I remember that time, so many snowy winters ago, when my grandparents’ house was packed with my whole family: aunts, uncles, and cousins I hadn’t seen since the last holiday season. The holiday gathered around a large family table, with everyone’s favorite foods made in enormous proportions. It felt like such a normal, annual occurrence; something you could rely upon like the changing of the calendar or singing Auld Lang Syne on New Year’s as the clock struck 12. Back then, I had no idea how fleeting these moments were or how much things would change.
Christmas will never be the same as it was then, a joyful celebration at home followed by a long car ride to our grandparents’ house. There were presents wrapped and waiting beneath the shining aluminum Christmas tree, the one with the color wheel that slowly changed the light as it turned.
There were songs to sing together and board games to play. Grandma would disappear into the kitchen to keep dinner cooking, and some of the aunts would join her. Grandpa and my dad set the table. It was not fancy china, just good, sturdy plates and silverware. If there were a lot of us, it did not all match, but no one cared. It was the food, the love, and the shared celebration that made it special.
Sometimes there were more people than chairs at the table. When that happened, out came the old wooden ironing board, placed carefully across two chairs, and a third, and sometimes a fourth, child would sit there on the span in between. There was never a children’s table at my grandparents’ house. Everyone sat together around the big, old table.
Aunts, uncles, and cousins arrived, coats piled onto the bed because the coat closet could not hold them all. My grandmother made everyone’s favorite dish, even if none of them went together, and that dish was placed in front of them when dinner was served. For me, it was her homemade butter noodles. For my mom, date pudding. For my dad, her macaroni and cheese. For my brother, homemade rolls. There was always ham, and sometimes turkey too, and all the trimmings.
And just when you thought you had eaten your fill, my grandmother would say, “But I made that just for you,” gently coaxing you to take just a little more of your favorite dish. Good food, she believed, should never go to waste.
When the meal was finished and the aunts began gathering plates and heading for the kitchen, my grandmother would always say, “Just leave it. Grandpa will do the dishes. Grandpa loves to do the dishes.” For the record, Grandpa did not love to do the dishes. Still, with a quiet smile of surrender, he and the uncles would disappear into the kitchen and not return until every dish, pot, and pan was washed, dried, and put carefully away.
Then it was time for what my grandmother called “The Christmas Game.” Somehow, there were always exactly enough small gifts under the silver tree for everyone present. Each person had a number. When your number was called, you could choose a wrapped gift from under the tree or take one from someone else, and they’d get to choose again. The game went on until everyone had their final gift, and then we opened them together. It always amazed me how everyone ended up with something just right for them. I did not realize until much later that the packages wrapped with flowers and ribbons were meant for girls, while the ones with plain curling ribbon were meant for boys. Still, we all had something we would enjoy in the end.
Those carefully wrapped boxes held small treasures: a plastic yo-yo, a pink headband, a set of jacks, or a Chinese jump rope. It was not until I was an adult that I understood how little my grandparents had. As a child, they seemed like the richest people in the world, simply because of the love and joy they shared so freely.
As families do, we scattered. Grandparents grew older and eventually passed on. Years slipped by without seeing aunts, uncles, or cousins. Distance and growing families pulled us in different directions, and holidays became something celebrated only within our immediate family. Then, in time, the parents became the grandparents, and houses were once again filled with holiday cheer and togetherness.
Eventually, though, the aunts and uncles and parents pass on. Families drift, as is the natural way of things. The grandchildren become parents, and then the great-grandchildren arrive.
And the maiden aunts or bachelor uncles? For a while, they are invited now and then. But distance often weakens even those ties. Slowly, Christmas becomes a day like any other. Sometimes busy. Sometimes lonely. Sometimes both. Without quite intending it, we find ourselves living more in our childhood Christmases than in the quiet days in front of us.
Still, I hold no sadness that those crowded, noisy Christmases now live only in memory. They fill my mind, and they feed my soul. I carry them with me like a treasured pocket watch.
As the younger ones become parents and then grandparents themselves, the cycle continues. There are new names and new faces, but the same loving togetherness remains, passed along as it always has been. And to me, that is the true meaning of Christmas: a living tradition that moves gently through generations, while we pass through it almost unnoticed, until one day we realize we have become part of the memory itself.
If you enjoyed this remembrance, you might enjoy this post as well. Choose Joy – Jan Mariet’s A Day in the Life
