3 more days to wait my dear, Christmas Day will then be here!

Yes, today is Sunday December 22.  I cannot believe how quickly time passes.  Of course if you are a kid, time goes slower the closer we get to Christmas.  In the meantime, let’s recognize the birthdays of Luca della Robbia, Giacomo Puccini and Marius F Duintjer.  Today, in 401, St. Innocent I began his reign as Catholic Pope, in 1882 the first string of Christmas tree lights was created by Thomas Edison and in 1976 “Your Arm’s Too Short to Box With God” opened at the Lyceum Theater in New York City.  It is the Day of National Mourning in Mexico and International Arbor Day, world-wide. 

As you may recall, last week I vented regarding winter songs posing as Christmas songs.  I heard an actual Christmas song the other day that I have long had a problem with.  Not the whole song, mind you, just one particular phrase.  I have puzzled over the meaning of this phrase for years and have yet to understand it.  The song is “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.”  The phrase comes toward the middle and then again at the end – “Everyone’s dancin’ merrily in the new old fashioned way.”  What does that mean?  Is there an old old fashioned way?  Do the people have to be dancing “merrily” for it to be qualified as new old fashioned?  Just wondering.

As we get closer to the holiday, I find myself ruminating on years past and the “joys” of Christmas as a kid.  When my brothers, my sister and I were all children there were a number of rituals that we had to participate in each year.  We, of course, had to listen to the Christmas albums by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, “The Sounds of Christmas” and “’Twas the Night Before Christmas” numerous times as the big day approached.  Back then you did not have the options for music that you have now.  You didn’t have every person who thinks they can sing attempting to milk the Christmas cash cow (or should it be reindeer) by putting together a cheesy selection of schmaltzy … but I digress.

My mother would spend the better part of the month of December baking cookies.  Now I am not talking three or four varieties.  I am talking about at least 20 varieties and double batches.  She made Snickerdoodles, press cookies, cream cheese cookies, several types of Toll House and on and on.  She made two types of fruit cake.  She made red and green jello candy and more.  These cookies were all carefully stored in large tins and labeled so that we would know which was which.  The rule was that the cookies were not to be eaten until Christmas Day.  I know it is hard to believe with four kids in the house, but generally, that rule was obeyed, at least as far as anyone knew.  I was always careful not to take more than one or two at a time and never the same variety more than twice.

In the beginning of the month we were each given a small Christmas tree.  Each day we were good, we would get lights and then ornaments to decorate our trees.  I know this will come as a surprise to some of you, but there were times when my tree was rather sparsely done up.  One year, all I had was the lights and one year just a bare tree.  I had behavior issues.  When it came time to decorate the big tree, the rule was you could decorate until you broke an ornament.  I used to help, making sure that the ornaments I liked were up, including the ones with my name on them.  After a while I would get bored, so I would pick a ball I did not like, drop it and break it so I could go out and play.  I was never sure if my parents ever caught on to what I was doing or if they figured it was easier to just let me go.

Christmas morning was a challenge.  We would all get up and my brothers and I would find that Santa had left us matching shirts on our beds.  No offense, but Santa had poor taste in shirts and was very misled if he thought we all wanted to look the same.  We would all line up at the top of the stairs, in our pajamas, while my father took what seemed like forever to get his camera ready.  Then we would go down to find our stockings, that had been hung by the chimney with care, filled to the brim with stuff.  In front of the fire place was a huge pile of presents.  Some boys who lived down the street from us and did not celebrate Christmas told us that there was no such thing as Santa.  Looking at that pile of presents each year, I did not care how they got there, just as long as some of them had my name on the tag.

We would unload the goodies from the stockings very quickly.  Here was where the biggest problem came.  No presents could be opened until everyone had eaten breakfast and gotten dressed.  Are you kidding me?  But that was the rule and you did not want to break a rule like that on Christmas morning.  We would all rush up to get dressed in our (ugh) matching shirts and then line up, again, on the stairs.  We could not go down until everyone was ready.  Then we would rush down and my brother Jack would distribute the gifts, making sure that we all had one opened before giving out the next ones. 

 

By now, my mother had the first round of cookies out on trays and ready for consumption.  It was the one day of the year that we were allowed to have dessert with breakfast and we took advantage of it.  We ate and played with our toys until it was time to go to my Grandmother’s house.  What always amazed me was that my grandparents, as stuffy and old fashioned as they seemed, had an artificial pink Christmas tree that they put up each year.  Ah, memories.

This week our fact tells us that 400 hundred quarter pounders can be made from one cow.  It does not tell us what is done with the rest of the cow.  I am hoping there are steaks and roasts involved.

I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas filled with love, joy, happiness, family, friends, good food and drink and good times.  Let us all dance merrily in the new old fashioned way.