This is a picture of my best friend Jannah and me. We took this picture while at the top of Mount San Jacinto in late November.
I carefully folded the piece of paper containing the list, the precious list, of the toys and other things that I wanted for Christmas. I'd spent the better part of a week thinking, carefully planning, wanted to create exactly the perfect list of things that I wanted Santa Claus to bring me. I was an inquisitive young lad, and I wanted such things as a chemistry set, the deluxe version of course, and a microscope. I also loved books, and I listed a few that I thought would be good to read. And I had underlined the extra special gift that I wanted: an erector set, a box full of nuts and bolts and bits of steel that would be the perfect toy for young man such as I.
This letter to Santa Claus was precious to me. I wanted to be sure it reached the North Pole in time for Christmas. Even then, as a young man with about 9 years under my belt, I was planning my future. I wanted to learn about this world that we lived in. I wanted to understand how things worked and why they worked the way they did. The world was a wondrous place, and I wanted to explore at all.
I handed the carefully folded and sealed letter to my mother, and she promised that she would mail it to the North Pole so that it would reach Santa Claus. I was very solemn, as this was important to me. I remember my mother swearing that she would ensure that it had the right amount of postage and that the letter was marked for Santa's eyes only, and that she would mail it with more than enough time for it to reach the North Pole.
Next, came the decorating of the Christmas tree. The whole
family packed into the car, and drove to the store. We had a
big station wagon with one of those luggage racks on the top,
so it would be easy to bring the tree home. We arrived at the
store and examined the trees. My father was tense, he was
worried about fire. He didn't like the idea of putting lights
on the tree which would get drier and drier as Christmas
approached. My mother calmed him down, assuring him that all
would be fine. Dad was always concerned about his family.
We picked out a six-foot high tree, thick with branches and smelling of pine. We also selected a number of cut branches which would be hung throughout the house, to add a little bit more Christmas feel. Once we had the tree loaded (during which time I learned some choice new words from my parents) we had a hair-raising drive home. The tree was tied to the top of the car, yet it seemed to be threatening to fall off at any moment. We stopped several times along the way, so my dad to get out of the car and make sure it was still attached to the roof.
Once we arrived home, the tree was placed in a stand, a rug was put down in front of it, and the Christmas decorations were brought out from the closet. We had tinsel, bulbs, lights, candy canes, garlands, and dozens of other things to make our tree special. I especially liked the candy canes, knowing full well that not a single one of them would survive the week left before Christmas. I do remember my father being afraid of the glass bulbs hanging from the tree. He was concerned that they would break, shattering and spreading glass all over the place. He wanted to be sure that none of his family would be hurt by glass bits. Nonetheless, we hung about two dozen bulbs from the tree.
The next week was agonizing. My tension mounted as the days went by. I wondered, would Santa get my letter? Would he understand that I was a "nice" little boy? Would he run out of toys before he arrived at our house?
Christmas Eve arrived. This was a special evening. My mother baked cookies and the house smelled wonderful. The cookies were for Santa Claus; we would leave a plate of them for him knowing that he would be hungry after his long journey. Of course, that didn't stop us from eating a whole bunch of them as the evening passed.
The tree had a number of presents underneath. These were the gifts that had been sent to us by various relatives, as well as those items selected by my sister and myself for our parents and each other. In my case, my gift to my mother and father were some things that I had made in school out of clay.
My parents packed us off to bed relatively early in the evening. I was too excited, so I pretended like I was asleep, thinking that I might be able to stay awake and get a peak at Santa. I pretended pretty good because I actually did fall asleep. The sound of sleigh bells woke me up with a start. "Oh my God", I thought, "it's Santa!" I heard footsteps on the roof, and the jingling of bells, and I swear I heard a curse, but shrugged and thought it must've been something else. Now I knew it was important to be asleep (I knew Santa would not actually come into our house unless I was sleeping); and I forced my eyes closed and within a few minutes I really was in dreamland.
I open my eyes quickly, as soon as the light of day peeked through my window. It was morning!
I jumped out of bed and ran to the living room. No one was there. The lights on the tree were on, and as my eyes adjusted to the dim room I could see dozens of boxes, all carefully wrapped and with bows, under the tree. I ran over to look and see what was there, and soon found myself examining each and every box. This one was for me, that was for my sister, that was for my parents, and there was another one for me...
Before long, I had the gifts all separated into piles, carefully organized by weight and height. I'd made some guesses as to what was inside based on how the boxes rattled and how much they weighed.
As I was doing this my sister, who was awakened by the noise I was making, wandered into the room rubbing her eyes. She yawned, came over, and started plowing through the boxes just as I was. It never occurred to either of us to open any of the gifts at this point; that would have been very bad. One of the most important parts of the entire tradition was the "taking of the pictures", a ritual required by my mother. She would have been devastated if she didn't get her quota of photographs.
However, the two of us were not about to wait to open our gifts. After a brief discussion my sister ran into my parents room and jumped onto their bed to wake them up. I heard a groan from my father, and within a few minutes my parents wandered into the room. They were dressed in their pajamas, and I smiled as I noticed the camera in my mother's hand.
I let out a whoop of joy. It was time to open the presents!
My mother cautioned us to open the gifts slowly so as to preserve the wrapping. My sister and I totally ignored her, and shredded the delicate paper rapidly, ribbons and such flying in all directions. For the next hour or so there were whoops of joy from the two of us as we opened each gift, the excitement mounting.
I was happy. I got an erector set, a chemistry lab, bags of toy soldiers, two or three models which I could put together later, and a wood-burning kit. My sister got one of those easy bake ovens, and some dolls and other things. Both of us were quite content with our loot.
Once we were finished, it was my parents turn to open their gifts. My mother glowed with happiness as she opened the box and discovered the unrecognizable lump of clay with the handprints in the middle. I'm sure to this day she has no idea what it represented; but she loved it nonetheless.
And then it was over. Just like that. My sister and I picked up over gifts and move them into our rooms, selected a couple of the better ones, and went out to play with our friends.
The year was 1969 and our Christmas was finished.
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