I remember being about 3 or 4, wearing footie pajamas and standing on the precipice to the living room from the hallway, with my hands clasped together in utter delight, marveling at all the stuff that Santa had brought. I don’t recall much of it now — I think there was a drum that I promptly stuck my drumsticks through and I remember there being a cowgirl hat and boots and one of those little horses on wheels.  But what I distinctly remember is seeing the plate of cookies we’d set out the night before, missing 3 or 4 bites, the milk half empty and the carrot nibbled just enough.

We’ll just gloss over the fact that one of my earliest Christmas memories revolves around food.

On Christmas Eve, my mom and I made cookies together, cutting them out with cookie cutters, cooling them on racks and eventually frosting and decorating them just so.  I remember mom helping me pour Santa’s milk in a smoke-colored highball glass and setting everything out on our rattan coffee table.  I remember so clearly my mom leaning in and the way she smelled like sugar cookies and Jergen’s lotion, reminding me that these cookies were for Santa, as a thank you for my Christmas gifts, as a snack on his long journey. And while I really wanted that green-frosted Christmas tree with the little silver balls that later in life cracked one of my molars, I remember looking wide-eyed at her as I tucked my hand away, nodding in agreement.  We wouldn’t want Santa or Rudolph to go hungry.

In hindsight, it seems all the other reindeer were left to fend for themselves.

Dad would read ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas, as Rockwell-esque as that seems. It didn’t last forever, perhaps on the first handful of Christmases and a few scattered over the years after that, but I fondly recall him wearing a very red v-neck sweater with a wide-collared shirt underneath, sitting with his leg crossed in a big 70′s velour chair, reading from a thin hard-cover picturebook with little tears in the sleeve.  And when it was over, he’d scoop up my little PJ’d self and tuck me in, allowing sugarplums to dance accordingly, while mom was in the kitchen, pouring the grown-ups some Benedictine in snifters.

Of course, eventually I realized that Dad also enjoyed green-frosted Christmas tree cookies with little silver balls on them and that Rudolph was really my mom, but there’s something distinctly tactile and emotional about that memory of seeing the cookies on Christmas morning, half eaten, milk glass half empty.  I truly believed that Santa had been there, that he’d brought all these wonderful goodies for me, because I was such a good girl.  It was a time that I never questioned anything about myself or my self-worth, about faith or politics or reality.  It encompasses all the wonder I think Christmas should be for little children… pure and wonderous and magical. It makes me happy for Reilly and Carter, that they’ll get a chance to experience that.

It would nice if the holidays could still be like that for everyone.

Clearly, I’m doing some housecleaning. In the meantime, enjoy this little video I made of Lulu’s first Christmas. The light was low, so the quality was iffy in some spots, but I think it lends a certain nostalgic charm.

Happy Christmas!

p.s. I’m also running all my feeds through Feedburner now. While I’ve switched platforms and will be redirecting my old link to the new link, in the meantime, it would be great if you could update your feed. Thanks!

kathy’s status is now “Tony Bennett – My Favorite Things”. (11/29/2004 10:15 AM)

Aaaaaaaaamen. Who decided this was a Christmas song, anyway? I try to be all zen and holiday-like about it when I hear it, but it quietly irks me every time.  From a musical.  Not a Christmas song.  Bah. Humbug.