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Childhood memories of Christmas last forever as vividly as if they were yesterday. |
Keepsakes of Christmas ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In my dream it is Christmas. George is at the desk in the back bedroom at the window overlooking the Mississippi building a gasoline engine model airplane. The Everly Brothers are singing “‘Til I Kissed Ya” on the portable record player. Jim is doodling on a pad of paper making cartoons that really move as you fan through the pages. Tom is wrapping the presents he bought for everybody with the real silver money he made on the paper route, and he lets me watch. Mary is brushing Polly’s long, golden hair while the paint dries on the ceramic piggy bank she has just finished. Polly is a little girl so cute and bubbly her entire being sings "Merry Christmas." Dave is an anachronism in this scene, yet in my dream he is a toddler running around the house in a way-too-big-for-him Green Bay Packer helmet taking a hand-off of a brand new football from brother George. Mom has put a stack of Christmas records on downstairs; Mitch Miller has just finished and now Mantovani’s “Silent Night” flows from the console stereo downstairs. Mom is mixing up batter for Tom & Jerry's, humming to the music. Dad is coming up the basement stairs after plugging in the light on the nativity scene out front. Mom is spooning the batter into the Santa Claus mugs and the milk on the stove is almost warm enough. Soon she will call us all together for a drink as smooth, peaceful, and warm as Christmas. The dreams diffuse then into memories of presents given and received, midnight masses, snowy evenings, and babies -- nieces and nephews, sons and daughters, and grandchildren. Babies growing before our eyes to children, growing then too old for toys and sitting at the big table with the adults. The dream gives way to reality. I am again grown with my own children, trying to engineer Christmases that will somehow measure up in my children’s memories to the splendor in my own mind of Christmases past. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |