Drink More Ovaltine

This is a vain piece. 

I can hear fireworks going off a few blocks down the road, as if a quarrelsome fool was shooting at Saint Nick, penance for never delivering a coveted toy all those years ago. They began at midnight while I drank eggnog and watched A Christmas Story under Christmas tree light, while Chloe, the more vicious of our two cats, tried to spot the source of the noise through the kaleidoscopic condensation on the sliding glass door.

Christmas turns me inward. It reminds me of years past, good and not. When I was a child, Christmas was the reprieve from an otherwise chaotic life. All became well. Magic happened. As an adult, I try to regain that magic, which without children is often futile. 

A couple of years ago I left out cookies, my wife got up and ate them. She and I like to get up early and fill each others stocking when the other cannot see, as if Santa came during the night. Every night I light the tree. Yesterday I began tracking Santa on Google to see when he would fly over Athens. All of this has history. It is my history.

I do these things because I did them as a child and they made me happy. They make me happy, still. The history that should matter most is your own. We make pilgrimages to our childhood homes, favorite restaurants, old schools, and other touchstones but we somehow lose touch with the intangible connections to our former selves. I like to think that an ability to do this keeps us from becoming less like Scrooge and more like George Bailey.

I bore friends with general history about Christmas. Yule logs were once giant logs placed in the hearth at the center of a house and burned for several days. Saint Nicholas was a Greek from Turkey. It’s a Wonderful Life was released in the summer…

Still, the stories that matter most are the ones that spring forth from my past. From West North Street in Tampa, Florida, or Tellico Plains, Tennessee. I remember tinsel, strawberry candy canes, letters to Santa, and the first time I saw a Leg Lamp. Christmas was the time when my parents, like all good ones, took on the burden and challenge of being Santa. It took the whole family, I now know. They were fantastic liars. I had no idea how they could afford what they gave me and I took every damn bit of it for granted.

I try not to take anything else for granted. I try to immerse myself in magic. I try.

There is much about Christmas that is not the same. The tree is fake (for the sake of the Firs!). The traditions are new, but my own. No matter how hard I try, I do not believe in Santa anymore. Still, there is the opportunity to make the holiday special by listening to Bing Crosby, watching all those old movies for the millionth time, holding your loved ones closer, or doing anything that you would not do any other time of the year.

The tree, the lights, the magic in the air never fails to make me grateful for everything I have, everything I am, and everybody I get to share my life with. 

Christmas is about history. It is about the past. It should make you stop and take a look at where you’ve been and where you are–who you are. 

I know that some look at Christmas like Ralphie looked at that pot of red cabbage on the stove. Some have every reason not to feel the way I do. For some, Christmas is another day in a seemingly unbearable life. Magic is what you make it and can be found everywhere there are people. Surround yourself, if you can, with people who believe the same. History, no matter how personal, does not always have to repeat. 

And always remember:

DRINKMOREOVALTINE!