Christmas! What is there to say that I have not said? This will be my 68th Christmas. All the spirit, joy, sorrow, shopping, fun, rituals, kisses, bites, everything that a person must go through, I have gone through. What is there to say about this Christmas that will make it different from years past?
I am not really ready for this season. Instead I’ve been working on getting jewelry done for delivery and am not sure I will finish but — so what? Nobody will die. My Christmas presents, such as they are, are piled on my dining room table, which, at any rate, is too long for the single person who eats there every day at least twice. So one end is reserved for my eating space. The rest is clutter space. And that space is full.
I don’t even have a Christmas list, very inefficient of me. But I don’t have the spirit and even that doesn’t bother me. I know I will get things together. If we live through today, I will have time to get the gifts done and delivered maybe on time for Christmas or maybe the day after Christmas. So what if I’m late? I can deliver gifts until the feast of the Epiphany, which is the Sunday after New Year, which strangely next year is January 6, as it was traditionally.
When I was small the feast of the Three Kings was one I really looked forward to. My mother would tell me to take three pairs of my favorite shoes and put them on the window sill. I would shine them to make sure they were clean and pretty. In the morning I would wake up delighted to find them filled with candy, plastic balloon, all sorts of little delightful things.
Maybe I should have kept my childhood beliefs — Santa Claus, the Three Kings, Ratoncito Perez, my mom’s version of the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. They gave me the holiday spirit. Christmas was always something I genuinely looked forward to because of Santa, who would always bring me the gifts I desired most. He would write on a card in his odd large penmanship and wrap his gifts differently from my mommy’s gifts. He was quite a guy. He and the Three Kings filled my little life with Christmas spirit. But when you’re old and the grandmother of adults — where is the joy?
I remember when my eldest daughter dashed my dreams of perpetuating the Easter Bunny with her son, my oldest grandson. She had turned Christian when he was small. I was so excited about making Easter eggs when she stopped me and said it was not allowed in their church. Huh? Why not? It’s a very charming ritual and I love painting the eggs. No, Mom, I’m sorry, she said, but my son can’t believe in the Easter Bunny. That son is 28 now.
Ah, but there is the joy! This year for the first time the four children of my eldest daughter will be home for Christmas. They will join us for lunch at my youngest daughter’s house. We will roast a turkey. I will teach my daughter how to roast a turkey. That thought excites me. I have made a mental list of the things I will need. I will get them on December 23 and bring them on the 24th.
Once upon a time I was the roaster of turkeys. I have made them every way imaginable because once upon a time I was a very good cook. I would make them traditionally stuffed with a mixture of pork and beef bound with rice, raisins, chestnuts, celery and carrots. Once in the States I decided to stuff the turkey with fruit and to baste it with hoisin sauce. That was quite delicious. Now the children have grown and flown and so have some grandchildren. I think the last time I roasted a turkey for Christmas was 17 years ago, the year my grandson Julian was born. That was the last happy Christmas I remember us having.
Until this year, I hope, when we will mostly be together again. Now I have gotten myself excited not over the holidays but over seeing my grandchildren again. They are tall, handsome and the girl is lovely. I will take her shopping after Christmas and buy her things she might want to take back. I will love all of them and shower them with whatever goodies I can think of starting but not ending with the turkey, which their aunt will roast. I will simply teach.
That is the wonder of Christmas this year that I had somehow managed to forget until I had to write this article. My three grandchildren, who are usually not here, will be here. I will see them for a while but I love them dearly whether they are near or far.