Christmas time...the most wonderful time of the year!! That statement certainly rang true when I was a boy. My 63 year old brain is stuffed full with hundreds of joyous Christmas memories...like an old trunk in the back of a drafty attic...open it and you'll be transported though time and space to Christmas's long ago. Heck, you may even find an old film projector and several reels of 8mm movies to dust off and revisit. Nostalgia! Christmas spirit!! That warm feeling in your heart that used to arrive every December as a child has become harder and harder to recognize as I've grown older. Why is that? The quest for that Christmas spirit, has almost become the equivalent of a drug addict injecting more and more of something, trying to recapture that initial buzz of euphoria. But, you just end up chasing that first rush of Christmas long ago. It gets harder and harder to achieve until you finally OD or just quit.
For me Christmas as a boy was amazing. My parents and Grandparents spoiled me rotten as I was the first born. They actually DID have a film projector back in the early 60's so the proof is there in living color!!!! What a wonderful time to be a kid. No internet to ruin the illusion of Santa Claus. No cable TV to run the Christmas cartoons and specials into the dirt. The absence of hot and cold running media meant that you watched Christmas programs ONCE A YEAR and the anticipation was overwhelming....and what shows we had. Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer was first broadcast in 1964 and within the next few years, Charlie Brown's Christmas, Frosty The Snowman, The Grinch and many others followed.
The 60's. So many memories...the grade school Christmas programs, exchanging gifts with class mates and those surreal black and white movies that the school would project on a giant screen in the gymnasium. Three Stooges movies were always a hit on the last day of class before Christmas break.
I remember one Christmas break, we were watching TV in our living room when we heard a knock on our front door. My Mom opened it and she called me over. "Some friends of your are here", she said. I got off the floor and much to my surprise there were about a dozen neighborhood girls caroling and singing Christmas songs. I listened with a big smile on my face as they broke into YELLOW SUBMARINE just for me!!! They knew I was a BEATLES FREAK. I really felt special for them to include that song for me.
Speaking of the 60's, Did they ever make cooler toys than they did in back then? My Dad never had much of a Christmas when he was a boy, so he marveled at the toys we received and was right there on the floor to assemble each one and play right along with us. Christmas remained special for years until about 1973 when I was 14. I had just painted my bedroom the previous Summer after graduating from grade school. BURNT ORANGE with YELLOW SHAG CARPET. THE ORANGE ROOM was my place of solitude. That particular Christmas, we lost our Grandfather. He was only 59. Cancer. It was my first experience with death and something just didn't feel the same. I spent hours in my ORANGE ROOM with the lights off.... meditating to the the blue glow of my ROSS AM/FM receiver. I heard Cheech and Chong's SANTA CLAUS AND HIS OLD LADY for the first time in that room. It cheared me up but I missed my Grandpa Jack. Christmas Spirit was hard to find that year, but it eventually did come around.
Later in life, Christmas was busy meeting friends on college breaks and enjoying large house parties. Some would last days. My mom and Dad had some doozies, but over time, the euphoria of Christmas was being chipped away a little at a time. The death of John Lennon in December of 1980 was one of the first indications that life was not always going to be rosy. That was a tough Christmas. Years later, when I became I became a father, Christmas Spirit was back in full force... at least for a few years until the divorce. My ex wife managed to let the cat out of the bag years too early about Santa Claus..... so I in turn, lost several years of magic with my children.
Loosing loved ones has taken much of the spirit away. First, my beautiful grandmother in 2004. I still remember the time I drove her to her assisted living apartment for the last time. We had been at my brothers on Christmas Eve and nobody was volunteering to take her home, so it was decided that I'd take her. At first I was a little annoyed but it became a special memory for me. We had a nice talk on the way into town and after I got her safely into her apartment, I decided to walk the halls of this gothic old building on Spring Street. I walked every floor and looked at all the decorations. Somehow I knew this could be my last Christmas with my grandma. That night in that building, I felt my heart bursting with a Christmas spirit. It was overwhelming and honestly, I haven't felt it much since. My Dad passed away in 2017 and my first cousin in 2018. She was like a sister to me. Mom died in 2020 right before Covid and my son Dylan, three months later. In October of the same year I was diagnosed with Rectal Cancer. It was one shitty year. ZERO Christmas spirit. The tank was on empty.
So, the past couple of years has found me slightly depressed around Christmas time. I know that it's really all about the birth of our savior Jesus Christ and as I get older, I find more comfort in that than anything. That rush of euphoria...that Christmas hit of joy and well being doesn't come quite as often as it once did and I miss that. But in reality, I just miss my son, my cousin, my old friends, my grandmother and parents. I miss being young..... but these blogs remind me of how much life I've really lived. I'm blessed to be able to share my stories with you all. MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!!
Another tale from when days were Psychedelic.
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