Christmas 'Things' Evoke Memories
/The Boston Herald
Things aren't supposed to matter. I know this. Possessions don't define a life. And yet they bring back life, resurrect small moments, at least.
Every Christmas I am struck by this. I expect to unearth dusty boxes of Christmas decorations, carry them upstairs, open them and find just faded things. I was sure that once my children were grown, once they no longer clamored to help unwrap the creche and the reindeer and the sleigh, the things in these boxes would seem shabby and wouldn't mean so much.
But I was wrong. Every year, these things mean more.
This year I'm alone when I lug the decorations from the cellar. I'm not expecting any surprises. I know exactly what's in each box; it seems as if I just put these things away. And yet a surprise is what I get. I open the musical bells my son bought just last year, and even before they are unwrapped, I see him as he looked the night he gave them to me. "Open it, Mom," he said, stopping home after work, on his way back to school. "It's your Christmas present. I had to buy it. The second I saw it I knew you'd love it.”
I didn't say you shouldn't be spending your money on presents for me. I didn't say what about the Nikes you need or the tires for your truck or books next semester? I looked in his eyes and bit my tongue.
The bells play 25 Christmas carols. "Angels We Have Heard on High" "Joy to the World" "The First Noel," 35 minutes of music. My son strung them across the mantle, covered the wires with garland, then turned them on.
"What do you think, Mom? Do you like them?"
"I love them," I said.
And I did and I do, even more now, even though they're just things. Because if I didn't have them, if I weren't holding them and looking at them, I wouldn't remember his eyes when he gave them to me.
The Christmas stockings Rosemary knit and mailed from Virginia when my children were babies evoke the same kind of feelings. "Robbie" is knitted on one, "Lauren" on the other, there's a Santa on each and on the back, a Christmas tree decorated with sequins.
It took her a long time to knit those stockings. I know because I made one for my youngest child and I remember how the yarn tangled and knotted and how I had to constantly count stitches. I never sewed sequins on her stocking. The effort seemed too huge. I convinced myself that the stocking looked fine without them.
But Rose made the effort. She took the time. She lived in Virginia; she had other friends and other things to do. But she never forgot me. The stockings have hung over the fireplace for 20 years. The stockings are only things, and yet they are more.
I unwrap a ceramic reindeer my cousin Darlene made years ago when she was newly married, and a needlepoint angel Caryn sewed to go with the needlepoint Christmas scene Kathy gave me. All this work, all these creations, labored over, then given away.
Here's my mother's plastic church that used to sit on top of the old mahogany TV. The plastic is yellow, the roof an orange-red. I should throw it away . The church isn't attractive to anyone but me. And yet I set it in the middle of a miniature village scene and place faded, old angels near its front door. Then I step back and look at it and smile.
Things.
Here's "The Santa Claus Book," a Big Golden Book published in 1952, its cover tattered, its pages brittle and separated from the binding. I read this book every Christmas of my youth and I read it to my own children when they were small. "Granny Glittens and Her Amazing Mittens,” is my favorite story. I read it again, though I know every word.
It takes a long time to set up the manger and the village scene, to place a musical Santa next to Frosty, to unpack all the Christmas books because each of these things holds a moment from the past.
I find a Styrofoam bell my mother decorated with ribbons and pearls. I remember asking her if I could have the bell when I grew up. "You won't want it” she said. "It'll be old and you'll want something new.”
The bell is old. But that's exactly why it's treasured, the memory wrapped around it old and treasured, too.
