’tis the season. Last year we went whole hog for Momma and bought a big expensive realistic 8 ft. faux Spruce tree, half a dozen boxes of new hand-blown glass ornaments, at least twenty strands of LED lights, and then we got into the attic — into the old dusty boxes covered with labels written by my grandmother, stored away up there since 1958.
It took hours to spiff up the old, tried and true decorations. We had to insert little wire hangers into even smaller tiny wire holders. We polished silver and gold, spray-painted crackled faded finishes. I repaired fuzzy fur hats and sewed new clothing onto long-forgotten Santa Clauses and moth-eaten reindeer.
Rob and I replaced the worn-out plastic and silk flowers and holly. We bought two new wreaths for the front windows and wrapped the front door like a giant present – red paper with a big green bow. I found at least a dozen strands of 1960s vintage Christmas lights, the big ones Daddy used on our house in Fort Smith when I was growing up – you could see them all the way from I-40.
After framing out the front porch with green, red and blue bulbs, we made a 100 ft strand with only blue lights and spiraled it around the chimney which culminated at a five foot gold star which we illuminated with a 1000 watt floodlight.
In the front yard, Rob made room for the wooden reindeer (covered with twinkly white lights). I bought a fourth reindeer for our set, this one’s head bobbed up and down like it was eating. Rob also had to drastically prune the camellia bushes and rake up all the pine straw from under the holly bushes so we could make a manger scene. It always seems so wrong to stick a light bulb up Joseph and Mary’s asses and to not put a light bulb in the donkey’s ass but that’s Christmas for you.
We even had scented candles for every room. This made me really nervous since Momma started making mini-bonfires whenever the Republican Party sent her literature. She crumples up the paper and sets it in the wash tub on the back porch and lights it with her cigarette. At 90, she’s none too steady with her flame-producing capability. Everyone probably remembers me complaining about her tendency to create burn holes in her clothing with her cigarette ash.
I baked cookies, cakes and pies. Seems like it was some tasty new treat every day. I even made real from-scratch cornbread stuffing for our turkey served on Christmas day. It seems like every member of our extended family came by at one point or another to wish us happy holidays. Momma was ecstatic. We spent our evenings bathed in the soft glow of twinkling Christmas tree lights while stories of holidays past swirled around the room.
And that’s not even the half of it. The gifts were spectacular – from the giving to the receiving. I swear, I think everyone was in a good mood all the time.
The happiness spread throughout most of 2008.
This year, Momma’s in a nursing home/rehabilitation center. Did you know it’s state law here that caregivers must refer to where she is as a “nursing home – rehabilitation center”? Can’t be one or the other, it must be both. Momma sits facing broken, always open, plastic mini-blinds of the floor to ceiling window in her room. All she can see over the tops of some trampled nandina bushes is the side of a handicap-accessible van parked just outside her room. She’s upright in her wheelchair because physical therapy has helped her become strong enough to stop slumping. The sun illuminates her head, a white halo glistens and beckons madness to begin. Today I tell her to spend the afternoon contemplating nights spent in the Airstream in parking lots all over the world while she and Daddy were on their way to some incredible destination.
Think about the Airstream trailer… the Chevy Suburban… and all those Wally Byam caravans. And why Daddy bought that huge-ass Airstream when he cashed in his retirement savings.
To keep alive and make real an enduring promise of high adventure and faraway lands… of rediscovering old places and new interests.
