Christmas Wrapping
My sister Nora and I agreed on this: as parents, the magic had to be there on Christmas morning. There is no substitute for it, that Christmas morning joy. You know, the prospect that a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-shot Range Model Air Rifle might be under the tree (or maybe not – “You’ll shoot your eye out!”). Actually, I never wanted an air rifle. Train set, maybe.
But when you become parents, you appreciate what YOUR parents did to pull off Christmas. And with six kids in the house, I’m not sure how my parents managed. Christmas Eve was a busy day. The traditional Christmas Eve dinner was crab casserole – not sure how that tradition started; perhaps it was a nod to Dad’s upbringing in Annapolis, Maryland, where one would think they ate Chesapeake Bay crabs three meals a day. Mom used real crab, none of that canned stuff, and so bought several large crabs, which had to be cracked and the meat removed. I always helped Mom do this, earning her praise as a “champion crab cracker”. It’s funny what different families eat traditionally on Christmas Eve; there’s nothing standard about it. Cathy’s family made a spaghetti pie, which was actually quite good, kind of like a lasagna with spaghetti noodles. Cathy and I made that for years, and the girls loved it. Kayci’s family favored homemade clam chowder, made with cream – tons of cream! - and bacon. It would keep Eskimos warm and fat through a cold dark Arctic winter. These days I make both the spaghetti pie and the crab casserole. Nora makes chicken enchiladas, and has for years; it’s the antithesis of the turkey dinner on Christmas Day.
Dinner was just one of three major things that occurred on Christmas Eve. After dinner, we were allowed to open ONE present, and one present only. We were an open-your-presents-on-Christmas-Day family, and that’s still the way I roll. None of this open-them-all-on-Christmas-Eve. Then what fun is Christmas Day? What’s the point? You might as call Christmas Eve Christmas Day, and push Christmas Eve back a day. So the pressure was on; you did not want to pick a dud, with only one shot at it. And occasionally, Mom would MAKE us open the present from Aunt Carol, because it was something we could wear to midnight Mass. We objected strenuously to this. First, because we absolutely didn’t want to wear the sweater (or “sweater-shirt”; remember, this was the 70s) it was sure to be, and it also represented an absolute waste of the one-present rule. You might as well not pick ANY present at all.
We began going to midnight Mass when the younger kids were old enough to stay out that late. Prior to that, there was a Christmas morning dilemma. Attend the usual 8:00 a.m. Mass? Or do presents et al. and go to 10 a.m. Mass? Midnight Mass made that problem moot. But midnight Mass started LATE, at 11:30 p.m. By the time we started attending midnight Mass, we older boys were altar servers, and getting picked to served midnight Mass was a plum assignment. It was pretty much the highlight of the altar boy season. Sure, serving weddings was great, because you might get a five-dollar bill, in an envelope from Fr. McCarthy, for doing so; and funerals were awesome because they occurred during the week and you got out of school to serve those. But midnight Mass…it was the Show. It was like making the majors, or the all-star team. Special red cassocks. And an expanded playoff roster, lots of positions on the altar. One year Rick Carr and I got picked to hold larges candles the entire time. That’s it. Kneel on the front of the altar, with six others, and hold candles the entire time. It was like being upfront at a Springsteen concert. We were close enough to see Monsignor Maddox, who was known to like his Scotch, sweating profusely under the bright lights. And I sure got tired from kneeling the whole time. Rick got me through it. Maybe that’s when my back problems started.
Once midnight Mass was over, it was all good. No obligations whatsoever, at least for us kids. When we got home, my dad would fix us eggnog (though not the kicked-up version of his dad’s, not until we were old enough for that) and we’d snack on crackers and Figi’s cheese, a Christmas tradition in our house. The -cheese (“Cave Cure”, which sounds like it was aged by monks in French caves formerly inhabited by Neanderthals; it actually came from Wisconsin) came in a small pottery crock and Dad had it delivered to the house every holiday season. And in fact, my parents sent us kids Figi’s cheese for years afterward. The crocks are worth keeping, for houseplants or screws and nails or loose change. Can’t imagine throwing one of those crocks away.
Off to bed, late, 1:30 p.m., for a fairly short night of sleep, depending on when the younger kids got up. For our parents the night was even shorter. Because Santa couldn’t come, Christmas couldn’t be constructed, until the kids went to bed. A fact we were painfully aware of only when WE became parents. Now my parents, influenced by the organizational tendencies of my engineer dad, did as much as possible beforehand. Definitely not prone to last-minute shopping, they had bought and wrapped most of the presents already, and those had been hidden in various places around the house. But I, being the investigative sort, managed to find them sometimes, such as in the rafters of the garage. Not that I’d unwrap them. I’m not THAT much of a lawbreaker.
Some presents, though, could not be pre-wrapped or even assembled before time. One Christmas morning we awoke to find three gold Huffy bikes around the tree. No hiding those! They had arrived, in boxes, to a neighbor’s house, and their teenage boy, one of our favorite babysitters, had helped Dad assemble them.
Christmas morning was controlled, or slightly uncontrolled, chaos and fury. When you awoke the presents were usually covered with a sheet, to prevent really early risers from too much discovery. Everyone had to be present to start unwrapping presents, so Dennis, the youngest, would harangue us older teenage boys to get up. And there was none of this one-present-at-a-time-who’s-next crap. Every man for himself. An onslaught of wrapping paper ripped and discarded, like New Year’s Eve confetti, just littering the living room floor and making walking difficult. You had to wade through it, like breaking trail in heavy snow.
Christmas morning was the main event for us kids, and it never disappointed. Ever. You waited all year for this. The gifts weren’t lavish, but they were fun. The years saw a variety of wheeled contrivances appear: skates, skateboards, bikes, trikes, a motorcycle, a red fire engine, dual red wagons. A rocking horse, in 1962, that lasted almost 50 years and was renamed “Lemon” by Dan’s daughter, Claire. An archery set, which I assume had suction-cup arrows (“You’ll shoot your eye out!”). Guns, army helmets, Notre Dame football helmets, cowboy hats, Civil War hats. Footballs, basketballs, street hockey sticks and balls – we played that one bright Christmas morning, one advantage of a southern California Christmas. Zim-Zam. Toy guitars, junior music sets. Slot cars, Hot Wheels and a Lionel train. Was that my favorite of all time? Maybe second only to Tudor electric football – what an amazing and brilliant invention! Plastic football players, which we subsequently painted in Rams and 49ers colors, moved (somewhat randomly, I’ll admit) to advance a little felt football, when the metal field they were on vibrated via an electric motor. The sound of electric football is certainly the sound of one particular Christmas morning. You could crank the vibrations up (which we did, of course, all the way) at which point it was like a 7.0 earthquake had hit the LA Coliseum. The players all fell over and went into convulsions. Talk about chaos.
I hope my girls were as thrilled on Christmas morning as I used to be, and I know they do have good memories of Christmas morning. One year Bridget received a purple iPod Nano – which a family dog (not ours, but one who will remain nameless) ate later that week. A mini-trampoline and a pogo stick were among the “active” toys they loved, and Carrie remembers her yellow and green skateboard (which was very different from the skateboard that appeared in the Coonan household in 1964). Dolls: Barbie, American Girl, Ariel, Rapunzel, Jessie. A Barbie dream house. Hot Wheels. Those big Playmobil sets were great – detailed and expansive: a pirate ship, and my favorite, a medieval castle complete with a large green dragon which could be chained to the castle. As if any self-respecting dragon could be contained. This was before we knew differently, thanks to Game of Thrones.
These days, Christmas morning is still magic for me. Obligations – all of them – are over or at bay for a brief time. There are a few presents, tokens of love, under the tree, nothing outlandish. There is time for unhurried coffee and a special breakfast, like cinnamon rolls, that you wouldn’t necessarily fix on any other day. With more food and family to look forward to. I’ll take that. But if electric football appears under the tree…I’m gonna crank it up.
