One of my most vivid childhood memories of Christmas is the year of the big Christmas tree. I was 11 years old. My parents chose the tree from a retail parking lot converted to “Christmas Lane,” where a crowd of straggly trees had already been picked over and rejected. They chose the big tree because, just two weeks before Christmas, the needles were still green and it was on sale. My brother, Kelly, was 8, and my little sisters, Tracy and Connie, were 6 and 5 at the time. We were beside ourselves when my parents dragged the heavy, bundled tree through the front door.  Having a Christmas tree began the countdown to Christmas. We had been watching Christmas specials on TV since the day after Thanksgiving and we were eager to get things rolling.

When my dad cut the twine off the tree, the branches dropped and bounced, releasing the magnificent woodsy, astringent scent of pine; the aroma of my childhood Christmases. My dad reached through the branches and picked up the tree by the trunk. He rocked it into the tree stand until it stood straight as an arrow. That was when I realized how big the tree was compared to past Christmas trees; this was no scrawny little 4-footer, it was slightly taller than my dad, who stood 6 feet tall.

My dad backed away from the tree with his arms outstretched and turned to my mom. “Look good?” He asked her. When she approved, he muttered something about going to wash the “damn sap” off his hands and disappeared into a another room for the rest of the evening. His job was done.

My mom, Kelly and I turned our attention to the Christmas lights, which were lumped into three massive balls in a crumpled cardboard box. We unwound the strands, the glass bulbs clacking against each other as we untangled and spread them out on the floor to check for broken or burned out bulbs.

“Be careful,” my mom warned us. “If you accidentally stick your fingers in one of those sockets you’ll be electrocuted to death.” Well, that’s fun.

My mom did most of the tree decorating, My brother, sisters and I took the ornaments out of the boxes and unwrapped them for her to place on the tree in an orderly and symmetric fashion. First the lights, then the ornaments, then lots and lots of tinsel, which was carefully draped over every branch, quivering at the slightest gust of air.

When the tree was done, the four of us laid on our backs and scooched under the tree, looking up through the branches.  To anyone just walking in to see us there, our skinny little legs sticking out from under the tree, it would look as if it had dropped out of nowhere on top of us. Laying there under the tree, the scent of evergreen was delicious and dizzying.  Silver and gold ornaments shaped like tops and round ornaments in different sizes and colors glowed with the reflection of the Christmas lights.  Tinsel sparkled and shone like sequins dripping through the branches.  It was dazzling.  I wanted to live there, under that tree.

The year before, inspired by Little House on the Prairie, my mom and Aunt Marilyn decided to make a popcorn garland for the Christmas tree.  They popped buckets of popcorn and sat for hours, watching TV and stringing the popcorn. Looping the finished garland around the tree was not easy. It caught on the branches, the thread holding it together became tangled and knotted, and wads of popcorn hung in clumps.

When it was finally on the tree, my mom and Marilyn stood back to assess their work.  The garland hung forlornly, uneven and bare in spots where the popcorn had fallen off and littered the floor.  Our scruffy little dog, Princess, bounced her nose along the carpet, gobbling up the fallout.

After a few minutes of looking at the tree and walking back and forth to adjust the popcorn, Marilyn turned to my mom and said, “Well, Sally…that…that really looks like crap.”   

My mom tilted her head at the tree, arms crossed, and laughed. “Yeah, it looks like someone just threw a bowl of popcorn at it,” she said.  And they belly laughed together as they often did. They left the bedraggled garland on the tree and covered it with tinsel.

Christmas shopping revolved around my dad’s monthly paycheck from the Navy, and usually happened close to Christmas. My parents could not always find a babysitter, so the year of the big Christmas tree, they loaded the four of us into the car and drove to Montgomery Ward to finish their shopping.  On the way, Christmas music played on the radio and my mom sang along in her church choir voice.  It was drizzling when we pulled into the parking lot. Store windows were decorated with giant wreaths and multi-colored Christmas lights were strung between the light poles all over the parking lot.  The lights shined into the car, smeary through the damp windshield.   My parents turned to us in the back seat. 

“You kids stay put; do you hear me?”  My dad said sternly.  We nodded.  He looked me in the eye.  “Terry, you’re in charge.”  He then made eye contact with each of my siblings individually.  “You kids listen to Terry.  Do not open the windows or doors.   Do not honk the horn.  Do not get loud.  You hear me?”  He waited for confirmation.  We nodded again. 

“Most important – do not talk to anyone if they come up to the car.”  I was with him until he mentioned someone coming up to the car.  What?

My parents got out of the car and walked toward the store.  My mom looked back twice, then followed my dad inside the store.  For anyone judging my parents’ decision to leave us in the car, remember it was a different time, before news of abducted children, serial killers and mass shootings assailed us nearly every day. 

As soon as my parents were out of sight, Kelly and I climbed into the front seat. I got behind the wheel and pretended to be driving and smoking. Kelly stuck his face against the passenger side window leaving imprints of his nose and lips.  My sisters sat in the back seat, bundled in a blanket, looking out the windows at the lights.  I sang what words I could remember from Frosty the Snowman and thought about what my parents might be buying right now.  There was only one scuffle when Kelly wanted to switch seats with me to pretend he was driving for a while.  He threatened to honk the horn if I didn’t let him, and there was a back and forth with me slapping his hand away each time he reached toward the horn. 

I don’t think my parents were in the store for more than forty minutes.  We watched as they jogged through the drizzle toward us, weighed down with bags.  Kelly and I scrambled to the back seat.  My dad popped the trunk and loaded the bags into it.  The four of us craned our necks to look out the back window, hoping to get a glimpse of something peeking out of a bag.  My mom slid into the passenger seat and turned to look at us.

“Were you good kids?”  She asked.  My dad sat behind the wheel and lit a cigarette. 

“Yes,” I said.  “And we didn’t honk the horn or anything.”  I gave Kelly a satisfied look. 

On the way home, I kept thinking about the bags in the trunk.  What part of that haul was mine?  Was my Barbie in there?  I had been pining for a Barbie doll ever since a neighbor lady brought hers over to show my mom.  Her hobby was designing and making clothes for it.  I had never seen anything so perfectly beautiful. 

During the ride home, my dad tuned to Christmas music again.  My mom hummed along, then turned to us and said, “You know, I think ‘’How the Grinch Stole Christmas’ is on tonight.” 

She knew because she had circled it in the TV guide, as she did with all the upcoming Christmas specials.  We probably said something like, “Yay!” or “Oh boy!” I remember feeling as if things just couldn’t get any better. I gazed out the window at the passing lights, anxious to get home.

I don’t know why the memory of that evening is still so clear to me in every detail.  Maybe because of the drizzle that gave everything a mystical softness, my parents’ cheery mood, or the fact that I was left in charge and nothing bad happened.  To this day, when I hear the theme to “How the Grinch Stole Christmas,” or see colored lights through a smeary car window, I dissolve into my 11-year old self on that chilly evening, a week before Christmas.

I did in fact receive my Barbie doll that Christmas. On Christmas Eve, my parents always put unwrapped presents under the tree after we went to bed.  These were the gifts that Santa supposedly left for us, and they were always the one gift each of us wanted most of all.  Kelly and I no longer believed in Santa, but we kept up the ruse for Tracy and Connie. I heard my parents putting the Santa gifts under the tree late that night. They thought we were all asleep. Not me. And I knew that if my Barbie doll was there, she would be unwrapped, in full view in front of the tree. When I thought my parents had gone to bed, I decided to sneak into the living room. My dad heard my door open. 

“Terry, go back to bed!” He shouted.  Dang, he was still up.

I stopped in my tracks.  “I have to go to the bathroom,” I whined.

“You cannot possibly have to go to the bathroom again,” my dad said.  I had been up several times that night, which is part of the reason they didn’t get the Santa gifts out until late.

“But I do!” I whined louder.  I heard my dad scrambling off the couch, mumbling irritably and heading toward me.  He had one of his socks in his hand.  

“You really have to go to the bathroom again?” He asked me. 

“Yes, I can’t help it.” I said pitifully.

“Okay then,” he said.  “Turn around.”  I turned around and my dad put the sock around over my eyes and tied it in back of my head like a blindfold.  I was stunned.  What the…?

“Alright, let’s go.”  He steered me to the bathroom, waiting outside the door to be sure the sock was back over my eyes before walking past the Christmas tree on my way back to bed. 

“Now, do not get up again,” he warned.  Then, seeing my defeated little face, he said, “Don’t you want to be surprised tomorrow morning?”  I nodded yes, although I didn’t mean it.  How could I sleep not knowing if my Barbie was under the tree?   He put me to bed, removed the sock, and kissed my forehead.

“Now go to sleep,” he said. “Jeez, you’re driving me crazy.”

I eventually fell asleep, and woke up before light to find the doll under the tree with a box of outfits my neighbor had made for her.  Best Christmas ever.

Many years later, I tried to recreate some of my childhood Christmas experiences for my son. I have always had tall, wide, beautiful artificial trees that I cover with lavish decorations.  There is not a bald spot on my tree.  I hang evergreen-scented incense on the branches and light evergreen candles throughout the house, trying to capture the pure pine scent of real Christmas trees.  When my son was about 5, we laid on our backs and scooted our way under our artificial tree to look up through the branches at the lights and ornaments. I was trying to capture that magical feeling again for myself and share it with him, but the branches scratched our faces and smelled like dust. 

After about 30 seconds, my son turned to me and said, “Mommy, it’s itchy under here.”  Oh well.

We scooted back into the light of day and he ran off to play superheroes with a couple of nutcrackers. After many such attempts to share my experiences with him, which flopped bigger than my mom’s popcorn garland, I came to realize that he would have his own memories of childhood Christmases to cherish as much as I do mine. 

Though my son has always loved and anticipated Christmas, he had two working parents who were blessed to be able to buy him what he wanted throughout the year. A new baseball mitt? A video game? Sure, why not. For me and my brother and sisters, growing up in a one-income household meant that there were no extras throughout the year.  If we wanted something, say a pair of roller skates or a transistor radio, my parents would tell us to put it on our Christmas list.  It might be July, but it was understood that extras came at Christmas time. 

On Christmas Eve, visions of Barbies, cap guns, and baby dolls danced in our heads all night long as they had for months, until the one day of the year when we would be gifted with our wildest dreams.  Many of my “firsts” came to me on Christmas morning.  My first record player, first perfume, first Lady Remington shaver.  We were up before dawn, checking out Santa’s gifts by the light of a flashlight pulled from a kitchen drawer, and holding packages up to our ears, shaking them for a hint of what might be inside.  Years later, my son would get up every Christmas morning at a decent hour, not having stayed awake half the night.  I think this is because there was nothing he had waited for all year, that he had wanted so badly that it kept him awake thinking about it.

No other time of the year has the enchanting sparkle and glow of Christmas, stirring generosity and an innate desire to gather with friends and family to remember the past and celebrate the present and future. Charles Dickens knew what he was talking about.

Not all of our family Christmases have been idyllic.  We have lost loved ones during the holidays, seen our way through illness and tragedy, held each other up and calmed each other down.  We learned these things from our parents, who also gave us a love of Christmas, a 6-foot tall evergreen tree, bright lights bouncing off shiny ornaments and sparkling tinsel, and gifts to last a lifetime.