Flocked Trees, Mistletoe and Snow

Memories of Home

It was the same every year. The day after Thanksgiving, a truck arrived with a white flocked Christmas tree. It was set up in the corner of our living room. My mother would weave strands of colored lights throughout the fluffy, chemical ladened branches and stuffed ornaments in nearly every pine scented gap.

In the opposite corner of our living room stood the Hi-Fi. It was a stately beast of a piece of furniture wired to two box speakers that doubled as side tables at the far end of the living room. Along with the rest of the Christmas decorations that magically appeared out of some unknown storage location, came a stack of vinyl records. As my mother busied herself, filling the mantle and dining room table with ever more seasonal decor, the albums stacked on the turntable played holiday music in the background. Hours of Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Johnny Mathis, and Andy Williams songs filled the air while the fall colors of Thanksgiving were swapped for the glitter and gold of the greatest holiday of all kiddom.

The house of my youth was built in the early 60s. It was a split-level on the top of the hill serviced by a gravely road at the edge of town. The living room furniture was Scandinavian modern, a sleek mid-century style that emerged long before Ikea sold a single stick of cryptic self-assembled replacement in the US. My childhood home was built by parents who were offspring of the Greatest generation, and in the sixties when they wed, life was full of hope and optimism. As a child in that home, so was I.

I specifically recall the nativity set that was carefully displayed on the most prominent table centered beneath the front windows in our living room.  I would play with the carved baboo figurines of shepherds, wise men, Joseph, Mary and  Jesus for hours on end. To cap our annual holiday decoration ritual, a garland wrapped, and lit display was placed on our snow ladened front yard. The display emulated a giant greeting card with the Maji on one side and the caption, "Merry Christmas from the Nelsons" on the other. For a young boy growing up in the early 1970s in Northern Minnesota, Christmas was simply a magical time.

The same decorating ritual occurred throughout my town. Up and down Main Street, Christmas wreaths hung from the lamp posts and storefronts donned the red and green of the season. My childhood church went through its own ritual of preparing for Christmas. The month of Advent meant adding Christmas hymns and stories to the liturgy. Lessons and Carols was my favorite as the story of Jesus's birth told through a series of Biblical passages and corresponding hymns sent my mind wondering to the ancient Judaean desert imaging what it would be like to meet an angel.

The public schools of my youth also went through that same fall to Christmas transition. The classrooms were decorated with tinsel and posters commemorating the special time of the year. Scenes depicting angels speaking to shepherds by night and pointing to yonder star were typical and the school erected a large Christmas tree in its foyer that greeting all who entered through the main door of the campus. Whilst I was in third grade, our class was designated to perform the school Christmas pageant. Yours truly was cast as one of the wise men. I do not recall whether I carried gold, frankincense, or myrrh, but we three paraded onto the stage and approached a young Mary, Joseph, and the baby Jesus just as foretold in the books of Matthew and Luke.

What I also remember from those early Christmas years was the snow. When one was only three feet tall, a foot of snow appeared massive and a six foot snowdrift insurmountable. In my backyard stood a nursing home built upon a hill. From the first snowfall of the season until the last bits melted away in the spring, we would sled the giant hill that led from one of the nursing home's receiving rooms down into Mr. Peterson's backyard. After school, we would grab our two runners, saucers, and toboggans and pretend that we were training for the US Olympic luge team. Up and down the hill we would go until daylight was no longer and our parents beckoned us home for supper.

As we performed our Olympic death-defying feats upon our radio flyer sleds, the old folks of the nursing home would gather in the reception room to watch. I always felt a bit strange having such an elderly audience. I wondered if watching us young neighborhood boys perform our daily sledding ritual warmed their hearts with the nostalgic thoughts of youthful play or simply gave them angst over the fact that their old bones could no longer preform such death-defying feats. As I now approach my graying years, perhaps I will learn the answer to that age-old conundrum.

My childhood memories of Christmas are good. As I get on in years and have witnessed, both at the same time, the diminishment of its significance while at the same time an overt commercialization of Christmas, and my heart is saddened. For what I've learned in my nearly 60 years on this earthly plane is that exposure to the magic of Christmas does not shield one from the tragedies of a life lived in a flawed human vessel. Youthful exposure to Christmas did not save me from failed marriages, prevent my addictive behavior, nor deliver me 100% business success. Those shortcomings and failures rest solely upon my weary shoulders. But having experienced the warmth and the spiritual significance of the Christmas season in my home, in my town, in my school and in my church as a young lad gave me the hope that as I was overcoming the failures of my life's decisions, there was a memory of something good, something pure and something fantastic that I could emulate in my reformation.

I am stricken by the fact that the Christmas of my youth has been stripped away from current generations. The public schools, long secularized, no longer honor Christmas, but send the little ones on "winter break." Towns may still adorn lamp posts with green and red but “Merry Christmas” has been replaced with "Season's Greetings." Churches go through the perfunctory Advent liturgy out of a sense of nostalgia but as soon as the Christmas season concludes, the pulpits no longer offer the inspiration of God's word but preach the collective salvation from the gospel according to Marx.

I am stricken because, if a child today is not endued with the memories of the birth of Christ and the tremendous gift that He brought to all humankind, what can they fall back on when life does not turn out the way they planned. Instead of receiving unifying messages of Love, Grace, and Forgiveness, today’s youth get from their home, their town, their school, and their church, bombarding messages of oppressors versus the oppressed. What will today’s youth do when that daily "diet of despair" inevitably ceases to satisfy, and life feels hopeless and bleak? Where will today's youth turn for salvation?

I am blessed with childhood memories of the glory of Christmas presented by the symbols of the tree, the warm greeting of a wreath, the majesty of the Nativity and the Star atop as a reminder that there is a greater purpose then myself that orders our world. That what we celebrate at Christmas time is the birth of that purpose, sent to us from on high to teach us that ultimate and undying Love, Grace and Forgiveness comes from our Creator. Christmas is a time when we reflect that our lives were created to simply live, love and be loved. What we do from that simplicity, is of our doing, not God's. Christmas is the time to regroup and reset our individual worlds to His ideal.

May you all have a magical and Merry Christmas! And if you are not surrounded by flocked trees, mistletoe, and snow, may the memories or imagination of those fill your hearts with joy.