I never saw a chestnut roasting on an open fire until I was probably in my 20s. It made for a great lyric in a marvelous song, but chestnuts roasting was never part of my reality. The only chestnuts I ever knew were horse chestnuts. We had an American Horse Chestnut tree in front of our house. Horse chestnuts are god-awful bitter, you just don't eat them. Maybe horses do.Here we are once again a few days before Christmas. Outside the wind is howling. The howling, though, is not that of winter, but rather warm winds blowing out of the south, bringing temps in the 50s.
Trust me, I don't spend much time thinking about the weather these days, after 20 years of doing it for a living, I am weathered-out, weather-weary.
Our chances for a white Christmas look to be pretty slim. Could be a bit of snow tonight into tomorrow, but that should be about it.
It's been a lot of years since Christmas held any charm and fascination for me. Sadly, what the song says might be true, "Christmas Is For Children." I think that was a Glen Campbell song. Smarmy, drippy, dopey as it was, it's message is indeed true.
Some random thoughts of Christmases past. No particular order, no particular significance attached to any one more than any other, just memories that say Christmas to me. One thing though, it seems most of the memories involve my Dad. Why? I'm really not sure.
- My father spending the Sunday after Thanksgiving decorating the outside of our house. He did a solo act with it, never asking for help. Truth be told, though fine human that he was, Dad didn't want anyone, which would include me, getting in his way while he worked his magic. And magic it was, at least to my remembrance. This man was blue-collar all the way, a member of the Greatest Generation, earning his dues card after three years in the South Pacific. But come Christmas, he was as soft inside as a baby's behind. He loved to create with strings of lights, spotlights, enormous bows and ribbons, a boughs of pine. His handiwork was some of the best in the neighborhood. He knew it. We knew it. Revolutionizing his decorating was the purchase of a staple-gun somewhere in the early '60s. By my parents financial standards, there is no doubt that this was a major purchase.
- Bing Crosby on the stereo. You know the Crosby album, the LP with Bing on the cover wearing a Santa hat and a bow tie made of holly. It was never really Christmas until Bing went for his first spin of the season on our hi-fi. Then you knew it was OK to be of the spirit. Dad also ran that show; it was his call when the stylus dropped on "Jingle Bells," usually Thanksgiving Day, maybe a day or two before if he was in the mood. Although a good Catholic family, we played the "secular" side of that album until it near turned to vinyl particulate. The "religious" side saw little action. Growing older, it occurred to me that Mr. Crosby likely recorded that album on a hot Hollywood afternoon in July, never giving much thought to the impact it would have on so many for so many generations.
- Going for the tree. I have to guess that this practice was discontinued in our family before I made it to high school. My folks were early advocates of the artificial Christmas tree, probably buying one in, oh, 1963/64 or so. Despite a "real" tree's absence in our home, the memories are vivid of shopping for such a tree on several occasions. What I remember most was my parents whining about how "dear" the tree was, meaning it was expensive. (You don't hear that term used much these days, people don't say "dear"when they mean expensive.) Once back home, the tree went into a bucket of water and into the garage, where it sat and dried out and did the needle drop until being dragged into the front room Christmas Eve afternoon. Never an hour before, never an hour after, always just minutes past noon on Christmas Eve.
- Waiting patiently for my father to come home after his half-day on Christmas Eve. It was always a half-day, and Dad almost always walked to and from work...uphill, both ways. It was maybe three blocks. Dad brought in the tree, Dad put up the tree, Dad strung the lights, usually accompanied by a quiet choir of muttered and mumbled obscenities over knots in cords that weren't there when put away, and those bulbs that should light but wouldn't. We couldn't go near the tree until Dad was done. We sat and watched from a half room away. Once up, my mother, sisters, brother, and me could then have at decorating the tree. All of the tree decorations were kept in a big old cardboard box of unknown origin, but I'll speculate it could have once held a television. That box didn't leave the basement until the tree was up. It went back into the basement New Year's Day. That was the tradition kept in my family. And, by God, you never went near that box any other time of the year. You wouldn't think of poking through it in July.
- Where did they hide the presents? We never figured that out. From the time I was willing to embrace the notion that Santa was no more than a charming myth, the annual search began. To say that I looked everywhere in that house is accurate. If anything, it might be understatement. There was no inch of four floors that went unexamined. At least every two to three days from Thanksgiving right up until Christmas Eve, I'd manage to steal away and look. Under beds, behind clothes in closets, every dark corner of attic and basement, no spot was missed. Yet no toy was ever found. Years and years later, my siblings and I finally closed the case by grudgingly accepting the fact that the big Christmas Morning Toyland was stashed a few miles away at our grandparents' house, and that my Dad made the pick-up after we were tucked in our beds on Christmas Eve. I still don't want to believe that. Somehow there's a certain magic to thinking that the toys were indeed somewhere that we failed to look. Could there have been a hidden room in the house, a trap door to another hiding place? That couldn't be. There really was no place left to look.
- Christmas Morning Mass. As parochial school kids, we were required to attend The Children's Mass, not only on Christmas, but pretty much every Sunday. It was the 9:00 AM Mass at Saint Paul's Church on Penn Avenue in Scranton. The choir was always in fine voice, and always singing as we half ran and half stumbled into church then pew, all wanting to be home with all the stuff we'd found a few hours before. Our church had a really terrific creche with Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, at least two shepherds and the obligatory donkey. The wise men would appear later, probably on some sort of liturgically sanctioned schedule. But they were pretty cool, too. Seems to me they had at least one camel between them. One hump or two? That I don't remember. Evergreens everywhere near and around the creche; trees, boughs, twigs, sprigs, lush and green. A coniferous forest moved indoors. I never knew where it came from, but often had the sense that a nearby stand of ancient pines had been sadly depleted.
- The Year of The Transistor. My best guess would be 1962. That was the year that every kid I knew got a transistor radio for Christmas. The transistor had now put radio in the palm of your hand, where before it had been on a counter or bookshelf, and even before that, radio's size kept it sitting on the floor. Every kid got one, every kid brought theirs to Christmas Mass, every kid had to keep it turned off until after Mass. We then all milled about outside of church comparing brands, looks, and features. Some had more transistors than others, and it said so on the radio itself. A few had carrying cases, most did not. Size was all over the place, too. Some were pretty darned small, which was far more desirable. While I was envious of others, some were envious of mine. The name upon mine was "Symphonic." Why, there was even some maestro conducting a "symphony" cast right into the plastic case...a case which was pink and green. Not sure what Mom and Dad were thinking giving anything pink and green to a twelve year-old boy. Didn't much matter, my "Symphonic" fell silent by Christmas night. It just stopped working. Boink, it was gone. My prized transistor radio gave it up within maybe twelve hours. It went into the shop, where it collected dust for what had to have been close to year. See, we had this guy in our neighborhood who fixed radios and televisions. His name was Jack Gilroy. By all accounts, Jack was a very nice man, and a boyhood friend of Dad's, which meant the radio had to go to Jack for repair. Jack did nice work. Jack did it slowly. It didn't matter much, because by the time old "pink and green" came home, we had several other transistor radios around the house. Now, as I sit here a hundred years later, a thought that has never floated through my head before nags at me. Seeing how old "pink and green" worked but less than a day, why wasn't it returned to point of sale for replacement? Where'd they get that radio?
I just happened to visit another blog where the blogger has somehow attempted to make a connection between my lack of experience with chestnuts roasting and a possible run for a seat in The U.S. House of Representatives. My inference was that growing up in a lower middle-class neighborhood meant limited opportunities to sit and watch chestnuts pop in a fireplace. Fireplaces were few in my part of Scranton. Listen, thanks a million for the mention. You might also want to consider that Keith Martin never ran for or held elected office. I like your blog, I check it often.
