[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KDLvClhSQ8&feature=related 450 300]

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I don’t know about you guys, but we’re on our third bottle of wine ovah heah, while we put together the last implements of Christmas with the extended families. It’s gotten me into a reminiscing mood…

Since even before I was married and before I had all these great kids, I’ve been spending Christmas with the Kentucky side of the family. For more than a decade and a half of that time, our Christmas was spent in the remote mountains of Eastern Kentucky, where my father in law was “King” and as was his due, he lived in a large house on top of a mountain surrounded by trees and rivers and vast quiet. It was sublime, as the house was big enough to accommodate all of his daughters, their husbands, and children at Christmastime. What’s more, even filled with people like that, one could always find a quiet room with a fireplace to devour a book that had been pushed aside by the exigencies of city life.

I would usually take the entire week between Christmas and New Year’s off, and even if I was busy at work and had some end of year fire drills to march through, I would find that the stillness would soothe my soul, and ready me for the new year ahead. I think the atmosphere of that environment took all we temporary residents back a step. No one thought of putting on the TV, but there was music playing in the background all week long. Even with all of their cousins present, it seemed that the kids were better behaved in that place. We were at peace.  I miss it terribly.

In more recent years, my in-laws retired and moved back to the city to be near their grandchildren, and now live in a lovely double-townhouse in the Victorian section of town. We still all come for Christmas and the music is still here, but as you may imagine it’s a vastly different experience from the frost-rimed woods and the ash-colored mountains of those earlier Yuletides.

Still, the joy of family is the same, and if anything, the bonds have become stronger as a result. We, who have evolved from strangers, have become cohorts in building this next generation present among us. This Christmas, and Christmases forward, we can begin to take pleasure in unwrapping the presents we’ve wrought for ourselves. They are mighty.

I wish a blessed Christmas season to you all, my friends, and much joy in the New Year.

 

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[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlsJD8RlhbI&feature 450 300]

(Wow, this is cool!)

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And let nothing ye dismay!

Seeing my kids get all hopped up with Christmas greed in anticipation of Coca-Cola/Norman Rockwell Santa  (note the date)  has me reminiscing back to my own childhood Christmases as one of six kids in a crowded household in western Nassau County, Lawn Guyland.

My Mom and Dad were freaks for Christmas, you see, even in the bad years when they couldn’t really afford it.  They always made it special for us, bills be damned.  If we reeeally, really wanted something — even a Red Ryder BB-gun (I asked for and got one even before that movie had made its debut), we’d be sure to get it.  

Don’t get me wrong — they were hard as flint the rest of the year, but on Christmas they were marshmallows and couldn’t do enough for their little ones.  That’s Irish Christmas I guess.  And now that I’m old I can get all Irish-Sentimental about it. 

Forgive, for this night at least.

My folks were so strong on the spirit of the Day, and for all its bells and whistles, I don’t know many who can compare in this century.   Every season, my dad would string the big, multi-colored bulb lights out on the rhododendron bushes with many a muttered curse,  and my Mom would carefully place the white incandescent candles in all the windows, along with the fragrant evergreen wreaths on the front door.  Inside, the joint would be festooned with Santas, Frostys, Rudolphs and their incongruous holiday rivals–  the myriad somber and serious Nativity collections.  On the turntable, Johnny Mathis and Elvis platters dominated the holiday music scene, but even Barbra Streisand got a healthy workout, Christmas-tune-wise.

But for Santa and his over-the-top largesse, my parents carried a special place in their hearts.  In analyzing it today, I can only ascribe their fervor for Santa to their pent-up generosity, and their desire to give anonymously so as not to somehow “spoil” us.  Even when I was in college, my mother wouldn’t even wink at the notion that my holiday presents came from anywhere else but the North Pole.   And as younger kids, year after year, my Dad would go to great lengths to keep us within the ranks of the credulous…

I remember one night in the late seventies, when I was approaching that age when we are all wont to give up on Santa Claus for good.  I was the oldest boy in the family and with four brother below me, my Dad had to come up with something that would keep me a member of the tribe.  So, long before “Santa Norad” and other on-line Christmas cheer, my Dad came up with the idea of “Calling Santa Control,” on the phone in our kitchen.  

He would dial a number on that old long-corded wall phone, listen intently, nod “yes, yes” with an always-serious mein, and then, placing his hand over the receiver, would tell us Santa was just passing Paris, or Madrid, or wherever, on his way to North America.   Of course, my closest-in-order brother and I, being of the skeptical age, would ask to “listen in.”   He would be obliging, and would then hold the phone up to our ears — one at a time — where we would hear a very official sounding voice telling us something very official that we would not really be able to fully make out.  He only held the phone to our ears for about ten seconds, you see.

Long enough.  He had my brother and I for at least another year, and with us convinced, the whole brood was satisfied.   A magic man, my dad, and at his best in the Season.  

Merry Christmas, my friends, Merry merry Christmas to you all.

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God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen : Lyrics

From God our Heavenly Father
A blessed Angel came;
And unto certain Shepherds
Brought tidings of the same:
How that in Bethlehem was born
The Son of God by Name.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

“Fear not then,” said the Angel,
“Let nothing you affright,
This day is born a Saviour
Of a pure Virgin bright,
To free all those who trust in Him
From Satan’s power and might.”
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

The shepherds at those tidings
Rejoiced much in mind,
And left their flocks a-feeding
In tempest, storm and wind:
And went to Bethlehem straightway
The Son of God to find.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

And when they came to Bethlehem
Where our dear Saviour lay,
They found Him in a manger,
Where oxen feed on hay;
His Mother Mary kneeling down,
Unto the Lord did pray.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy

Now to the Lord sing praises,
All you within this place,
And with true love and brotherhood
Each other now embrace;
This holy tide of Christmas
All other doth deface.
O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy
O tidings of comfort and joy
 

 

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