Christmas Memories

I’ve always found it difficult to get into the holiday spirit living in Florida. Warm weather is somehow just not conducive to the joy of the holiday season.

I suppose the reason has to do with growing up in cold weather climates when I was a kid. I remember the years my family lived in Syracuse, New York. We had a snow-covered Christmas every year. Our house had a plate glass window in the living room on the second floor overlooking the front yard and street below. Our Christmas tree would be set near the living room window for all to see. On Christmas Eve the neighbors would line the street with brown paper bags weighted with sand to holding small candles. The candles were lit after dark and the street, lined on both sides with these glowing bags, would look like a runway landing. I remember taking in this scene standing at our living room window, scanning the sky for Santa’s sleigh. There was house to house caroling on Christmas Eve and I remember one year Santa rode through the neighborhood on a fire truck throwing candies to the children who came out in the snow to greet him. That was a very special time and I think it is the reason the weather has to be cold for me to recall the excitement of childhood in the Christmas season.

After Syracuse, we moved to Pennsylvania and Christmas was never quite the same. By that time I was no longer looking to the sky for Santa, I was scouring the closets to see what was hidden beneath the coats. A white Christmas was a rarity in Horsham, PA. We had neighbors, Harry and Beryl Davis, who were obsessed with decorating their house at Christmas. I remember the living room tree was an artificial, all white tree decorated with red ornaments. They collected Christmas decorations and, in their den, they constructed an elaborate miniature Bavarian mountain village underneath a real tree with a toy train set running though it, tunnels and all. We always had fun with the Davis family at Christmas and New Years. To this day I still exchange Christmas cards with Harry and Beryl, even though I have not seen them in 30 years.

After my time in PA, I moved further south to Washington DC, where I attended George Washington University. I joined the school chorus as a freshman and learned to sing Handel’s Messiah for our annual Christmas concert. That first year we put on a joint production with Georgetown, American and Catholic University. It was an event attended by the Washington glitterati in formal attire. The venue was a Gothic chapel on the Georgetown Campus. It was a magical night when 200 student voices came together with the symphony to sing the Messiah to this crowd. To this day it does not feel like Christmas to me without hearing a live performance of the Messiah. When I do hear it, I get choked up. To me that glorious music is the voice of God.

The most idyllic Christmas I ever spent was in Jackson Hole when my kids were still little. I remember taking Paula and June to pick out a Christmas tree in the national forest and then dragging the tree (and the kids) down a mountain through the woods in waist-high snow. (That part was not fun for any of us!) We had a place that looked out to the Grand Tetons and we put up the freshly cut tree in the living room, near a stone fireplace. That Christmas I took a snowmobile ride through Yellowstone National Park in minus 40 degree weather, from the South Entrance to Ole Faithful, roughly 120 miles round trip. It was a picture postcard winter wonderland that I will never ever forget.

No, Christmas in Florida does not compare. Still, I’m glad to be alive and here to enjoy yet another Christmas. Next year maybe we’ll go somewhere cold?