The Things I Remember

If I’m doing the math correctly, I am celebrating my 50^th Christmas this year. Memories from both childhood and more recent decades share a common thread. Very few are centered on gifts received, which is reassuring during the last-minute scramble to deck the halls and stack the piles under the tree.

Here’s what I do recall. And treasure.

The anticipation. After Christmas Eve dinner, we would open the gifts "from each other." Santa's gifts came the next morning, after early Mass and breakfast at the only restaurant open in the Triple Cities, the Tally-Ho Diner. Tommy never failed to declare the need for a shower in between dinner and gifts on Christmas Eve or the overwhelming desire to take a scenic drive on the way home from breakfast Christmas morning. It was his special way of annoying me and prolonging the agony.

The fact that my friend Mike would happen to stop by to say hello just before dinner on Christmas Eve. Mom always had a place set for him, along with a bottle of apple juice, his favorite, on hand. The tradition continued whether I was home for the holidays or not.

The Christmas I spent in Perth. Blistering hot weather and a trip to the beach. And the fact that Mom had shipped a pile of presents for my host family and me. They’d never seen the likes of a Kathleen Fitz Christmas and probably haven’t since.

The year of the dammit tree. So-named because the expletive apparently slipped from my lips when the boys and I found our tall, fat and decorated tree had fallen over.

The year that Dan, who had been on the fence that season about the guy in the red suit, took a look around the living room at the debris from the Christmas morning frenzy (around 7:05 a.m.) and exclaimed, “There must be a Santa Claus…’cause I know Mom would never buy all this stuff!”

Madge traipsing through said debris, then taking her rawhide bone and making off with it, up the stairs, to bury it under one of the kids’ pillows or a pile of dirty laundry. Best when served “seasoned.”

The handmade ornaments that the kids brought home from school each year. Wreaths and angels and Christmas trees…and one cookie, with a bite taken out of it, that frames Matt’s nursery school photo. We discovered while trimming the tree this year that Molly’s teachers were especially crafty when using school photos as her smiling face appears on the majority of the ornaments.

Walking through the Glen one especially balmy Christmas Day. Madge had to be carried across the creek and the dogs were muddy by the time we got back to the car but it was a wonderful way to just be together.

Receiving a small notebook entitled “Friends and Family.” It was full of hand-drawn pictures of hearts and Santa and horses and dogs. The last two pages read, “Dear Mom, no matter what we will always love you. Even though your really busy it’s Christmas and we should be thankful for what we have. Don’t go running around Christmas shopping because I already have the best gift of all, the gift of family and love. Thank you for giving me that. Love, Colleen.”

What a wonderful reminder of my abundant blessings. Peace and joy to all.

Posts and Possibilities

Though I suspect I haven’t always been successful, I’ve attempted throughout this journey called motherhood to let my children know that the world, for each of them, offers unlimited possibilities. All four are blessed with their own unique talents and the requisite intelligence to turn dreams into reality. More than once, I think that each one has forgotten, as we all tend to do now and then, and fallen into the trap of self-doubt and woe-is-me and I-simply-can’t.

More than once, a not-so-subtle reminder from Mom has been proffered. A reminder that attitude and effort go a long way toward making things happen.

So it’s a bit disconcerting to have the tables turned and be the one reminded that possibilities are not necessarily limited to the young. 

I’m still trying to recall just how this particular idea came to be, but somehow I now have a blog, and at least one reader, and a sense that perhaps I, too, still have possibilities left to explore. They are there to be discovered, with one certain caveat. They may lead to nowhere. Many do and that’s okay. What’s important is to keep looking.

For years I felt cheated out of the opportunity to replace a columnist in the local newspaper because life had gotten in the way. Her weekly column was humorous, a bit dry, nowhere near Erma Bombeck but a perfect match for our island community. When I caught up with things and realized she'd relocated, her successor had already been chosen. Mind you, I never, ever submitted a query or a clip or a proposal. I just stewed, grumbling that I could have taken over the column, finding it much easier to be disgruntled than actually rejected.

Just for kicks, I think I'll pretend that this blog is that column and see where it takes me.

So here goes nothin’…or, just maybe, something.

And, by the way, Annie and Andy, since you are the two who have started this whole thing, it's a good thing you're cute!