The World Series hasn’t even started, Halloween is a couple of weeks away, yet I can’t stop thinking about… Christmas.
Not because of any anticipation of Santa Claus leaving lots of presents under the tree — it’s the traditions of Christmas and the holidays that have me wanting to fire up the Way Back Machine for one of those traditional celebrations.
For instance, when I was a kid, decorating the Christmas tree was a tradition heaped in history, sentimentality, and tradition. Every year, my mom would insist on my dad taking her for a Douglas fir tree. Mom felt that species had the best look, and its needles stayed on longer than others.
So off we would go to The Last Chance, crossing over the Carey Avenue Bridge, to choose our tree. It didn’t take long. Mom knew what she wanted. Then back to the house with the tree tied to the top of the car. Dad would place it in a bucket filled with coal and water. He would be sure to secure it to each side wall in the corner of our front room.
The tree sat on a platform that would later be transformed into Small Town USA, complete with a Lionel train, a covered bridge, and Plasticville buildings that we would attach homemade signs to depict landmarks in good-old Plymouth.
Dad would place the lights on the tree, hiding the wires among the branches. When he was done, Mom and I would decorate the tree with ornaments that had been in our family for generations. It was a meticulous process — mom seemed to have memorized where each ornament should go. And she would be certain to space similar ornaments all around the tree.
When the ornaments were on, then came the candy canes, popcorn balls, and, of course, the tinsel — applied almost one at a time to avoid clumping. Mom didn’t like clumps of tinsel on the tree. She would drape each strand of the shiny silver tinsel, making the tree sparkle in our living room, and noticeable through our front window to all walking up and down Reynolds Street.
How I wish I had those old ornaments, but they were washed away in the Susquehanna River in 1972.
We had a lot of traditions back then:
• Mom’s Christmas cookies, decorated with such detail. People would take them home, but were reluctant to eat them because they looked so beautiful.
• Homemade kielbasa, made at our kitchen table. Mom would place the casings on the grinder, then Dad would turn the handle. I would be on the back porch grating the horseradish root, tears running down my face.
• Wigilia on Christmas Eve — 13 non-meat items. A tradition still practiced in my family and many others. We would wait for the first star to appear in the sky and to pass the Oplatki.
• Always a box of Whitman’s Sampler candy — the one with the schematic that tells you what candy is in each slot.
• Eggnog, some spiked, some not for the kids. And a toast before the first glass.
• Uncle Joe’s annual Christmas tree tie that lit up — and he always had the latest Polaroid camera to instantly provide pictures of Christmas memories.
• Midnight Mass — always a beautiful gathering, especially if it snowed on the way in or out of St. Mary’s Church.
• And, of course, the food, the company, the warmth, the laughter, the giving and receiving, and the feeling that these times would never end.
But as we get older, we recall those traditions and the people who were a part of them — many of whom have passed on — celebration and sadness.
But I will hop into the Way Back Machine and revisit those days when those people were here and the celebrations were genuine and filled with memories.
We all have these memories, and we all struggle with the longing we have for days gone by when families gathered to celebrate Christmas and to worship together.
Yes, those really were the days, my friends, but the reality is they change, for sure. Holidays today are far from the holidays of my youth.
So, as the Way Back Machine pulls up in front of 210 Reynolds St., I jump out and, yes, it is snowing. A blanket of snow is already on the ground, and Christmas lights are shining throughout the neighborhood.
Before we went to bed, we placed a small table or TV tray where we would put a dish of cookies and a glass of milk for Santa Claus. The cookies and milk were always gone, proving Santa really was there.
And then we would go to bed with the anticipation of what we would find under that glorious tree on Christmas morning. Santa never disappointed.
Christmas is two months away.
Maybe I will look for my Headless Horseman costume and go trick-or-treating.
But just talking about those days makes me feel a lot better.