Memories of Christmas Past

During this Christmas as I watched a Christmas Story for the thousandth time, and it just keeps getting better. While watching it I found myself reminiscing about past Christmases of my own. That movie, like for many other people I suspect, just has a way of conjuring up childhood Christmases.

My mind wonders back to one of my earliest Christmas memories. I guess I was about 4 or 5. I remember it was cold and I unwrapped presents from inside my warm and cozy sleeping bag. I even recall being somewhat sleeping still and can clearly feel the plastic foot bottoms of my PJs as they crinkled when I clenched my feet. The glow of the Christmas tree lit up the presents below that Santa had placed the night before. And I remember so vividly the excitement I felt as my brother handed me a present. I do not remember however ripping into it, just what was inside. It was a Sheriff Garrett doll along with his horse Thunderbolt!

I didn’t open any more gifts. I just played and checked out everything That came with him. Nothing else in the world mattered at that point, I was consumed with Sheriff Garrett and all his accesories. The frying pan, the coffee pot, which I still can imagine pouring imaginary coffee out of into his small coffee cup. The hlster in which the six shooter slid perfectly into. I recall packing up everything into the rubber saddle backs and mounting Sheriff Garrett onto the horse to head off looking for bad guys. And when my mom forced me to come and eat breakfast I was angry because I did not want to stop playing. But she let me bring him to the table so I could stare at him sitting proudly on his horse.

Another Christmas that sticks in my head fondly is one where my brother set up my present for me before I even got out of bed. So when I raced from my bed to the living room Christmas Morning, there was a racetrack already set up and waiting for me. My heart raced as I sat there racing cars against my brother for what seemed hours. My brother is 12 years older than I and moved out when he was 18 so I only remember a handful of Christmases that he was there. But I remember them pretty well as he always made things fun for me.

The best gift santa ever brought me was my Red Raleigh Rampar bike. It was a thing of beauty. The red paint had gold metallic flakes throughout so it glistened in the sunlight. The jet black knobby tires were attached to gold rims that were as cool to me as if they had been dipped in real gold. I remember it being so cold and with snow and ice covering the ground, but I still went out in it as I was determined to ride my new bike. I believe my mom has a photo of me that morning riding my bike in the snow tucked away in some old photo album in her cedar chest. I rode that bike for years and it shared many adventures with me.

And like the movie, one year I too got a daisy BB gun. My dad had it hidden under the couch so I thought I didn’t get it as well, but I was sneaky when I was little. I searched for my presents before Christmas and knew I was getting it (Nora will get into huge trouble if she does that and will make the naughty list for sure!) And remember this was in the 70s so that movie had never even come out yet. I was excited to get it like Ralphie was. I too imagined using it against bad guys, only my bad guys were Germans. I would shoot cans and pretend to be shooting Germans behind enemy lines as a sniper in WWII. I was a typical boy and loved to play war and so did my friends. Eventually that gun was used quite a bit in the Great BB Gun War for control of Old Shady Tree and our woods. But that is a story for another time.

To me back then there was nothing more exciting than when you have you last day of school before Christmas. It was the day when they set up a little Christmas Bazaar for the school kids so we could buy little presents for our parents. And then you had almost 2 weeks before going back to school! I loved setting up the christmas tree, the lights and ornaments were so mesmerizing. I sometimes pulled my sleeping back out and slept by the tree as I loved the glow of the little colored lights. Every year my mother would place the fake candles that had orange or yellow bulbs to simulate the flames in our windows and loved to sleep with mine on.

And every year at some point we would make the trek downtown to see the lights on fountain square and the window displays in the department stores. But most of all to see the CG&E train setup. I had to dragged out of there as I loved trains and would watch them for hours snaking around little villages and over bridges, going through tunnels and puffing smoke from the engines.

I can only hope Nora can have a special childhood like I did. I hope she will have some great Christmases during it and I hope to relive the excitement of Christmas vicariously through her. T