Seven Degrees Left of Center

Christmas Eve, Remembered Through Coffee and VHS

It is Christmas Eve and the coffee is brewing. The house is quiet, but not empty. There is a difference. Quiet can hold a lot.

My kids are grown now. They are with their own children today, doing the work of Christmas that once belonged to me. Wrapping presents late. Answering early morning questions. Making sure the magic lands where it is supposed to. That makes today a good day. A deeply good one. Even if it comes with a little ache.

At sixty, I have learned that you can hold joy and missing at the same time.

One of the strange side effects of memory loss is that holidays blur. Birthdays, Thanksgivings, Christmas mornings. Many of them are simply gone. Not faded. Gone. I do not miss those individual days because I cannot reach them. I miss the idea of them. The shape of them. The knowledge that they mattered.

This morning, though, one Christmas keeps tapping on my shoulder.

1992

I do not remember it the way most people remember things. I remember it because there is a video. A VHS tape, slightly grainy, a little crooked, recorded by someone who was more interested in capturing the moment than framing it well. What I remember is not the day itself. What I remember is the recording of the day.

In the video, my kids are all under twelve. Perfect ages, as it turns out. Old enough to understand what is happening, young enough to believe it could only happen this way. Their energy fills the room. The kind of energy you do not notice until it is gone.

I am there too, of course. Younger. Busier. Less aware of how temporary everything is. I watch myself move through the frame, half distracted, half present, trying to keep things moving while missing the fact that this moment is already complete.

It was a good Christmas.

I know that because I have evidence.

That realization used to bother me. The idea that some of my strongest memories exist only because they were recorded. That what I remember is the tape, not the morning itself. But over time, I have softened toward that truth.

The video is still part of me. The feelings it brings up are real. The warmth, the affection, the sense of rightness. Those did not come from the tape. They came from the life I was living.

Memory loss does not erase the past. It changes how I access it.

This morning, as the coffee finishes brewing, I think about how my children are now standing where I once stood. They are making memories their children will carry forward, whether clearly or imperfectly. Whether through direct recall or through stories, photos, or recordings.

That feels like continuity. Not loss.

I do not want Christmas 1992 back. I would not trade the present for it. I would not want to rewind the tape and step inside. But I am grateful it exists. Grateful that I can visit it. Grateful that it reminds me that I did the thing I was supposed to do.

I raised children who now create Christmas for others.

That feels like success, even if the house is quieter now.

There is a temptation, when you lose memories, to treat remembering as the goal. To measure yourself by what you can still reach. I am learning that remembering is only one way of knowing a life mattered.

Sometimes you know because the next generation is doing fine.
Sometimes you know because a room once filled with noise now holds peace.
Sometimes you know because an old tape is prof there was joy.

The coffee is ready. I pour a cup and sit with it for a while. I do not rush the morning. I do not need to fill the quiet. It is already doing its job.

This is a good day. A softer one. A reflective one.

And if I can only remember some Christmases through a screen, that is enough. They are still mine.