Christmas wasn’t just the rare chance to get new toys and books, it was the time of year that mom usually felt the best and was happy and positive and awake in the morning. It was the time of year when the house was clean and we did crafts together in the evenings and had company over to decorate cookies with. There were Christmas records on as I fell asleep at night and a sense of safety and security. Mom wasn’t going to spiral down in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Like Johnny Mathis crooned, at Christmas-time, I could count on her.
In the manic roller-coaster ride of living with her, Christmas was always that highest pinnacle of “up” time before the deep plunge down in January. We never had just the one tree that would remain in the living room until late April; we usually had at least five or six. The framed art on the wall was switched to paintings of the Christmas story by Fra Fillipo Lippi, and Da Vinci. Mom assembled her beautifully detailed nativity scene on three shelves of the china cabinet. Little antiqued scrolls with quotes from Luke and Mathew hung in each scene. The three Magi wore robes of Indian silk and velvet and escorted camels from Iran burdened with gifts, the shepherds and their flock stood in a field of rocks and twig-trees, the angel hovering over their heads, an outburst of light surrounding her. The holy family was nestled in a stable covered in moss, carpeted with hay and populated with carved wooden animals. Sitting and listening to my favorite Christmas music while looking at these scenes was one of my favorite things during Christmas. Mom had made a perfect environment for the baby Jesus. This baby was tended and loved and surrounded by people. Even the ox and the ass looked with love towards him.
Every evening we would open a window of the old advent calendar mom had bought for herself when she was a child. It was a scene of a bustling street in some old-world town. Behind each window there was a numerical reference to a passage in the bible, again from Luke or Mathew, chronologically telling with each night, the story of the birth of Christ. I would sit in her lap in the giant old leather armchair that had been my grandfathers, and she would read the passage to me.
On Christmas eve, after the milk, cookies and nine carrots had been left out for santa, and my letter to him had been written, we would light candles, turn out the lights, and listen to Handel’s Messiah, a tradition my grandmother started, only at her house it was always in front of the fire accompanied by shrimp cocktail for me and real cocktails for the adults. These times together were so peaceful and nourishing, it is a surprise I did not turn out to be religious. Instead, I just became very attached to Christmas.
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