You can’t live in the past and the present at the same time. Charles Dickens forced Ebenezer Scrooge to live in the past, present, and future, but not simultaneously. Yet, every year Christmas forces us to live in the present and the past. Each year as the songs come on the radio and in the stores, as our favorite Christmas movies come on TV, and as we start the annual baking or cooking of the dishes we only make one time a year, we are reminded of our favorite Christmas memories. Each of these are our own personal ghosts of Christmas past, for better or for worse.
For me, it is the annual baking of Northeast New Mexico’s famous Schaus Sugar Cookies. Or, as I once mistakenly (perhaps, beautifully?) said incorrectly: Schaus Sugar Shookies. As we bake and decorate these cookies every year I am reminded of all the times I did the same thing growing up with my sister and my parents.
As our son huddles around our kitchen island with all the shookies laid out and ready for icing, I see my own self, a little older than he is now, huddled around the same sized kitchen island at my childhood home, excited to somewhat decorate, but mostly eat, the shookies. Just like me when I was a child, after two or three cookies, his enthusiasm and focus wanes, leaving dozens of poorly decorated or undecorated shookies on the counter.
Our son is still too young to realize the importance many of these traditions, or even the importance some Christmas songs or movies have in our culture. After finally convincing him to watch the cinematic, claymation masterpiece, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, he immediately went back to watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse as soon as Rudolph was over. It’s only a matter of time until these old movies carve out a space in his memory to connect him to the past.
I keep finding myself somewhere in the middle of all of this. I keep finding myself somewhere between the nostalgia and the active memory-making; in between longing for the days when I could be like my son again, experiencing the newness of Christmas and the Christmas story, and hoping that these experiences and traditions will be remembered, replicated and adopted if he ever has children.
That feeling of nostalgia is important this time of year. It reminds us of home and that we belong, or, at least it reminds of a place we used to belong.
But, as we get older, and as our lives change, that feeling of home changes as well. I have not been to my childhood home or hometown (or home state, for that matter) on Christmas day in well over a decade. My wife and I have started to make a new home for ourselves in a new place for both of us – not too far from her home place, but a long way from mine. This place is new enough to us both that we can actually make this home our own.
At first I thought I was betraying my old home place on these nostalgic Christmas evenings. I suppose this is part of the difficulty of living in between two feelings. Perhaps I didn’t want to betray where I came from so much that I couldn’t fully live in the present time of memory-making.
Yet, I find myself stuck again this year between the joy of memory-making and the sadness of re-membering. Some songs on the radio say this far better than I can, which is why they are so popular. They express the sadness in ways I never thought about. The saddest Christmas song is not Blue Christmas. It is not the one song about Christmas Shoes or Christmas Carol. It is not In the Bleak Midwinter.
The saddest Christmas song is I’ll Be Home for Christmas. It is about a person longing to remember Christmas as it used to be, back when it was magical and happy and joyful. I can picture the singer gathering around the piano on Christmas Eve with family to sing Christmas carols, drinking eggnog and rum – you know, the picturesque, romantic, rarely actualized Christmas Eve scene.
For me it is Christmas Eve that I remember, with all the food my mom used to make after the Christmas Eve candlelight service, the meal our family looked forward to more than the one we had with all the trimmings on Christmas Day. The meal on Christmas Eve consisted of those buttery ham sandwiches on hawaiian rolls with poppy seeds on top. For a side we had a dip with black beans, corn, and avocado with Frito Scoops to dip with.
This is one of the main scenes that comes to mind when I hear I’ll Be Home For Christmas. These short eight lines are packed with so much feeling and emotion. The saddest line isn’t even the “If only in my dreams” part. That line is the culmination of these eight lines. It is the end of the story, the last piece of information, and it does hit you right in the feels.
But, for me, the saddest line is: “you can plan on me.” This person (I will call him “he” because he is me) is a long way away. He is far off in an unknown, undisclosed place. Yet, you can plan on him being there. He is not missing this Christmas. He doesn’t miss any Christmas. No matter where this guy is on Christmas Eve, he can be found in that place where he feels love from and for his family.
We all know how the story ends – he’s only dreaming of this place he knows so well. He’s only dreaming of this Christmas that does not exist any more.
The song hits me different this year. This is my first Christmas without both of my parents, and the childhood house I grew up in, where so many of my Christmas memories were made, is no longer in our families possession. Those nostalgic feelings of Christmas I grew up with and are now engrained in me as to what Christmas should feel like are completely a memory. There is no concrete, real place to relive those memories – they are only in my memory.
For most adults it is probably true that the infrastructure of our nostalgic Christmases are gone. This can be for any number of reasons: the loss of a loved one; family relationships have changed; people have moved away; we have personally changed.
Whatever the reason, remembering what used to be can be difficult. Whatever the reason, Christmas as it used to be, or Christmas as we wish it could be again, is no more.
Even though I will never get to experience that exact Christmas feeling again because they are gone for good, I am still happy to have had the experiences, the memories, and now the nostalgia and the longing.
My only hope is that we can create enough Christmas love and memories that our son can look back one day in 30 years and feel the same longing nostalgia for friends and family.
I will be home for Christmas, somewhere between the past and the present, making new memories and new dreams for future Christmases. This is my new Christmas dream.