Pioneer Valley Days

Where It Began

Christmas Past, Part 12: 1950

“You’re being interviewed for my blog. Do you have a few minutes?”

It was Sunday afternoon, just yesterday, and while Jenn and I prepared to watch another methodical dismantling of an opponent by the Patriots, Mom was busy in North Carolina making preparations for Christmas Eve dinner. But yes, she had time. She always has time, even when she doesn’t. I asked her over the phone to recall her own typical childhood Christmas in Pennsylvania.

“My earliest Christmas memory,” she began, “was going to my Dad’s parents’ house — that was my Baba and my Zeddo, which are Slovak for Grandmom and Grandpop.” They lived in Freeland, about a half-hour drive — maybe 10 minutes today — from Mom’s childhood home in Hazleton. “All of my Dad’s Slovak side of the family were there. They had a big, coal-burning stove in the kitchen, this huge thing that really warmed up the room.

“They had two living rooms back to back,” she continued, immediately bringing to my mind the similar setup of Nana and Pop Pop’s later house in Bridgeport. “They had a live tree which took up almost a whole room, and on a wooden platform they had a train that went around, and a little village set up under the tree. And there was a nativity set, with sheep that had real wool stuck to them. I would delicately pick them up and look at them.”

But the central moment was the meal. “The table was really expanded — I assume they had at least two tables put together,” Mom said. “My Baba was about as fat as she was tall, and my Zeddo was tall and skinny like a pencil. They were like Jack Sprat and his wife. She would make pierogis from scratch, and they always had this mushroom soup that was kind of weird, but really good — even to the kids, believe it or not. The only other Polish food I remember other than the poppyseed and nut bread was the bobalki, the poppyseed balls.

“My Mom was Italian, and Italians always ate fish on Christmas Eve, so we would always have a plate of fried smelts. The Slovak side loved them, and always insisted that she bring them — and they would always disappear.”

As they headed home after dinner each year, she said, “I always worried that we wouldn’t get back in time for Santa, and I was always looking at the sky to see if I could see him. I don’t remember getting a lot of things for Christmas, but I got some really good gifts. I got a Noma doll in 1950 or 1951; it was an electronic talking doll, and nobody else had it. I can’t imagine how I got this toy, because we were poor, but I’ve never seen another one.

“I also remember getting the biggest tricycle ever; my father had to tie wooden blocks to the pedals so I could reach them. And there was the Flexible Flyer sled that no one else had. And one year, my mother stayed up late sewing every night, and that Christmas, laid out on the floor was a total wardrobe for my favorite doll. She made all those clothes. And the Brownie camera I got in fourth or fifth grade was so cool that I wore it around my neck for a whole week.

“I never received as many gifts as I gave to my own kids,” she recalled, “but those are the ones I remember the most.”

And there was one other memory — again, back at Baba and Zeddo’s Christmas Eve dinner table.“The Slovak people would get these hosts from church, but they were bigger, and we’d pass that around first, and put honey and a walnut on it. Then my Zeddo, who spoke very little English, would have everyone bow their heads, and then he would say a prayer in Slovak. He’d go on and on, and by the time he was finished, everyone would be crying, including my father, who was a big softie.”

Yup, I thought. Pop Pop never could make it through a prayer. He once cried watching the Pope say something or other on TV, and Nana looked at him like he had two heads.

“You know, it always disturbed me when he cried, like something was really sad,” Mom continued. “I wondered, ‘why is my father crying?’ My father said that he would always pray that the family would stay together, and that after they were gone, we would keep the tradition going. And when we moved to Connecticut, we continued the tradition here by eating the Slovak food and the Italian food.

“But after they were gone…”

She paused. We both know that the sharpness of traditions can become worn by the weather of passing decades. Mom is sad that we can’t all be together for the holiday anymore. I get a little down, too.

“You know, Christmas was always magical, and Christmas Eve was always special to all my kids,” she said, “but I think it was most special for you.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But we have Nate now.”

“That’s right,” Mom said. “And now you have to make your own memories. Everyone does.”

That's Right, Fork Over the Cash — and the Blocks

Christmas Past, Part 11: 1971

You realize, of course, that they had mommy blogs back in the Nixon years, too. They were called baby books. People had better handwriting then.

Mugging for the Camera

Christmas Past, Part 10: 1977

We had been living on Light Street for about a year when our first Christmas there rolled around. The tree was real, of course, but stationed to the left of the window. For some reason, it got moved to the right side the next year, and that's where we put it for the next 10 years. The star on top was a gaudy hunk of metal and glass that shined colorful W-shaped designs across the ceiling. I don't know what year brought us the hideous metal ball that made the bird sound, but my mind has never quite been able to suppress that infernal, metallic tweet-tweet-tweet-tweet-tweet.

The videos were dark in 1977, for some reason. It was the first of several Christmases in Stratford for which my stepdad played videographer, and the lighting improved in later years. It was basic 8mm film, run on a small projector, and we'd watch the movies on a blank patch of living-room wall a few weeks after the holidays died down. Sometimes we'd eat popcorn, made in the popper with real butter. Microwaved snacks weren't exactly common in those days, but maybe that was a good thing.

Many years later, my parents transferred those movies to videotape, and they became a rite of passage for whatever potential mate any of the kids brought home. I mean, if you could watch these things — me with the high-pitched screech announcing my haul of loot, Mom with her cigarette and coffee mug that read 'bitch bitch bitch' — and still want to be a member of this family, that was a good sign. When Jenn and I paid a visit to North Carolina recently, Tami and Jeff busted out those tapes — and also the ones we recorded during the 1990s, long past the cigarettes-and-bitches phase — and we laughed until our heads hurt. That stuff never gets old.

We also have video from the Blizzard of '78, the product of three colliding air masses that knocked the crap out of New England for several days in early February and left a couple of feet of snow in its wake. Tami, 18 months old and bundled to the brink of immobility, seemed to enjoy it for the most part, but then again, all the kids did. Why not? We weren't the ones who had to shovel.

My stepdad didn't stop there, of course. We had a sloping driveway, so when it snowed, he'd usually build Lori and I a toboggan run from street level down into the backyard. He was pretty cool like that.

As for those real Christmas trees, one year he had an plan. He bought one with the root ball intact, and he intended to plant it along the edge of the backyard — the first of many he would plant in a line, to mark all our years on Light Street. He dug out the hole before the ground froze, filled it in with leaves, and kept the dirt warm in the cellar. Come January, the two of us struggled and strained (well, mostly him), but we managed to get that first tree in the ground — where it stood, all by itself, for all the remaining years we lived in that house, a solitary monument to an idea abandoned. The neighbor's dog peed on it regularly, and eventually it, too, died.

Thanks a lot, bitch.

Runnin' with the Markers

Christmas Past, Part 9: 1980

I stole a pen from Mr. Nelson during the sixth grade -- a silver pen engraved with his monogram, CTN. Mom saw it at home one day, surmised its owner, and told me to return it to school. I don't think the theft was intentional; I was probably using it at his desk, accidentally stowed it in my bag, carried it home, and was too embarrassed to bring it back. It's amazing how moms can cut right through that crap. That might have been the year I was stealing money from her, too.

I clearly remember a few other images from sixth grade -- paper-triangle football on the oversized window ledge, getting my desk dumped several times for messiness (once in a single massive pile with other slackers, and having to sort out the contents), leaving Stonybrook School every Wednesday to take part in a citywide advanced-learning program, and (of course) winning eight out of 13 classroom spelling bees, perhaps the only moments I ever really felt important among my friends.

And I remember the last half-day before Christmas break. The general framework was arts and crafts, but we could pretty much do whatever we wanted. Good Catholic that I was, I drew (well, being a horrible artist, attempted to draw) a creche, complete with star, angel, Magi, sundry animals, the happy couple, and -- try this in today's public schools -- the Christ child himself. "I'm drawing a nativity scene," I proudly told Mr. Nelson as he strolled along, checking everyone's work and probably wondering why we all couldn't just stay home and break out the markers and glue there, him included.

But what I remember most about that day late in 1980 was Van Halen. Someone had brought a tape of the band's debut album, and kids were blaring "Jamie's Cryin'," "Runnin' with the Devil," and the like for a couple of hours. There might have been some AC/DC and Ramones thrown in, but Van Halen owned the day. I mean, sheesh -- would it have killed someone to play a Beatles song or two in honor of John Lennon, who had just died? I wrote a report on John that month. I drew his face for the cover, complete with those trademark round shades. To be honest, it turned out a lot better than the nativity scene.

"You know," Mr. Nelson intoned at one point, although he never did turn off the tunes, "when I said you guys could bring in music, I meant Christmas music."

Super Bad News

Christmas Past, Part 8: 1981

For more than a dozen years, I never had to help pack up the gifts and make the annual trek to Nana's house for Christmas Eve dinner, because I was already there. Once school let out, Mom would bring me (and, in later years, Jeff) to her parents' place around the 22nd or 23rd, and there I would relax, taking in the low-lit warmth (with occasional beneath-the-door drafts) of the living room, the smell of Pop Pop's pipe tobacco, and the green-painted ceramic tree peppered with tiny colored lights like cloves on a ham, lit by a small bulb inside. Nearby was a small, inexpensive nativity set that lost a little more straw off the roof every year, and two lightweight, faux-wood carvings of Mary and Joseph praying, with totally unrealistic serene expressions.

"You're pregnant? By who? I will kick his a--"
"Joseph, my darling ... it was ... it was ... God."
"Oh, he'll need God when I'm done with him. Who is he?"
"You know, you're not being very serene about this."

But I suppose people don't want their halls decked with statues wearing absolute WTF looks on their faces, so serenity is a good fallback. Anyway, that was pretty much the extent of Nana and Pop Pop's decorations. Somehow, it was enough.

Still, I was feeling a bit shorted in 1981. My early appearance at their house was no pre-Christmas tradition yet, just Mom bringing over a sick kid for the night. Maybe she just wanted me out of her hair during a hectic time, but more likely she figured the visit would make me feel better about missing out on the seventh-grade Christmas party at school. The class did a secret Santa exchange, and the random draw had paired me with Mike -- which was appropriate, because we had been fast friends from the September day I arrived as the new kid in school. He got a Rubik's Cube, which I sent to school that morning with my next-door neighbor, John. I got ... a phone call, around dinnertime.

Mike told me what he had bought me -- basically a cigar box filled with as many goodies as our $5 allowance would pay for: Crunch bars and other candy, baseball cards, stuff like that. And then he turned serious.

"Hey ... I have super bad news."

"What's that?" I said, with the same stuffed-up voice Rudolph uses when wooing Clarice for the first time, the difference being that my own father had not forcibly shoved the cold up my nose.

"Cindy doesn't like you anymore. She likes Chris. I heard she wrote his name on her stomach in pen. Debbie wrote Gene's name on hers."

Gene was an eighth-grader. I swear I am not making this up.

I had been informed earlier that first semester at my new school that Cindy kind of dug me, even though I had never actually, you know, talked to her. Our one phone conversation was excruciatingly brief and lacking in complete sentences. I'm still having anxiety attacks over it. But that was me as a kid, never able to talk to the gals as anything but friends. And now, amid the cruel chill of earliest winter, she had moved on to someone else. Her belly told me so. Through hearsay. That's cold.

I was actually depressed over this. Ten years old, and pining over an older girl I knew mainly from furtive glances across the asphalt at recess. On the other hand, I was in for some Crunch bars, which was kind of neat. Candy is something best appreciated as a penniless child, not as a working adult who can cross the street and raid CVS pretty much anytime he wants.

Christmas Eve dinner was the usual blend of Italian and Slovak traditions that I never questioned, only enjoyed -- fried smelts, pierogi, and, before the meal, those colorful, oversized Communion wafers topped by a dab of honey and a walnut.

On the way home, as Jose Feliciano's "Feliz Navidad" filled our otherwise quiet car with cheer, I had no way of realizing that a new tradition had been born. Christmas Eve always brought contentment and peace. But my nose was still stuffed, my throat was sore, and apparently, I wasn't about to join in any reindeer games.

Dollars and Scents

Christmas Past, Part 7: 1985

I never tended much to my hair. Even as a young teenager, I occasionally needed help combing it properly, a fact that my stepdad mortifyingly brought up once in front of some youth group friends in church. So when Emily, my pal and Bible Quiz teammate, bought me a hairbrush the week before Christmas in 1985, it was more than appropriate. You’d think I’d have improved my styling by now, but Jenn still wonders aloud when I'm going to do something about my hair.

I had to buy a return gift, of course. Having no money to speak of (I was 14, after all), I settled on an inexpensive blue bottle of perfume. And when I say inexpensive, I mean Marshalls-metal-sun inexpensive.

I should note that my gift-wrapping abilities have always been on par with my hairstyle, meaning kind of crappy – a fact that I’ve always compensated for with way too much tape. This came into play on Christmas morning, when I rode to church with my family, cradling my Bible and Emily’s wrapped gift on my lap – and suddenly realized that I had not removed the price tag. And, seriously, if there was ever a gift from which I wanted to remove the price tag, this was it.

Upon entering church, I immediately went to the back kitchen area to assess my options. I found some more tape … could I remember where the tag was, then somehow tear the wrapping paper just enough to get to the sticker, then retape? It was worth a shot.

Several shots later, between the excess layers of tape and some wildly incorrect guesses, the gift wrap was in ribbons, and I had not found the price. So I cut my losses and tossed the wrapping altogether. Then I peeled off the sticker, stuck the bottle in my jacket pocket, and headed for the front of church to present my humble, unwrapped present.

I totally lied to Emily, telling her something about not having time to wrap the perfume. She ribbed me a little, but was gracious about it. She seemed appreciative, too, even putting a little on her wrist and managing not to gag or anything.

By the way, Emily is my sister-in-law Julie’s cousin, and she’s probably reading this. If so, I just want to say, 22 years later … I hope your gift smelled good. Because if it did, it was the bargain of the century.

A Musical Interlude

Christmas Past: The Songs

There's just something about Christmas music -- a glut of it, to be specific. Sometimes it seems like everyone with a record deal has to make a Christmas album at some point -- not to mention the endless compilations. But it's not hard to understand the appeal of Christmas music (unless, of course, you work in a mall between Thanksgiving and New Year's). Still, some Christmas songs stand the test of time better than others, and we all have our personal favorites. So, halfway through our journey backwards through my Christmases past, I thought I'd take a break for a quick list (because I always have time for those) of my personal top 10 Christmas songs. Please chime in with your own faves in the comments. And now, in ascending order:

10. "Wonderful Christmastime" (Paul McCartney)
John Lennon couldn't have written something this innocent if he wanted to, so we're stuck with high-minded treatises like "Happy XMas (War Is Over)," which does, admittedly, have its charms. But few songs evoke the fun and shivery expectancy of the season better than Paul's classic ditty.

9. "Merry Christmas, Mr. Jones" (The Nields)
A holiday letter from a teenager in a maternity ward to a favorite teacher, this gem unfolds with a blend of melancholy, dark humor, and large doses of tenderness and optimism. A moving exhortation to start living, no matter what life throws your way -- sort of like another suddenly pregnant teen 2,000 years ago.

8. "Mary Had a Baby" (Bruce Cockburn)
Speaking of which, this old chestnut is given an infusion of warmth and uplift in Cockburn's campfire-like rendition. Try not tapping your feet.

7. "Jesus Christ" (Big Star)
I still don't know what inspired Alex Chilton and company to come up with this sweet-natured, irony-free celebration of Christ's birth amid the emotional wreckage that makes up the rest of the classic Third/Sister Lovers album -- but it's pretty neat.

6. "Carol of the Birds" (Brian Whitman)
Whitman's take on an old folk standard, in which a series of birds announce the coming of the Messiah, swoops and glides on dark-tinged strings. It's breathtaking.

5. "Valley Winter Song" (Fountains of Wayne)
Not a Christmas song, per se, but an absolutely lovely evocation of the season, this track nails the thrill of a snowbound rendezvous in New England. One of their catchiest, most romantic offerings, which is saying something.

4. "O Tannenbaum" (Nat King Cole)
This is the song that, more than any other, instantly whisks me back to a dim, tree-lit living room in Stratford, Connecticut, where Lori and I would wake up in the middle of the night to gaze upon what Santa had brought and make our guesses. What else is there to say?

3. "Angels We Have Heard on High" (Adam Again)
In one of the most brilliantly arranged songs I've ever heard, Gene Eugene's alt-Christian outfit turns what is usually a bouyant carol on its ear, transforming it into a somber, minor-chord dirge. But it's beautiful -- longing and deeply celebratory in a way that puts most holiday music to shame.

2. "Christmas Wrapping" (The Waitresses)
Seriously, if this doesn't make you smile, your day is probably going really badly -- all the more reason to soak in Patty Donohue's cheekily deadpan journey from loneliness to possibility on Christmas Eve.

1. "Fairytale of New York" (The Pogues with Kirsty MacColl)
Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl achieve some sort of miracle of chemistry in this drunken loser's recollection of a lost relationship as he marks time in a holding cell on Christmas Eve. It's in some ways the loneliest of songs, but one richly marbled with tenderness and hope -- however faint.

OK, back to the Christmas memories tomorrow.

Days of Salami and Provolone

Christmas Past, Part 6: 1989

I eventually learned -- probably during my years as a professional reporter -- to just let the story speak for itself. As a college junior, my prose could still be a little purple (not to mention occasionally disorienting). Nevertheless, I've always liked this piece, which I wrote early in January 1990 for my college newspaper column. It's worth noting that Dad broke out a dish of genoa and provolone a decade later for the rehearsal dinner, adorned with a little sign that read "groom's cheese." Oh, and my youngest brother, Alan, is now 17.

Watertown, Westfield, and the Birth Prospect

     I am almost 19 now, and I'm strolling deliberately up through the marshy wetlands that have overtaken Cutler Street in the wake of the melting snow. The slushy terrain transforms a leisurely walk into an adventure in the rainforest. I determine that I will not fall into the mud. It's like a real-life video game.
     I sit down on one of the plush white couches that are the hallmark of my father's living room, cradling a wrapped gift box between my lap and both elbows, leaning over to watch as he opens his present. I bought it especially for him; no generic gifts this year, Dad.
     He cuts through the wrapper to reveal a light-colored pastel book cover. "Oh!" he says, mellowly but exuding a fresh excitement. (I make the same noises to this Christmas Day.) The gift is Caribbean, by James Michener, one of Dad's favorite authors. My parents, many years ago, encouraged their children to read, and in the past years it has been Dad who has reminded me of that first love. My children will read as well.
     I now pass the pink building where my mother works three days a week. It is a small but highly regarded pediatric center, and Mom is the same skilled nurse she always was. She finds satisfaction in her work, and often tells me of the friends she has witnessed to that day. No one could possibly stop her in this. I know she prays that her workmates will someday be born again.
     "We have something to tell you," my father says, as my stepmother, his wife of some 15 years, perks her head up. I notice that the first guests are pulling into the front driveway.
     "We're going to have an addition to our family," she says. I don't get it at first.
     "Susan's pregnant," Dad says. I nod without thinking. My sister Lori is smiling.
     "You're kidding," I say with little tact.
     "No," they beam.
     I am tramping through half-frozen snow, which melts into crystal formations around my foot-deep impressions. Watertown, Conn. is pretty is the winter; just this very morning the snow was so heavy that each branch of each barren tree was christened with a half-inch of white powder that refused to fall. I helped shovel the driveway while Mom stared out the window for awhile. "It's so pretty," she had said. Much of the snow has melted in the afternoon heat.
     I am passing the library now. Partially hidden behind the trees, it's almost romantic in the winter.
     Relatives file into Dad's Westfield, Mass. ranch house in small clusters. I am getting kissed and greeted, being handed various Christmas cards and making some money. Dad comes out of the kitchen with a glass dish. "Your favorite," he tells me. It turns out to be genoa salami slices and chunks of sharp provolone cheese. I smile and begin to eat, all the while engrossing myself further in Stephen King's The Dark Half. Dad nods approvingly at me and the borrowed hardback.
     Watertown retains slightly more snow than the more northerly Westfield received around Christmas last week, but the extra snow has only enhanced the country spirit of our town. They had purchased the house at a steal price (for expensive Litchfield County, that is); it had been run down inside and out. My mother and stepfather had stripped down its modern facilities to reveal the original wooden floors and walls. They exhausted themselves last winter to restore what once had been.
     "It's my dream house," Mom had said back then. "I've always wanted a house like this."
     Dad is delighting in informing guests that they had been praying for years about another child. Craig, my stepbrother, is 19; it had been that long for both of them. I will no longer be the last of my name. "The Lord always answers prayers," Dad is telling everyone. "It sometimes just takes him awhile to open his mail."
     Craig and I agree that we want a brother. We will buy him lots of Lego's. We grew up with Lego's, and the new boy will possess every set. Dad jokes that he is sorry the child will grow up with the influence of our combined wit, puns and all. Susan and the girls must protect the newborn.
     And we know, of course, that nothing has really changed, and not much will change with the birth prospect. I will still feel strong attractions to Lego's, trade bad puns with Dad and Craig, and sit in the living room, choking on my allergy to the cat, reading Stephen King.
     I am walking past the cemetery. It is too bright because all the trees have been gone since the tornado. Mom says it's good that the town at least removed the dead branches. Still, the sun-drenched graveyard is a melancholy sight for me.
     I am walking back toward home now. When my feet get muddy, I stomp through some fresh snow to clean them off. Cars race silently through the marshy streets. I am almost 19.

An Incoherent Passage

Christmas Past, Part 5: 1991

My ninth and final semester at Evangel College had been, as I wrote in a yearbook story, "an endless parade of all-nighters," meaning nothing has changed for me, time management-wise, in the past 16 years.

Early on, in the fall of 1987, I started naming every week of my college career (after song titles or lyrics); I've long since memorized the 262-week list, and even today, I can tell you something that happened (usually a lot of stuff) in any of those weeks. I say that not to reinforce your existing doubts about my sanity, but to note that I had always tried to be an objective observer of those years, as I knew they were special -- one long, leisurely conversation before entering the real world. And in December 1991, with just a couple of weeks left, I felt more out-of-body than usual, hurtling toward my first off-campus apartment, my first non-temp job. Hurtling toward Christmas.

So there I sat, in a dorm room lit by 10 or so white candles (fire hazard, I know); my friend Dave said it looked like a seance. It was our Christmas open house, an annual tradition for all the residence halls, when each floor would deck the hallway -- often elaborately -- to a specific theme. My floor went with ... well, nothing. I don't remember why. But I was smart enough to lay out the crackers, cheese, and non-alcoholic sparkling beverages, because college students like free food a lot more than massive art projects. Plenty of folks stopped by my room, which was already showing the bare-walled signs of someone who would not be back in the spring.

The following weekend found me at a meeting of something called the Pink Flamingo Society, a gaggle of English majors who got together occasionally to share original writing, watch movies, and sometimes play English-majory games. I don't know why I picked up Eric Carl Link's early masterwork "Split Rock, Beaver Tail, and Nubble Light" that evening. It had appeared in our college literary magazine three years earlier, so why now? And why did I not anticipate, when I started to read it to a circle of treasured friends, that I would completely fall apart? I began:

Call unto the Lighthouse
For all who suffer
For all who weep
For all who cry their bloody tears
The old man sitting plump on a stool
The young boy chasing after a green-eyed cat
The brand-new mother coddling her infant...

And so on. It's a long poem in five parts, as good an homage to the Beat movement as anything I've come across in my peer group. Back then, while I was flailing about pretentiously in search of a poetic style, Eric was a real poet. He "deigned to communicate," to borrow the words of a professor pointing out to me what my poetry lacked. He was only a casual friend, but I dug his work. And as I kept reading on this mid-December evening, I came to part 4. And it just kicked me right in the heart. I can't tell you on which line I began to cry, or when those cries became choking sobs, threatening to drown the words.

The hanging went off without a hitch.
The sun bright laughing in the noonday air
The townspeople clapping as the body swung back and forth in the soft breeze
A farcical donkey trial ending just mere moments before
With a grinning judge and a smiling jury of propaganda-fed parrots.
It was a well-attended event, seconded only by the annual blueberry pie eating contest a week before
The suspended man had raped a village, burned a city, robbed every bank, spit out every communion wafer, sold every drug, hooked every prostitute, skipped every confessional, and murdered his only friend
And now he had hung until dead.
The trial was quick, the evidence sound
Boys and girls shouted and clapped and danced around the tree from whose branches hung the convicted.
The next day, at the funeral, the guilty one came and laid poppies on the grave of the innocent proxy.

I managed that much, but I knew I was done. I handed the poem to the friend on my left, and as I kept my face lowered, he crisply recited part 5. My head was beginning to clear by the time he reached the poem's final few lines:

I cry for you, my child
I cry for you, my sinner
I cry for you, my priest
Death is my prison, darkness are the steel bars that constrain me
Is there hope for you my gentle sufferer?
Is there a silk cloth to dry your tears my faithful friend?
Is there a salve to stop your weeping?
Call unto the Lighthouse.

Was it the hurtling feeling? Exam stress? Anxiety about leaving the fantasy walls of college and actually working for a living? A week-delayed response to an unintended seance? Or was it -- and this was the name of our literary magazine -- an Epiphany? Whatever the case, it occurred to me in the long silence after the poem ended, I just destroyed the festivity of a perfectly good Christmas party because Eric Carl Link made me contemplate Easter.

By the following week, I had run out of classes to attend. The final exam in British Literature was basically to learn and act out a scene from one of the works we studied. Four of us -- plus Ken from my floor, whom I recruited because we needed a fifth player -- chose a scene from Richard Brinsley Sheridan's School for Scandal and basically ripped it to unrecognizable shreds. We were tossing Cokes and a bag of Doritos across the stage. One character talked like one of SNL's Super Fans (you know, "Daaa Bearssss.") I had Ken incoherently mumbling every line he spoke; then I'd yell at him to speak clearly, and he'd repeat the line with perfect clarity. So, yeah, technically we spoke lines from School for Scandal, but the point was to completely hollow them out of meaning; we could have been reciting from Hemingway, or Rod McKuen, or the phone book, and it would have been the exact same scene. We loved doing it, even though none of us could figure out why; it was like we were deconstructing -- or perhaps making fun of -- the entire educational system.

Two people laughed throughout: Debby, a drama-major friend who knew my sense of humor, and Dr. Edwards, our professor. Other than the two of them, the baffled silence was deafening. Afterward, I packed up the last of the Doritos, called a cab, and rode to the airport.

Christmas had long come and gone when I found out I got an A. Eight years later, I sat in the shadow of Nubble Light and cried again ... this time with happiness, because Jenn had just said yes.

The Island of Misfit Gifts

Christmas Past, Part 4: 1994, 95, 96, 97...

When some people think "desperation gift," they think of a Hickory Farms gift basket, or a personalized star. I think of Marshalls. Sweet, glorious Marshalls, where assorted toys and housewares go to die.

I don't mean to insult people (I'm looking at you, Tami) who actually like this store. Jenn and I even shop there occasionally, because the prices are decent. But there's a hilarious randomness to Marshalls -- "hey, look, a rack of shoes ... and a Zen garden ... and a furry hat ... and a dancing dinosaur ... and a copper kettle ... and a dartboard ... honey, what the hell is this place? -- that makes it the perfect stop when you've got one more gift to buy, zero ideas, and grudgingly lowered expectations.

We had one of these stores in Watertown, Connecticut, when I lived there, and Jeff and I would invariably find ourselves there around Dec. 22 trying to wrap up the whole gift-buying experience for another year, because, darn it, if Marshalls doesn't have something for that last difficult loved one, maybe the recipient doesn't actually need anything in the under-$20-and-possibly-lacking-the-original-packaging category.

For my brother and me, Marshalls can still be summed up by one item: this cast-metal sun thingy that ... that ... well, that you stuck up on your mantel whenever you expected its giver to drop by, I guess, then stuffed back in the closet. This oddity got busted out of storage at the Watertown Marshalls and plunked down in the household decorations aisle every single December through much of the 1990s, and it never sold. Some years, they didn't even bother to dust it off at the start of its five-week furlough.

Anyway, this misshapen, metallic tribute to solar energy was priced at something like $3.95, and Jeff and I joked every year about buying it just because it had become such a treasured holiday tradition. We were like the Magi of Marshalls, making our annual trek to gaze upon yonder heavenly paperweight. It brought consistency to our chaotic lives. But neither of us ever managed to pull the trigger. I mean, seriously ... $3.95 is almost a whole Quarter Pounder with Cheese meal, and McDonald's was right across the street.

So it sat, in a thin layer of dust and self-hatred, until the one year (who knows which) when Jeff and I decided we were finally going to buy the sad little sun, maybe for a Yankee swap, or possibly a relative we didn't particularly like. And it was gone. I don't know if someone actually purchased it, or it got lost in the storeroom one tragic summer day, or Rudolph found out about it and alerted Santa to its existence.

If so, someone is extremely pissed at Santa to this day. I mean, you should have seen this piece of crap.

Twelve Years Later

Christmas Past, Part 3: 1996

Feathers

A bird flew into my car, right at
the intersection of Reidville and Harpers Ferry.
It was the worst timing I've ever seen, actually,
one of those brave swoops gone terribly wrong.
But he wouldn't last long in that busy crossing,
and I didn't want him to suffer.

So I visited Nana in the hospital on Monday,
and the old, fat lady in the adjoining bed was
having lunch, sitting up, and her naked bottom
poked from the pink gown like a greasy growth.

Nana wasn't much better.
I don't think she knew I was there.
Mom told me on another occasion that she was
complaining that the nurse took her baby.
Just took her baby right out of the room.
And I'll be the kid's naked butt shone
for all to see as he was stolen away.

Some of us will live forever, of course.
The doctor says Nana has two months to live.
I say she has two months to die, and then she
will be free to cook vast meals for old friends
forever. And someday I'll dine at that table.

The dying bird left me a cluster of feathers,
lodged in my back window as a parting gift.
Nana is leaving me feathers too, leaving them
like fluttering prayers all over my room, my life.
They're everywhere, and I'm not even sneezing.

That's a poem I wrote in May 1995, when I decided to dash off one piece of verse a day as a creative writing exercise; I consider it among the few keepers. And it's all true, especially the feeling that Nana didn't have a lot of time left, that the bone cancer was going to win, and soon.

But it wasn't soon. The woman kept coming back -- not that I should have been surprised. There were good days and some not so good at the facility that cared for her, but Nana was actually strong enough to make it to Lori's place for Thanksgiving 1995, and in the weeks before Christmas, she had her hair done in anticipation of at least one more Christmas with the family.

Then, on Dec. 23, she fell during the night, trying to make it to the bathroom on her own. She broke her hip. Perhaps her spirit, too.

We all visited her a few days later, opened little presents at the bedside, but she was downcast, subdued. Maybe she knew she'd never leave St. Mary's Hospital again. Mom knew, too. She told me today that she went home and "just cried and cried."

On July 2, 1996, I was filling in for a reporter in Torrington when I got the call from Mom -- Nana was gone. Driving home, I imagined she'd find a way to send me a final sign. But that was just selfishness. She was doing just fine, I knew. Better than she had in years, really. The little tuft of feathers was gone, too, although I had driven around with them for many months.

Anyway, I wanted to write in this space about our first Christmas without the grandmother who practically defined Christmas for me. I wanted to tell you what we did, what we talked about, and the gifts we gave. But I started to get frustrated, because as much as I enjoy remembering my past, I found nothing to pin my narrative on, nothing that stands out in my mind. Basically, I drew a blank. But maybe that's the point.

I promise that, if you keep stopping by every day, going back into my Christmases past, you'll read about my funny memories, touching memories, cringe-worthy memories ... all of them more vivid than I have any right to expect.

But I don't remember one damn thing about Christmas 1996. Which is appropriate, because Nana wasn't there, and my 25-year childhood was over.

Raise a Toast to First Impressions

Christmas Past, Part 2: 1998

Thirty-six hours before meeting my future wife for the first time, I was passed out in the dark, wearing a dress, and occasionally dashing off to throw up. It was the third time in my life I was truly drunk, and the last. The dress was a stroke of inspiration: I went to my friend Adam’s Halloween party as Miss Wolcott (complete with sash), because I covered Wolcott in 1998 for the Waterbury Republican-American, and the town’s pageant entrants had recently been named Miss Connecticut in two consecutive years.

But I lost track of how many times I refreshed my wine cup. I’ll note that I did not drive that night.

The next day, a sunny, clear Saturday, I could hardly remember Adam handing me my best-costume prize – a Simpsons Colorforms set – the night before, but there it was, on the desk beside the couch on which I was recovering. I was in no mood to head to Northampton that night for a Moxy Früvous show … and in even less of a mood to return to Massachusetts for a group lunch date at Chili’s Sunday afternoon. I called my matchmaker friend, Wendy, and almost cancelled the outing. But I didn’t. Still, I learned afterward that Wendy called Jenn late Saturday to tell her I wasn’t feeling well. Jenn jokingly asked if I was hung over. Wendy is incapable of lying.

That was Jenn’s first impression of me – drunk and sick. As Grampu would say, lovely.

So it’s amazing we actually made it to Christmas two months later, let alone almost eight years of marriage. She drove the hour-plus to my parents’ house for the traditional Christmas Eve – less traditional since Nana died two years earlier – which was Jenn's first dinner with the family. She was just as unimpressed with the fried smelts as my sisters, Lori and Tami, always were. But I think she liked our dog, Tiffi, more than she would like to admit about a small house dog with a froufy name. And everyone liked Jenn, too, including Pop Pop, who otherwise sat, as usual, scowling adorably under his blanket.

Jenn gave me a framed poster that we still have hanging up, along with a cool book and a stuffed bear. She got a gold bracelet and a boxed set of Star Wars videotapes. Things were heating up.

Christmas night found me at Jenn’s brother’s house, where Dan and the rest of the family cracked us up with, of all things, old drinking stories. I don’t recall if I told them about my night in the dress.

Pop Pop, who would join Nana just three months later, had a way of knowing certain things. After that first – and, as it turned out, last – Christmas Eve with Jenn, he told Mom that was the woman I would marry. I think Jenn’s father felt the same way before he passed away the following spring. Which was just as well, because by the time we crept soberly into 1999, I already felt like family.

O Tannenbleepingbaum

Christmas Past, Part 1: 2001

Jenn and I bought our house late in 2000, six months after we got hitched. By the time we moved in, it was approaching mid-December, and we really didn't feel like going all-out for the holidays, so we bought a fiber-optic tree at Target, hung a few decorations on the walls, and that was that. But 2001, we said, was going to be different. Special. Epic.

We have vaulted ceilings in our great room, so we wanted something tall. And we found it -- a 12-footer, give or take a few inches -- at one of those cut-your-own-tree farms nearby. It was chilly, our hands were sappy, but we managed to get the thing loaded on top of Jenn's SUV, and somehow (I recall it took about 45 minutes and lots of colorful language) got it to stay in the plastic base. An afternoon and lots of ladder maneuvering later, we had a sparsely decorated tree. But it was our tree. Our first tree together. And it was a big tree. We were proud of our tree. We bragged about it to neighbors and co-workers. But our mirth, like warm breath on a wintry window, was about to quickly fade.

One morning, about a week after the behemoth took up residence, I kneeled on the floor to check the water level in the base, and when my hand touched the tree skirt, I knew something was wrong, because I could feel a rippling current under the thing. The base must have cracked at some point, because when I lifted the skirt, water slowly crept across the living-room floor. Sappy water. Across the hardwood living-room floor that we had installed only a year earlier. Needless to say, no one was going to work for awhile. When I frantically called my editor, George, I told him it was a household emergency. Hey, those floors aren't cheap.

Furniture gave way to fans, which ran for a day or two, until we were satisfied that the wood wasn't going to permanently warp. As for the tree ... well, suffice to say that passersby probably figured we were angry at Christmas, because why else would a dead pine tree be lying on the curb three weeks before Santa's big night?

Don't get me wrong, we still enjoyed the holiday season. Those fiber-optic trees can be really pretty at night.