Vision of Something Dancing in Your Head Vision of Something Dancing in Your Head
"Do we have to go to church now," I asked. "Mr. Magoo is almost over."
It didn't matter, I already knew the answer. Fortunately, church was a five minute trip; so it was only the last few minutes we'd miss of each episode. Every Friday night during the weeks preceding Christmas we would go to church, and while it was short by normal Sunday standards, it took us away from our beloved Christmas cartoons. I don't think we ever saw a complete Mr. Magoo cartoon, nor the conclusions of classics such as "Jack Frost" or "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer".
While in church, I never really paid much attention to what was going on. I would look straight ahead and daydream, "I wonder if I'm going to get that Fort Apache I want...will we go look at Christmas decorations tonight after Mass...I can't wait for Christmas vacation...and so on". The parish priest would rush through the Mass "compulsoraries", provide a short lecture related to the night's scriptures, and along the way we'd sing a few songs. We'd rush out to the cold car, squeeze tightly together for warmth until dad's car would begin to warm up, and on the way home look at the snow which twinkled under the dimly lit street lights.
As we made our way home, it was hard to distinguish the road from the snow covered yards. Once the first snow storm hit, which usually occurred around Thanksgiving , it stayed on the ground for the rest of the winter. Each snow that followed accumulated on top of the previous snow falls. This was the typical pattern that played out year over year in the sub-tundra. Before the days of snow melting chemicals, the snow was either shoveled off the road or loaded into trucks to be moved to the outskirts of town. Because of this, many cars had their tires wrapped in chains, and when studded tires became available, "studs" replaced chains. But it was this indistinguishableness that made these trips back home so wonderful. It looked so peaceful outside, and when the moon shined on the snow, it had this Christmas glow, and reassured everyone that Christmas was only a few weeks away.
The season's highlight was the school Christmas program. Everyone in town attended this extravaganza. The Smith family learned over the years that we could get everyone into the car at 5 minutes before the program started, and still arrive at the school auditorium early. Some of us would rush to our classrooms, and the rest of the family would find seats in the bleachers. It was the first Christmas program that I remember the most, even though it was 1959. I remember being on stage with 60 other first graders whom were dressed as silver bells, Santa Clauses, fairies and elves. Of course, since Tim and I were among the shortest first graders, we were selected to be one of Santa's elves.
The day the Christmas tree came to our house was also a day to celebrate. Selecting the tree was a family event, and when dad yelled out, "who wants to come with me to pick out the Christmas Tree?", we would all rush to put on our parkas and buckle up our rubber snow boots. Over the years, dad would buy trees from various places, but in later years we would buy our tree out of a lot next to the Five and Dime store. After dad made the selection, the tree would be tied to the top of the station wagon, and we'd hurry on home. Once home, the tree would be placed on the front porch. Since the tree generally remained in the house through Little Christmas, dad and mom did not want the tree erected early. And so it would remain of the porch for several weeks.
Sometime in mid December, and generally on a Friday night, dad would announce, "Its time to decorate the tree." With that he would set up the tree stand and bring in the nearly frozen tree. As the tree entered the house, the tree's fragrance filled the house; and this only added to the excitement. As we assembled the decorations, dad would test the lights. Soon the tree would be glowing with red, green and blue bulbs; and the nondescript decorations would adorn the tree's branches. As with every year, the Smith children would add enough tinsel to the tree that it sometimes became hard to see the Christmas ornaments.
Once the tree was complete, dad would command, "Get your pajamas on, kids. I want to take pictures." Normally, this meant there would be a few pictures of us, and few more pictures of the tree without us. But one year, dad decided that he wanted to take a special shot of all his children sitting beneath the tree...looking longingly at the angel that capped its peak. After a few pictures, I grew weary of these redundant poses.
"How many more pictures are we going to take?" I whined.
"One more picture," ordered dad.
"I'm tired of looking up at the tree," I argued. "Can't we do something else."
At that dad whacked me over the head, and ...it hurt! My eyes started to well up with tears, as I struggled to look at the tree again.
Then dad barked at me, "Now look happy!"
Putting up the Christmas tree brought back memories to mom, especially of her depression era Christmas Eves. Mom would relate how the Christmas tree would mysteriously be decorated while her family would be at Christmas Eve Midnight Mass. When she returned home after church, not only would the tree be lit but there would be gifts under the tree. It seemed that Santa Clause always knew when she would be in church. Many years later she learned that her older brothers would leave church early, get the tree decorated, put out the gifts, while her parents would stall coming home by idly chatting with other parishioners. I suspect that mom was no different than any other child, and nagging her parents to get home "because Santa may already be there."
Ultimately Christmas Eve would come. After dinner we would watch a little TV, but generally the programs were either musical or religious in nature. Because these kinds of programs didn't interest us, we would find other things to do. Sometimes we would open the bible and look at the colorful pictures that graced its pages, but we normally would go to bed hoping to fall asleep early. More often than not, the excitement was too great, and falling asleep early never was in the cards. One year, Tim and I opened up our presents from the Ryans on Christmas Eve, and inside were pajamas that glowed in the dark. Mom told us to put them on, so that we would be wearing new pajamas for Christmas morning pictures . When we went to bed, we kept turning the lights on and off. I would guess at least an hour, so we could view the glowing footballs on the front and phosphorescent numbers on the back. Another year, I apparently ate something that didn't agree with me; and I passed some "gas from the rectum" that was so bad, it cleared the room...even I had to leave.
But every year, without exception, dad would leave the house about 10:00 o'clock and return a half an hour later. While we wondered if it was true that there wasn't a Santa Clause, we didn't want to give up our belief in Santa Clause. We ignored the obvious, and decided that dad went downtown to do something at work. At some point we would fall asleep, but would be awakened by noise downstairs during the wee hours. On one occasion I left my bed and quietly made my way out to the hallway banister. Apparently others had heard the same noise.
"Do you hear that?", asked V.J. quietly.
"Yeah, I hear paper tearing," said Timmy softly. "I also hear someone moving down there."
"Do you think its Santa?" I asked in the same tone.
"It must be," said V.J.
We just waited by the rail, and the possibility of Santa setting up toys downstairs made this moment very magical. There was no talking downstairs. Just a lot of sounds like boxes opening, paper tearing, and other unidentifiable sounds. After awhile, the lights went off...and it became quiet.
"Do you think its safe to go downstairs?" Asked V.J.
"Don't know." said Timmy. "We should wait for awhile longer."
So we waited quietly...waiting for just the right opportunity to sneak downstairs and see what Santa Clause left us. After a short while, we made our way back to our bedroom. Now we could be less quiet, and the real strategizing could take place. At some point we made our way back to the banister.
"Hey the lights downstairs are on." Exclaimed Timmy
"Someone should check it out," I said; and with that all three of us made our way down the steps quietly. When we reached the landing we found out why the lights were on. It was Stevie. He came downstairs by himself, and found the toys left by Santa Clause and decided to turn on the lights and play with some of the toys. We immediately turned off the lights, and rushed him upstairs. It had been confirmed...Santa came and left toys...now, we would wait until 6:30 to awaken mom and dad along with the rest of the family.
On Christmas morning, there wasn't any real order in opening our presents. It was pandemonium, and scattered among the gift wrap and ribbons were toys that we received as gifts. Opening gifts can work up an appetite, so occasionally we would search through our Christmas stockings to find something to eat. The stockings were filled with the predictable fare that Santa Claus left each year - ribbon candy, nuts, some chocolate, and generally something healthy like an orange. As was also predictable, the floor became completely covered with gift wrapping, and just as predictable mom would order us to help her clean the mess off the living room floor. We had to be careful so that toys, or parts of toys, weren't thrown out by mistake.
Just as we would get into playing with our new toys, dad would make another announcement: "It's time for church." We would reluctantly run upstairs with new clothes in hand. It was easy for the boys - we did not have to comb our hair as we all had butch haircuts; and as for routines around personal hygiene, I'm not certain that we even owned a toothbrush. We would hastily throw on the new clothes we received as Christmas gifts, run back downstairs as fast as we could, so we could have a more precious minutes to play with our toys before we headed off to church.
There is one fact that every Smith child understood - Christmas Mass was the "longest" service of the year. After church we would head home to play with our toys again. Because it was a special day, mom would make breakfast and prepare for Christmas dinner. Dad would watch a football game, while we would begin inspecting what everyone else received as gifts. We enjoyed playing with the new toys we received, but at some point the anticipation of Christmas would begin to wear off. Sometimes we would fight over the toys, such as the time that V.J. didn't want to give up a toy rifle, so he broke it over my head. Normally, it was fairly quiet as we were deep in our pretend battles, boyfriend issues between Barbie and Ken, or creating some new experiment with the Chemistry set Santa delivered. Christmas came to an official end as soon as it was time for Christmas dinner, which usually was turkey with mashed potatoes, candied yams, and other wonderful preparations.
Story by Terry Smith