Ghosts of Christmases Past

I confess that many of my memories from childhood are skewed in the haze of nostalgia that surrounds them. (I think that’s actually true for most of us.) But, this is especially true with regards to my memories of Christmases when I was young. It is entirely possible that my memory of those holidays bears little, if any, resemblance to what actually happened. Nevertheless, it is the memory of those Christmases past that drives my desire for the present.

I have caught a lot of flack over the past few years for my insistence that Christmas be celebrated with as much splendor as possible. I want lights, trees, ornaments, food and, yes, even gifts. But, I want these things not simply because I have bought into the “commercialization of Christmas” (whatever the heck that means). No, in fact, I want these things because they are the only remaining ties I have to those Christmases from my childhood. They are the only tangible souvenirs of a simpler and happier time.

A lot has changed for me over the past five years or so. As any of you who follow this blog regularly have read, I gave up a life I’d built and was quite happy with in late 2006 to return home and return to school. I moved back to Grand Saline from Dallas, moved in with my mother, found a job in Tyler and worked to get myself to a place financially where, in early 2008, I started back to school. Since moving back and going back to school my life has been turned upside down not just once, but several times.

In the midst of all of this chaos and uncertainty I frequently found myself looking for something — anything — to hang on to. Everything changed, and is still changing, at such a rapid pace that sometimes it makes my head spin. The only way I know to find some solid ground or some steady landmark to cling to is to look to the past…to look to a time when everything was still simple and easy and sure.

You see, in my memories of Christmas when I was a kid, the trees were taller; lights were brighter; food was better; and gifts were more plentiful. I even see the Christmas when I had pneumonia and could barely get out of bed through a lens that somehow filters out all of the negative light and only lets in that which is good, and happy, and upbeat! I feel relatively certain that our Christmas trees were no taller than they are now. I’m sure that the lights we put on them are no less bright now than then. It is highly likely that the food we eat now is just as good as what we ate then. And, I’m positive beyond a shadow of a doubt that there were no more gifts under then tree then. But, that is surely not how I see it in my mind’s eye and when I go back there, I cannot help but smile.

So my insistence on putting up lights and trees; on giving gifts and getting together with family and friends is not just because I”m greedy or selfish or because I’ve fallen into the consumerist trap! My insistence on these things is because so very many things have changed in my life the last few years that I have to hold on to something that has never changed. The memory of those Christmases is that vivid and that strong and that steady for me. I can hold to it and I know it will not change.

I am haunted by a lot of ghosts…far too many to name here. But these ghosts of Christmases past are especially powerful forces. They keep me tied to something that I don’t want to lose, and they stay the same from year to year no matter how everything else around me changes.

After this coming May everything will have changed again. I have no idea where I will be one year from now, nor do I know what I will be doing. The thought of that, while exciting on one hand, scares me silly on the other. As I sit here in my bedroom, listening to the rain fall on the roof and looking out my window I can see the glow of our Christmas lights shining through. It looks exactly the same as it did one year ago and I know that it will look the same again.

That is why Christmas traditions mean so much to me. They are the ghosts I do not mind welcoming in. They are old friends who make me realize that as much as things change every day, other things stay the same and will always be there to go back to.