Memorable Christmases Past

I wish these seemed more interesting, but they are just memories that I've been ruminating on the past few days. Don’t even ask about what year these events actually happened, just rest assured that it was at some point in the past

The year of the Christmas Stand: A pseudo-grinchy year. None of us wanted to buy, set up, or clean up a tree … real or fake. So on Christmas Eve, I plopped a fake pointsettia plant on top of an old music stand. We piled the Christmas presents around the bottom (we’re generally never so grinchy that presents fail to appear), and sang odes to the Christmas stand.

The year of the Best Christmas Present Ever: I’d gotten to the point where I knew that I was the best Christmas-present-giver in the family because I had the most disposable income to use on presents, and my brother Spork really hadn’t gotten into present giving yet. I hadn’t even really thought about what I wanted that year. But my sister JLITH had, and got everyone in the family to pitch in. Imagine my surprise when I opened a small jeweler’s box to find a pair of diamond stud earrings set in white gold. So beautiful and perfect. I was absolutely blown away. I wore them constantly for about four years. Then, one sad day, when I was out on the town, I saw that one was missing. I backtracked, but the earring was not to be found. I still keep the one in my jewelry box … a memento of the BCPE. Diamonds are lovely, but even better was my sister’s thoughtfulness.

The year of the Christmas Argument: My maternal grandmother died in 2005. However, before she became too ill, she wrote a short autobiography. Not long … maybe 20 handwritten pages. But all in Japanese. Which I can’t read. So when my aunt brought the pages, along with a bunch of old family photos, I got them all scanned and copied. And I asked a good friend if I could pay him to translate them into English so that our family could read it together. On Christmas day, I told my mother that this was going to be one of my presents to the family. And she got very upset. And said some unexpected (and therefore hurtful) things. The gist of it is that she wants to translate it, and would not like anyone outside of the family to work on it. Which I just don’t understand. However, I told my friend the story, and work on the translation was never actually done. A year later, there is still no English translation, and still no idea of what is in those pages. Hopefully someday my mother will get around to translating them, or get tired of the obligation, and let me have them translated.

The year of the Christmas Pictures I Took of Spork: My youngest brother is seven years my junior. Which means that when I was about 13, he was about 6. A carefree and happy-go-lucky 6, who always fell for my bear-hug ruse … which always ended up in a tickle-fest. Anyway, one Christmas I dressed him up in his festive pj’s and took a bunch of posed pictures of him … snuggled up with a teddy bear, shaking presents, reading Christmas cards, fast asleep and waiting for Santa. I’d almost forgotten about them, until I looked through a photo book with my nephew a couple of days ago. They’ll make pretty good blackmail shots someday.

The year of the Rocking Christmas Program: I think this was the last year that Music Man was in the singles' ward. He always put together fantastic musical programs for the choir. This year was no exception. Actually, the only song I can remember singing is, "Go Tell It On The Mountain." But for an LDS choir, it's a bit daring for sacrament meeting. Choir was never quite the same without Music Man, and I soon changed over to the family ward, which was a big change in general, and a big change in choirs specifically. This year I looked around i-Tunes for a version of the song, but couldn't find any that had the same energy and hope that Music Man's version had. So, I just sing it in my head, and remember that snappy-happy sound.