and anything else that is meaningful to you this holiday season. (Just don't tell anyone at Fox News, lest they think we've declared war on Christmas...)
Christmas Eve: The first order of business was the preparation of luminarias. Every year our entire community would light luminarias on the evening of Christmas Eve (in retrospect, I don't know that I ever asked my Jewish friends what they thought of this tradition), for which sand was dumped on each street. We would fill our alloted bags with sand and a candle and arrange them along our sidewalk and driveway (I, being particularly anal, would often use a yardstick to maintain precise spacing...clearly not a task to be left to my brother). Once we were finished, we would get in the car for the two-hour drive to my grandparents' house in Newport Beach. There, our entire extended family would gather each year. It's not that I was even that close to my cousins since we only tended to see each other a couple of times a year, but my grandparents really indulged us, and c'mon, it was Christmas so of course it was great! (It was only many years later that we discovered that there was any hint of dysfunction beneath this Norman Rockwell portrait...at the time we were blissfully and thankfully unaware.) We would play with our cousins, eat a good dinner prepared by Grandpa, and open presents--it was pretty much a guarantee that we'd get a combination of pajamas and/or slippers and/or a robe every year. But we couldn't stay too late because we had to make the drive back to San Diego that night. Inevitably, as we were driving back we would listen to a radio station that alternated Christmas carols with reports of alleged Santa sightings, so of course we assumed every airplane we saw had to be the fat man himself. If we were lucky, when we got back to town the luminarias would still be lit (a neighbor always had to light ours for us) and we would take a quick drive through town to see them. Then to bed, where we would try to fight the adrenaline and sleep so that
Christmas Day: Before going to bed the night before, we would engage in negotiations with our parents for a wakeup time. Not surprisingly, we would want to be up at the crack of dawn for presents, and they would want to sleep as late as possible. We'd typically come up with something (completely unreasonable, in our eyes) like 8:30am. Prior to the appointed time, I would wake up and find my Christmas stocking outside my door. Let the fun begin! I would then take my stocking down the hall to my brother's room--being careful not to peek downstairs--to compare our haul and prepare for the big moment. At the agreed time, and not a second later, we would jump up and down and yell and scream to wake up our parents, which was fairly straightforward since my brother's room was right above theirs. We would then have an excrutiating wait as they made themselves presentable, brewed coffee, etc. When at last they were ready, they would light candles that in turn rang a bell, which was the signal that our interminable wait was finally over. We would clamber over each other to get the first glimpse at what came to be known as our "Santa present"--unwrapped, it was usually the thing we wanted most that year. We would tear downstairs, our parents would take embarrassing pictures of us jumping up and down in our pajamas, etc. And then...more waiting around. We were ready to tear into presents right then and there, but no--first came breakfast. We would wait and wait and wait and wait for our parents to fix breakfast, and only then could we finally open our gifts. Usually we were completely finished by noon, after which followed the usual "now what?" sense of disappointment that it was all over. Luckily, when you grow up in a place like San Diego you could typically go straight outside into the sunshine to start playing with your toys. We would generally eat a nice dinner (turkey, if I remember correctly) that evening, but for all intents and purposes Christmas was over and all we could do was start counting down until the next year.
Boxing Day: Just kidding! This was one of those holidays we didn't get in the States. Oh, the unfairness of it all.
Now I reflect on how different things are from when I was growing up, and not just for me. At the time almost my whole extended family lived within close driving range of my grandparents. How true is that for most modern families? In our case, by the time our grandparents passed away, my aunts and uncles were already grandparents themselves who were starting their own family traditions. In addition, divorce and employment have scattered us all over the country (not to mention the world). If this all sounds melancholy, I certainly don't mean it to--in the same vein as another local blogger (who put it much more succinctly and eloquently than I could), I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have already spent so many Christmases with Gretchen. With each passing year hopefully we will build our own traditions.
That's a very long-winded way of wishing those who celebrate it a very Merry Christmas, as well as a Happy Hanukkah and anything else that is meaningful to you this holiday season. (Just don't tell anyone at Fox News, lest they think we've declared war on Christmas...)
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