We’ve all (me writing this and you reading it) been lucky enough to see another Christmas morning. Christmas Day may very well be my favorite day of the year. Some folks are summer people and put more value on a good day when the sun is warm. But I’m still very much a Christmas person.
Especially the first early morning hours of Christmas Day. I’m an early riser year-round, and I enjoy a good cup of coffee in solitude before the rest of the family gets up. But Christmas morning differs from the rest of those early mornings throughout the year. I take my cup of coffee and go sit in the room where the Christmas tree and presents are, and just sit in silence and reflect as I stare at the soft glow of the lights on the tree.
As I sat and reflected this morning, many thoughts ran through my mind. I remembered how much Christmas has changed since I was younger. As to be expected, gone are the mornings getting up early and rushing to the tree to open presents and see what new Nintendo games I would find. Gone are those mornings when my Mom would come in the room and remind me that no presents would be opened until everyone had breakfast. A rule that I’m sure was instituted just to make sure I would eat something on that day instead of fasting all day in favor of playing with the new things I had gotten.
And gone are those days when our Christmas Day was filled with visitors of all kinds from town stopping by to chat with my Dad, share a cup of coffee, and make merry for a few minutes. Those days came to a close for me in the late ’90s as I was a late teenager and thought it was more fun and cool to go hang out with friends instead of staying home after the gift-giving had concluded.
These are the memories that hit the hardest these days, as Mom has dementia and lives in a nursing home, and Dad is not in the best of health and lives alone. He doesn’t like to celebrate holidays without Mom, so even though I make numerous offers for him to join us at my house on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, he stays home alone and passes the holiday watching NCIS reruns on cable TV. These are the thoughts that bring me down on Christmas morning these days.
But there are thoughts that bring me back up as well. As I sat and reflected on the years that have passed, memories of my daughters through the years came to mind. The joy I saw on their little faces as they opened presents when they were little, and the utter joy I felt inside watching them. I reflected on how too many Christmases have already passed, but how they have grown into wonderful young ladies.
I sat and thought about friends and family who left us way too soon, and how much I’d like to spend just one more Christmas with them. And I sat and wondered what the Christmas days of the future may look like if I’m fortunate enough to have grandkids to spoil. Will I do them like my mother did me, and like I did my own kids by repeating the dreaded phrase, “No presents will be opened until everyone eats breakfast.”? Only time will tell I guess.
I probably don’t need to say this since you are here visiting a site about nostalgia, but I’m a very nostalgic person. And Christmas morning is probably when I’m the most nostalgic. And in those early Christmas morning moments of reflection, I’m reminded of just how wonderful life has been to me, and just how much I have to fondly look back on…and look forward to.
For this year though, that time of quite solitude is coming to an end as I hear my wife and kids starting to stir, and my time to finish this is winding down. So with that, let me say I hope your Christmas Day is memorable in nothing but good ways for you and your family. And thank you so much for continuing to stop by and read, remember, and relish the good times of the past with me.
Merry Christmas,
Mick
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