Tis the Season

“Tis the season”, but what “the season” actually is varies amongst individuals. December is definitely a month in which you reap exactly what you sow. For example, if

you’re a Grinch and decide you hate Christmas and all that goes with it, then you are most certainly in

for a very long, arduous month. On the other hand, if you throw yourself into the holiday festivities with cheer and gusto, there’s no end to the joy you’ll take away from it all.

Personally, the month leading up to Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year. When I was a kid, there was no end to the holiday traditions we concocted, and even now, some of those traditions remain in tact. Mom stills buys a new puzzle or Lego set for us to work on (adults that we now are) on Christmas Eve, while watching Christmas movies and drinking homemade hot cocoa. Dad and I still make vast amounts of Spritz cookies at the beginning of December, just the two of us, filling buckets full of the tiny, Crisco-y delights, which always last until New Years. Icicle boy twinkle lights still hang on the mantel amid our stockings, the only change being that now the quantity of stockings which hang there has joyously grown as we’ve added new members to our family.

Next weekend, Old Fashioned Christmas in Wilmore will take place, which has always been my favorite Wilmore festival. All of the little shops on Main Street hold open houses, encouraging people to come in out of the cold, receive refreshments, listen to live Christmas music, and then venture back out onto the street to repeat the process all over again. Hundreds of Wilmorons walk up and down Main Street, sharing Christmas together as they reunite after not having seen each other in some cases since the festival the previous year.

When I was in Middle school, I can remember my friend Mary and I having sleepovers on the evening of December 22^nd, carrying over into December 23^rd, which we cleverly referred to as “Christmas Adam”, it being the day before Christmas Eve. We would watch as many Christmas movies as our brains could process, working on craft projects as we watched.

Back in the days before my brothers and I got too wise for our own good, we had many questions about Santa Claus. We each had our own personal elf we would write letters to in a spiral notebook, leaving it out on the kitchen table when we went to bed. When we woke up the next morning, our letters would have been answered by our elf friends (mine’s name was Elizabeth), and sometimes a treat or two would be left as well. Once I remember Elizabeth’s handwriting looking particularly like Dad’s, and when I confronted him on this matter, he admitted to being the letter writer that one time, because when he’d woken up and seen Elizabeth had not been to the house to leave a response to my letter, he had not wanted me to feel upset, so he’d intervened.

There was a magic elf that Mom made back before memory, that had green yarn hair, a red elf suit with bells on the toes and a little black belt around his middle, and eyes that remained closed, in a happy, sleepy state. Every year when we’d put up our Christmas tree and unpack our decorations, we’d take the magic elf out of his red flannel sack, and each member of our family sprinkled him with the magic glitter dust kept in a vile inside the bag. After everyone had sprinkled him (including our dog, Lucky), we’d place him under the Christmas tree, and the next morning when we awoke, he would have hidden himself someplace in the living room. Every morning we found him in a new place, and after he had been discovered by all, we’d place him carefully back under the tree, so that he could hide again the next night. This was a daily ritual up until Christmas Eve, when Santa would take him back to the North Pole, and we wouldn’t see him again until the next year.

Back in the days when Dad was the pastor of different Churches, December was a month of wrapping gifts to take with us the nursing home, where we’d sing carols to the inhabitants. One year a lady told Mom that she had the most beautiful singing voice she’d ever heard, and I think that’s when Mom developed a soft spot for crazy, old people. We’d carol door to door in various neighborhoods as well, and I can’t remember ever having had more fun than I did on those cold nights of spontaneous singing.

I have a thousand such memories that I’m sure will never fade, and I suppose they are what make the entire Christmas season such a joy for me. I am looking forward to all of the parties and celebrations that will take place throughout the coming month, and I hope that you are too.