puppetmaker | Christmas Day 2011

As I write this I am waiting for the pitter patter (or rather thump thump thump) of feet coming down the stairs. It is Christmas morning and I am the first up amazingly enough. But it is not an usual time for me to be awake since it is the time that I am usually up to get Caroline off to school.

The Christmas tree is lit and the presents glow from the light of the tree. It is that pause before Christmas really begins.

We have our day pretty much planned. Breakfast of an excellent Eggs Benedicts then onto present opening. We will see a movie this morning/afternoon. Some of us are seeing Chipwrecked and some of us are seeing Sherlock Holmes. There will probably be a nap in there somewhere. Then we will get together for dinner with rare roast beast (OK a lovely beef tenderloin) and feast on cookies afterwards.

As a child I had a competition with my brothers and sister as to who was going to see the tree first. There were rules to the contest created over the years to allow for proof that one had been there and allowing one to go back to bed after seeing the tree with the presents. We were very structured in our contests.

I sit here in the glow of the tree looking at the glow of my computer screen remembering Christmas presents past. I remember getting a space helmet that I really wanted and wearing it going up and down our hall pretending I was in space. It had a strong plastic smell to it that I now associate with space travel. I remember getting my own portable transistor radio. The radio still works even after all these years and the antenna being snapped in half. I remember getting ELO Out of the Blue album and listening to it with headphone for the rest of the day.

I remember trees we decorated. A couple of years we got live trees and then replanted them. One of the trees was later cut down for that year’s Christmas tree, which had to have the top lopped off to fit in the living room. My father and brother took the top of the tree up to my sister’s room and created the illusion that we had sawed a hole in the floor to accommodate the tree. I remember learning how to get a tree straight and how to look at it to get the branches and the look of the tree just so. And how to set up the lights which was dad’s job, he took great pride in making sure that the lights were diverse colors both on the strand and around each light itself. He also had to make sure that we had a white bulb at the bottom of the tree for the stable for the crèche.

We did midnight mass at 4:30 yesterday so we are good for that. I learned that the vigil mass was written for the monks who would go to that mass and then the midnight mass and then the morning mass the next day. So they heard the whole nativity story in three to four masses. We prefer the midnight mass readings to the vigil mass anyway. All that begetting gets a little tiresome.

So Happy Christmas everybody. I hope that Święty Mikołaj was very good to you.

I am going to spend some time with my family and just enjoy the day.

I am grateful for my Christmas memories.