"So what are you going to do today," asked my brother in Florida, this morning, "once the kids are off with their dad for the weekend?"
"I don't know for sure yet," I replied, "but it probably involves going to bed early, without any lullaby squabbling! They sound like a St. Bernard versus a Chihuahua!" (My 12th grade son versus my 5th grade daughter.)
VH1 Classic is showing "A Hard Day's Night" tonight (6 pm MST), so I expect bedtime will very shortly follow that. I'm unable to distract myself from taking the opportunity for reminiscing - particularly now that there's no barking! This is a bit of a milestone Christmas, you see, and it has me in a happy/sad mood.
Part of my happy-sadness is to remember my own 5th grade Christmas in 1968. That had been a particularly rough year: early in September, my father was stricken with colon cancer. He was hospitalized for over two months. Back in those days, you could not visit hospital patients if you were under 12 years of age (I was 10); nor were there telephones in the hospital rooms. I didn't see him from about Labor Day until just before Thanksgiving.
But he was home - and so was the above-mentioned big brother, from 4 years with the Navy in Vietnam. Enough said? Adding to the joy was my next brother, home with us halfway through his own Navy stint in Honolulu. The family legend is that Older Bro was on the jet coming home, making (he claimed) considerable progress with a stewardess - when he was hailed by a familiar voice, that of Middle Bro, coincidentally on the same flight. (He probably was doing quite well - until my son grew up, Big Bro was the handsomest man of my acquaintance.)
I don't remember what presents I got, that Christmas - and I only assume Mom pulled out all the usual stops in feeding us, particularly with her two beloved stepsons back in her clutches for a while. It was the first Christmas since 1964 that we all had been together, parents and siblings and maternal grandparents and great-aunts, the sum and total kindred of my childhood.
And of course it was also the last Christmas together. My grandfather passed away the following February - I think, now, about my poor mom going through all this - but at the time I was only 10, just beginning to learn about the precipitous swings life sometimes takes.
The current 5th grader is happy with her haul - a skinny jeans outfit; two colors of nail polish (purple and teal); five flavors of lip balm; earrings and a fancy case for storing them; and a total of $50, part of which is destined to be spent on more jewelry. "I just don't have enough earrings," she complained to her uncle. A 5th grader! This is all very grown up stuff, sounding more like the "takes" I got as a young woman. But the little kids are maturing so quickly! Most of the girls by 5th grade have begun the physical changes, my girl included. Also, this is the first year she didn't badger me to see Santa Claus - though she claimed to be keeping in touch with him on the internet.
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My senior-in-high-school Christmas came in 1975. The brothers were in their own homes by this time. My Grandma (I miss you, Granny!) lived with us, but the grand aunts stubbornly kept to their own house. That year, I proudly handled the chauffeur duties myself, freeing Mom and Grandma to work their usual culinary magic.
I don't remember feeling particularly sentimental about "my last Christmas at home." It seemed that the smaller the family circle grew, the less pleasant life became. Dad was volatile, and with my brothers gone I had become the object and target of the volatility. Daily life for me was defined then as "hanging in there" until I could get away.
That my mom felt what I could not, is evidenced by the fact that it was the one and only holiday of my life, in which the presents were knee-deep. Mom's (and Grandma's) excuse was that I'd be off to college next year, which would necessarily put a financial crimp in the festivities. My dad groused about it, naturally, referring to the presents as "a glut."
The mother-child roles have passed on to another generation: my boy is champing at the bit, and I'm the one sniffling. (I can proudly state that I did not commence blubbering until he was gone off to his dad's!) He is as eager as I was, though I hope not for the same reasons.
I remember also how I felt "coming home" from Ann Arbor, for Christmas 1976. For the first time, I had done my own Christmas shopping for my family; I loved being able to contribute as an adult to the celebration. I think - when my mom opened her package to find the softest, cosiest, warmest bathrobe Jacobsen's had to offer - I think it opened her eyes to a different dimension of Christmas, by no means inferior to previous holidays. Perhaps it will be the same for my son.
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Peace to you and yours, today and throughout 2010!