The following is a list of some of my favourite Christmas memories. They aren’t listed in any kind of logical order, which is as it should be. My memories aren’t usually linear. I should also point out that as a Humanist, my memories and feelings about Christmas remain both comforting and confusing all at once.
- Making popcorn strings for the Christmas tree. Mom made huge bowls of popcorn, and we sat on the floor in front of the TV for five nights in a row, watching CHiPs while threading unsalted, unbuttered popcorn with a needle. If your attention lapsed, you ended up with holes in your fingers. I am possibly the only person who thinks of Eric Estrada when they see a Christmas tree. Those strings lasted eight years, carefully removed and stored in a paper grocery bag from Steinberg’s grocery store.
- Lighting candles the three years before, during, and after my mother’s conversion to Catholicism. Those years are the only ones where I felt clearly that Christmas was a religious holiday with real religious meaning and significance. The wreath had one candle lit each Sunday of Advent to mark the passage of time. The four candles represent the virtues of hope (purple), peace (purple), joy (pink), and love (purple). A fifth candle (white), was added to the center and lit on Christmas Day to represent Jesus as the light of the world. I remember liking that it felt like it connected to the traditions of our Jewish neighbours and their menorahs, suggesting a larger shared religious fabric. There were candles, scripture to read, and midnight mass at St. Thomas à Beckett after lasagne dinner at Grandma’s. After this brief period, Christmas became increasingly a social, rather than religious, holiday, for me (and to varying degrees, my family).
- The special ornaments we have hung on to over the years. The stuffed mouse and nut babies Grammie O made. The little hats we made by shrinking styrofoam cups in the oven (probably releasing enough toxins in those 3 days to guarantee an entire generation of cancer diagnoses). The fact that there are two “our first Christmas” ornaments for Michael and I (one for our first Christmas together as a couple, then one for our first Christmas married).
- The year Mom got Andrew the Millennium Falcon and almost every single character figurine from Star Wars. The characters were arranged on a bristol board to make a giant panel that was all unwrapped as a single piece. I am not sure what my gift was that year, which makes me feel bad. I am 100% sure that Mom worked every bit as hard on mine, but it just didn’t stick, but I’ll remember the Millennium Falcon until I die. There’s some kind of weirdness about that, because I am a die hard Trekkie.
- The Christmas stockings and their rules. There was a navel orange at the bottom of every Christmas stocking growing up. They were opened on Christmas Eve, just before going to Midnight Mass, which meant the kids could remember the cool things that were in it, but couldn’t play with them until after they got back from church, but by then you were too tired to play.
- The last gift-y year. I felt a bit of the original meaning of the holiday return the year we moved from making or buying Christmas gifts for everyone to only gifts for children under the age of majority, and the rest of us donated to a charity of meaning to the family. This eventually evolved into the Pale Blue Dot Foundation.
- Watching holiday movies.
- Lord of the Rings. Since the original movies were all released in December, every year since, we have re-watched them in December. I used to re-read the books annually every summer between 1980 and the release of the Fellowship of the Ring in 2001, at which point I switched media and timing. There are rules. The re-watch can’t start sooner than December 1, and must complete by New Years’ Day. This wasn’t hard when we first started. It got a bit harder when I acquired the extended Blu Ray versions that tack on something like an extra hour to each movie. Then the Hobbit trilogy came out, and got added to this annual re-watch cycle (still with the same start and end date rules). The Rings of Power series on Prime did not qualify for addition to the tradition.
- The Hawkeye television series. I got to see an absolutely ground-breaking comic book turned into real life and somehow even more delightful for the ways it both matched, and completely failed to match, the original content. I laughed, cried, and was a messy Marvel fanboy through the whole thing. I must have hit pause a hundred times, trying desperately to explain how cool each moment was to a comic geek to Michael, who might be one of the most patient creatures on the planet. This 6-episode arc is re-watched annually before the start of the annual LOTR re-watch.
- Doctor Who Christmas specials. My first doctor was long time ago, and I am every so happy that we have gotten regenerations since then.
- Last Christmas. Emilia Clarke, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Emma Thompson with the entire soundtrack composed of Wham! and George Michael songs. No notes.
- Last Holiday. I spend 2 hours wishing I had the incredible skin of Queen Latifah or LL Cool J. Not so much Gérard Depardieu. Then I cook rich and tasty things.
- Die Hard. It wouldn’t be a Christmas list if I didn’t re-affirm that Die Hard is a Christmas movie, Alan Rickman and Jeremy Irons were both hot, and Christmas in Hollis by Run-D.M.C. stays on my playlist.
- Speaking of playlists, we have a Christmas playlist. On an iPod, no less, which dates us (although slightly less than the 8-track and 45s). Highlights include Fairytale of New York (The Pogues – my mother’s favourite Christmas song), Hallelujah (Leonard Cohen, my mother-in-law’s favourite song), Peace On Earth / Little Drummer Boy by (Bing Crosby and David Bowie), Do They Know It’s Christmas (Band Aid), Angel Gabriel (Sting), Last Christmas (Wham!), Eight Crazy Nights (Adam Sandler), and the entirety of the original Grinch movie soundtrack.
- The year went did a Caribbean cruise with the Barontseff family. It’s the only time we’ve ever gone away together. It was warm and fun. We got to hang out together, and no one had to cook or clean. I had a great time, but I will always wish my mother-in-law had joined us. She stayed home, coming to grips with a cancer diagnosis. To be honest, my family’s experiences with cancer have been radically re-shaping everything to do with when and how I would retire, because they taught me that you aren’t always guaranteed a retirement.