White Christmas - Thank you Irving Berlin

Lady of Wellington's "White Christmas" post on Theme Thursday reminded me that my grandmother had the “White Christmas” sheet music, usually standing on the piano music stand. I’d riffle through just to look at the cover all through the year. This memory segued into the following:

I’ve loved Christmas as long as I can remember. The excitement of the season as a child was an escalating flurry of fun. It began early in December with Mom baking and making candy. We kids helped where we could, (read that to mean we ate the broken cookies and licked the frosting bowl.) Mom had a gift with sweets, her goody plates were legend. The house smelled of sugar for weeks.

We’d make a foray into the dime store in Myrtle Point to select gifts for the siblings. I’d forget my purpose and wander mesmerized down dimly lit rows admiring its wares: pots and pans, coffee pots, wooden clothespins, dolls, miniature tea sets, board games and puzzles, rings and bracelets, tools, pill boxes, bubble bath gel balls, jump ropes, hula hoops, metal jacks and balls, marbles, stationery, powder, rock candy, and best of all, rainbow colored all-day suckers prominently displayed at the checkout counter. I’d buy Mennen Skin Bracer for Dad, toys for my brothers, and a box of Life Savers for Grandma.

Anticipation for Christmas was enhanced by the thrill of the annual downtown Christmas display, ropes of lights stretched across the street, and an aloft Santa Claus riding in his reindeer drawn sleigh in center place.

My family spent Christmas with my mother’s relatives during my youth. The Christmas tree was off in one corner of the living room, secured in place by a guy wire to the ceiling. This was a precaution because of me. One year my Post grandparents stopped to visit my Grandfather Thompson and in my enthusiasm to show them Pappy’s tree I climbed it, toppling it with most of the ornaments breaking in the fall. Pappy never had another tree and the Post household had a guy wire on their tree henceforth.

We got to open one gift - selected by Mom - on Christmas Eve, usually a game to keep us occupied a bit. Brother Michael, two years my senior, and I would be so excited by Santa’s impending visit that it was hard to sleep on Christmas Eve.

Our Uncle Lynn often made things worse. He’d get us all crying and carrying on just for fun, mean fun, telling us he’d be lighting a fire in the fireplace to keep that old, fat man with his bag full of gifts from coming down the chimney. Or one year waking us up in the middle of the night to say he’d bought us a pony and it was out in the machine shop – no pony of course, but we were wide awake after walking clear back there.

Mom didn’t approve of Lynn’s behavior and got subtle revenge on him by sending us in to jump on his bed and sing at the top of our lungs early in the morning. He’d invariably been uptown boozing the night before and was trying to sleep it off, (yes New York City, Powers Oregon has an uptown too).

Finally it would be Christmas Day. Michael and I’d wake up at first light but weren’t allowed to open any presents until Grandpa got up and we’d eaten breakfast. That man worked hard and liked to sleep in on his days off. He also liked to torture us on Christmas Day. We’d go into his bedroom begging him to wake up. Again and again. In the meantime Mom and Grandma cooked breakfast so by the time Grandpa did arise we were set to eat. An incredibly slow meal it seemed.

Then finally, finally, finally we got to open presents.

Merry Christmas