Ghosts of Christmases Past 2
“On Christmas Eve many years ago I laid quietly in my bed. I did not rustle the sheets, I breathed slowly and silently. I was listening for a sound I was afraid I would never hear: the sound of Santa’s sleigh bells.” (from The Polar Express)
We moved into the split-level house my dad built in late 1960 from the bungalow next door.
My brother Gary was born in May 1961, ending my nearly five-year reign as the youngest child and immediately thrusting me into the abyss of middle-child status. Not that I was bitter; who wanted all that attention anyway?
My sister Patty had her own room. Carl and I shared a bedroom that my dad designed for all three boys once Gary graduated from the crib in my parent’s bedroom. My bed was on the end, Carl in the middle, and Gary would be in the first bed.
Since my parents were the “early adopters” so to speak of having children amongst their friends, Christmas Eves at our house always included our extended family of my parent’s adult friends, mostly firemen and their wives, since they had to be home to prepare Christmas for us.
And then came the hour on Christmas Eve when we were all three ushered up to bed, while the adults continued the festivities below. Once in bed we busted out the Dan Electro transistor radios and followed Santa’s travels on WMCA or WABC radio out of New York City.
Sleep didn’t come easy but eventually, it would. In the morning whoever woke up first would wake up the others and we would all huddle at the top of the steps because we couldn’t go down the stairs until my mother and father got up.
One of us got picked to sneak down the stairs and do some scouting to see if Santa had really come. That changed as we all got older, depending on “your persuasion on the Big Man,” and was typically the younger believer, which like I said earlier and in case you forgot, was me for nearly five years.
We had a similar routine every year, captured in photos first by black and whites, then eventually in color, some of which I have already shared. My dad also had one of those early 60s eight mm movie cameras with the infamous light bar with the four flood lights. We opened gifts in an organized way making sure we each saw what the other one got.
Then my father would leave to join the other Oceanport Hook and Ladder firemen who every year would purchase gifts for all the kids in town under a certain age and with a Santa Claus on the back of the fire truck, would go street by street, house by house, delivering gifts to the kids they had on their list.
This was a tradition that went way back with the fire company in Oceanport and even my dad would tell stories of waiting for the fire truck when he was a kid in the 1930s when he would leap the hedge to get to greet the firemen and Santa.
While my dad was gone, we also would wait for the fire truck to come to our house, then revisit our gifts until my dad got home, which wasn’t always as predictable as you might think since there was always a little bit of Christmas cheer involved in that tradition as well.
Once my dad returned, we would walk across the street and down the rear driveway of my grandmother’s house and have Christmas and lunch with my mother’s family and my cousins.
Then we were off to Hillcrest and my other grandparents’ house and finally to my Uncle Teddy’s. Teddy always had the funniest-looking Christmas trees and those oversized Christmas light bulbs.
It was nice having not all but a good portion of our family living in the same town or very close by.
Over the years as we got older and we became volunteer fireman, both my brothers and I got to share that Christmas experience of riding the fire truck with my dad. And even after I moved away and would return home for the holiday, I would share that Christmas morning experience with my father. And we even developed some new traditions like on Christmas Eve, driving to Point Pleasant Beach to the Norwegian store to buy Norwegian cheese, fiskebollers (Codfish balls), and only once Lutefisk (because with Lutefisk only once was enough), and cod fish to make sandwiches.
And that Christmas Eve open house for whoever wanted to visit just got bigger and bigger, and even now my sister still tries to keep that tradition going in Oceanport.
I am too old now to lie in bed listening for sleigh bells or Santa’s location on the radio, or waiting for my brothers and sister to wake me up. But I have lots of nice memories of Christmases growing up. I guess when they say “the true spirit of Christmas lies in your heart,” that’s where the memories live for as long as we are able to remember them, which gets more challenging the older we get. Of course there have been Christmases since with sad memories, but even the sad ones remind us there is comfort and hope on the other side of those in time.
And writing about them and looking at old photos, reminds me of how much I miss my father and my brother. Maybe I will have a codfish sandwich and some Norwegian cheese, an Akvavit on the rocks, and turn on Glen Campbell’s That Christmas Feeling album on Christmas Eve this year.
“At one time most of my friends could hear the bell, but as years passed it fell silent for all of them. Though I’ve grown old the bell still rings for me, as it does for all who truly believe” (from The Polar Express)
And who knows, maybe after a couple of those Akvavits, I will hear some bells too.
