18 hours Ago By Jen Garofalo
In rose-colored memory, it happened gradually, first with songs on the radio, and then spectacular displays shining from store windows, and lawns lit in dazzling lights. Baking ingredients on the kitchen counter the day before the house smelled of chocolate chip cookies and magic cookie bars. Christmas wish lists, letters to Santa, breakfast with jolly Old St.
Nick. Sledding, tree decorating and hot chocolate-and suddenly it was Christmas Eve dinner, trouble falling asleep. All this a buildup to the grand finale: Christmas morning.
I still love the holiday season, but in my mid-twenties, the excitement dimmed. How dare stores skip from Halloween straight to Christmas, rushing us to the end of the year, I thought. How sad that “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” is no longer a television special, but a movie to be purchased on streaming services! How tragic, the commercialization of magic.
I’m certain I’m not alone in feeling sometimes Scrooge-y. Perhaps you’re working hard to make ends meet and stressing about how expensive the holidays are. Maybe the loss of a loved one casts shadows over the season.
Despite the tinsel and glimmering lights, it is, remember, bleak December. I thought having a child would rekindle the romanticism of the season. I woke Dec.
1, eager to welcome the Yuletide cheer, but our home was cold, thanks to the weather, and usual. The next few days played out similarly: wake with anticipation, head downstairs to the same kitchen, the same dining room, the same living room, all devoid of Christmas’s sparkle. At the end of the first week of December, it occurred to me that my childhood home’s overnight transformation into a Winter Wonderland wasn’t magic, it was the work of my parents.
I am now the mother, the orchestrator of Christmas enchantment. Quickly, like Santa’s elves, I got to work, hoisting boxes from the basement. I hit “play” on holiday hits and, son on my hip, decorated the house with non-breakable trees, a plastic Nativity.
I lit a Holiday Cookie candle and shouted Christmas songs at the top of my lungs while displaying a few Santas gifted me by my paternal grandmother. My son watched, wide-eyed, dancing along to the bouncier tunes like Jingle Bell Rock. When the day was through, our home felt like Christmas.
Every day since, we’ve played Christmas music from morning to night. My 1-year-old stares up at the mantle, begging to be lifted; he delights in admiring the porcelain Christmas village passed down to us by a wonderful former co-worker’s wife. On our daily walks, I pause outside stores downtown.
“Do you see the shimmering tree?” I ask my son. “Oh, look, Santa’s in the window!” To experience Christmas with a little one is to fall back in love with this season, which is more than pretty paper and presents under a tree. This Christmastime, I’m reminded that the reason for the season is a birth.
I wonder at how Mary, mother of our Savior, delighted in her child the way I enjoy time with my own. Christmastime is not about gifts, but about love, about connecting with the people who matter most to us, about slowing down and taking in the beauty all around, about thinking of others before thinking of oneself. It’s okay if you’ve been feeling a little Grinchy.
We’ve all been there. But with Christmas Day nigh, may this serve as a reminder there is still time for your heart to grow three sizes. The Christmas magic, after all, is within.
Katherine Mansfield is a former staff writer for the Observer-Reporter. You can read her latest work at https://katherinemansfield.substack.
com/..
