'Tis the Season to be Jolly

Ms. Rachow has had a life-long addiction to holiday shopping, but this year she has a bet on that she can go cold turkey. So far, so good.

Jolly, schmolly. Let’s get down to the true reason for the season:
Shopping.
And it’s not even about buying gifts anymore. It’s all about finding a bargain. We give lip service to more noble meanings, but I’ve yet to hear of anyone trampling a Wal-Mart employee for peace on earth and good will toward man.
In the past I’ve done my best to be queen of holiday cheer, only to become the empress of stress. Sound familiar?
And that’s exactly the reason why no one’s seen me in the stores this year.
Sorry if I’m personally responsible for the national economic crisis, but I’m forgoing the stampede this time around and staying home to troll the ancient Yuletide carol.
No one knows what that really means, but for me it’s going to be relaxing with plenty of holiday blend coffee so my caffeine-buzzed imagination can send me down a holly-decked memory lane. If that’s not the oxymoron of the season, I don’t know what is.
Anyway, they say this time of year is for the kids, so I’m going back to when I was one to see if I can discover a gentler kind of holiday.
The first Christmas I remember I was two and a half. My grandparents, who lived somewhere far, far away, arrived on Christmas Eve. I didn’t yet know these people, but I’d heard reports they were pals with Santa. That was good enough for me.
We decorated a fragrant fir tree with fragile glass bulbs I was soon forbidden to touch. Geez, how was I supposed to know you couldn’t bounce them like a regular ball?
“Once the tree is up,” Grandma explained, “that signals to Santa we’re ready for him to put the gifts under it. And, of course, he can’t arrive until all little girls have gone to sleep.”
It was a tough job, but I got the message. If reindeer hooves were going to click-click-click on our roof, it was all up to me.
The next morning I sat at the breakfast table, staring at a plate of miserable, cold scrambled eggs. That day my normally kind mother invented the stupid rule that no one could open presents until everyone had finished eating. So it was entirely my fault that we all had to sit there like nutcrackers waiting for our cue.
After what seemed like several centuries, Grandma intervened.
“For crying out loud, let the child open presents,” she said.
My mother nodded, and I zoomed to the living room where Santa had left considerable Yuletide treasure.
I opened the biggest gift first. Inside was a teddy bear who’d definitely donned his gay apparel in the form of rainbow plaid satin trousers. He had a molded plastic nose and I sealed our coming comradeship by giving his schnoz a friendly bite.
The second gift was a doll with blue eyes that opened and closed with a tick. She had lovely blond curls that I’d later hack off while playing beauty shop.
My very favorite gift was a pink brush, comb and mirror set. With it was a tiny tube of lipstick that smelled of sweet berries. O the great luck to be born a girl.
We were out of flashbulbs, so there are no photos of the day. I remember very few other things except those three gifts. I can’t see the faces of the people around me even when I squint.
I won’t be too hard on myself, since I was only two and hadn’t yet been instructed on keeping precious memories. However, if the Ghost of Christmas Past could take me back, I’d focus more on my grandmother because I didn’t get the opportunity to do it later.
A few months into the new year she died unexpectedly. Yes, cue the violins, because I never got the chance to thank her for rescuing me from the eternity of the breakfast table.
From family stories I learned she’d been the jolly old elf responsible for my favorite gifts that Christmas. I learned she liked her toast burnt and drank her coffee black. At a time when ladies didn’t smoke, she sneaked off behind the barn to have a cigarette. And she had a wicked sense of humor. (Yes, I am my grandma’s girl.)
Thanks to the magic of imagination, I see the roses in her cheeks and the twinkle in her eye. If that’s not the truest meaning of Christmas, I don’t know anything at all.
Fa-la-la-la-la, la-la-la-la.
First published in the Montecito Journal December 25, 2008