Forgiveness

During the stress of holidays, or maybe it is the memory of the past, or the absence of those who are no longer present with us today...I needed something to fill the emptiness. I searched for something to read to feed my heart and soul. I would pick up a book and after three or four pages, I would discard it, feeling empty.

A few days before Christmas, while I was at the book store, I found a movie called A Christmas Snow by Jim Stovall. I bought it and took it home to read that night while in bed. While getting ready for bed, I found the movie version of the book was on television. I was lucky because the movie had just started, so I sat down on my rocker to watch it. The movie was good but its underlying message was of forgiveness and it touched a sore spot buried deep down inside of me.

Forgiveness for me is hard. For me I anguished over forgiveness and the lack of it over a number of years, centering on the man I once loved, and who left me. The changes were deep and hard and I still struggle with this area called "forgiveness."

In the movie, Snow, the main character at the age of 10 watched her father walk out on her and her mother at Christmas time. The girl goes through her life cold and closed off and it isn't until she is in her 40s that a Christmas blizzard stands a young girl and an older man with her that her life changes.

I don't consider myself a sap but I cried at the end of the movie. That night I read the book and it helped me. No, forgiveness is still hard because I cannot forgive that person for his actions that hurt me and hurt my children deeply. But I have forgiven myself for being so hard on me. I have moved on despite the sadness. That is how I handle forgiveness.

Holidays, movies, books and songs can make a person weep or laugh or be introspective. I think a movie and a book called Snow did that for me this Christmas in 2010. I was inspired by the author, Jim Stovall, who is blind. He is a man who is wiser and can see more in his heart and words, then I did with my sight.

My Father's Christmas

My father’s favorite holiday was Christmas. It officially began in our house on December 6—St. Nicholas Day. Upon waking, my brother and I would find two socks hung on the stair rail overlooking our modest living room. The socks usually were Dad’s dress socks, well worn, sometimes with a hole in the toe or heel, and strung up haphazardly with twine.

Inside each sock was my Dad’s idea of a joke—maybe two potatoes complete with eyes or a few crooked carrots and a penny or two. If he could have found coal, it would have been in there as well. When it came to Christmas, my father was very influenced by the two Ds—Dickens and the Depression.

But my brother and I both knew that the frugality of St. Nicholas Day, only meant that Christmas Day would be that much sweeter.

There was always a real tree, at least until the advent of artificial trees. My father insisted it wasn’t Christmas unless the piney scent of a tree wafted through the house. He favored the long needled pine, which he thought gave best advantage to the ornaments and the strings of bubble lights that as a child I’d stare at with fascination as they heated and bubbled their rich ambers, greens, reds and blues.

My earliest memory of trimming the tree was at age five. My brother hadn’t been born yet, so I bore the brunt of my father’s Christmas mania. I have a distinct memory of sitting at the kitchen table with an enormous bowl of freshly popped corn in front of me that I wished would disappear. In my one hand I held a thick needle attached to heavy thread that I imagined could suture a rhino’s hide, and in my other hand I held a fragile kernel of popcorn.

No matter how hard I tried, as many times as I successfully threaded a kernel, just as many times I stabbed my finger or broke the popcorn, disappointing my father.

So by the time my brother was old enough to string corn, my father abandoned popcorn chains and turn his meticulous attention to tinsel and trains.

Under my father’s unrelenting gaze, my brother and I had to, strand by strand, delicately place the tinsel on the tree. It was to hang just so, giving the appearance of icicles.

Of course, as my brother and I grew older and bolder, whenever my father’s back was turned, we’d toss handful of tinsel all over the tree until he finally lost his temper and exiled us from the tree trimming, which had been our intention all along.

Sadly, with the advent of artificial trees, my mother, a compulsive neat freak, insisted we get one. For years, my father fought her, until she wore him down. But his surrender was not without a small victory. He brought home what I like to call his anti-Christmas tree—a white, glittery concoction that looked like it should come with a strobe light and disco boots.

Not to be deterred, my father exacted his revenge for the loss of the piney Christmas trees, with the train that ate our basement. The train started small and simply, a single track circling the Christmas tree. There was one engine, maybe six cars, a black transformer with a lever that controlled the train. Even at five, I was allowed to fit the track together and play with the lever.

But each Christmas, my father’s notion of a proper train grew until “the train” took up half our basement. Set up on a long, rectangular sheet of plywood supported by two sawhorses, there were several trains, multiple transformers, engines with lights, coal cars, passenger cars, cabooses, towns, hills and bridges, trees with fake snow and townspeople. It was unbelievable, and it was Christmas.

Least I forget the outside—my father strung lights on all the bushes and trees and along the eaves of the house, even the statue of the Blessed Virgin with hands folded in prayer held a string of light. And for a while a lighted, life-size, plastic Santa stood next to our front door, letting everyone in the neighborhood know that this was the Christmas house.

After I got married and moved to another state, my father started putting up two Christmas trees—one in the living room and one in the finished basement. Now resigned to the world of artificial trees, neither tree was real, but at least they were green.

By then he’d lost interest in the train, but not Christmas. Whenever I came home for the holidays, my father would decorate the basement as if it was a Christmas store. There’d be strings of lights around the walls and over pictures; the bar would have garlands and tinsel all over it, and always along the top of one wall would be a sign welcoming us home for the holidays.

So when my father was dying in late fall of 1996, he hung on until December 20, which we all thought was his intention. And as if honoring that intention, my mother decided to hold his funeral the day after Christmas.

Standing at the lectern in the church, my brother started my Dad’s eulogy by turning around and pointing at the Christmas decorations—the Christmas trees, the poinsettias, the lights, and the wreaths.

“Dad would have loved this,” he began. “At Christmas, if it didn’t move he decorated it.”

In loving memory of my Dad.

How We Celebrate Christmas

Christmas season can be stressful or fun. For me, it is both. It used to be my buying gifts for my nine kids, doing the shopping and wrapping, preparing the Christmas Eve meal and Christmas Day meal. With nine children and not living by our extended families, we never got invited to spend the holidays with anyone else. That is the downside of a very large family. Oh wait...I did have one friend who would invite my family over to their house for snacks, desserts and ice cream pecan balls, on Christmas night. It was something that I looked forward to. It prolonged the day. The desserts were delicious. They would serve vanilla ice cream rolled in crush pecans for the children. I know my kids liked that treat and I wished that I was one of them while they ate the pecan balls. But I did sneak a spoonful or two from one of the kid's bowls.

Now that my children are grown with families of their own, my Christmas has changed. I have tried to prolong the holiday with our family cookie exchange. Each year it turns out better then the one before.

We also try to go to Light up Night in Bellevue, in one of the nearby boroughs. We start off at my son's house and walk the two blocks to the downtown area. We stand in line for free hot chocolate and a Christmas cut out cookie. After we walk around, we go into the coffee shop, where one of the ladies reads a Christmas story. Then we stand along the curb with the little ones and watch a small parade of EMS cars and trucks drive by with Santa standing prominently on the top of one fire truck with the sirens going off, and waving at the children. When Santa gets off the truck, the children can go and talk to him and give him their Christmas wish list. We end up going into a pizza shop and order pizzas, appetizers and drinks.

Sometimes a few of us go out and cut down our Christmas trees together and follow that tradition off with lunch at a restaurant.

I now buy and wrap present for nine children, 14 grandchildren, 4 daughters-in-law, one son-in-law, two of my daughter's boyfriends, an adopted son, and my son's girlfriend. A few friends come over and share the festivities with my family.

Christmas Eve is still celebrated here at my house. It takes a few days to clean, decorate, prepare the tables, buy the food, and get everything prepared for Christmas Eve. I also haul down all the presents that I have bought and wrapped and place them under the tree in the living room. The room fills up with other presents as my children arrive for the evening.

Unlike my Italian grandparents, I do not make the Italian Seven Fish Dinner. I do not like fish, and have found another way to celebrate our Christmas Eve. I make cheese fondue. In the beginning, when our family was smaller, we sat around the table and used a few fondue pots. We ate cheese fondue, a steak and shrimp fondue, with an assortment of dipping sauces. I also made a special salad, with my own homemade dressing. It took a long time to consume this meal but that was the point...to sit around the table, eat, talk and laugh together as a family.

As my family has grown larger from the original eleven, we no longer fit around the table, So, we have appetizers laid out on one table, We put our fondue pots on another table. We fill up our plates and sit on the couches or on the living room and kitchen chairs.

Later, we open our presents. Imagine being in a living room filled with furniture, all those adults, grandchildren, a tree and tons of presents. It isn't easy, no matter how hard we try to figure out how to handle all of this. For over an hour, the presents are passed out, unwrapped and the paper discarded into big black trash bags. It is loud and crazy! When we are finished we are exhausted and lucky that we can find the floor and no one has thrown anything away. Then we go back and eat and drink.

After everyone leaves the place is as quiet as a tomb. I put out the rest of the presents for the children who are staying with me. I also fill their stockings. I try to clean up a little but in the end, I am tired and go off to bed.

I do miss the old days when everyone was little and under my roof. I do miss my friend's invitation to have dessert at their home. You know something - I miss those pecan balls with my friends. I miss everything about those days and more.

Family Cookie Exchange

Something that I always wanted to have was a family cookie exchange. I wanted to bake cookies with my daughters, then daughters-in-law, and eventually my grandchildren. So when my middle daughter suggested a family cookie exchange, I was excited.

This was the beginning of our families' annual cookie exchange. We sent out email invitations. Each person was to bake their own cookies and give one dozen to each of the other households. My daughter, who is a chef, planned and cooked the brunch.

The first year, everyone showed up - daughters, daughters-in-law, sons and babies. They loved the brunch, and the cookies. Some years it was a delicious homemade French onion soup with crispy bread to go along. Some times, it has been a full breakfast with eggs, sausage, bacon, pancakes and the works. Other times it was quiches, croissants and salads.

I guess I should have given more thought as how to do a cookie exchange. The first year everyone showed up ready to actually make their cookies at my house from scratch. We mixed our cookie dough, baked the cookies, packaged them, and divided them up. By evening I was the last to get my cookies baked and handed out. It was fun but an exhausting day.

The following year we figured out that we needed to just make our own cookies in our own kitchen and then come with them already packaged. We eventually eliminated the "boys" from coming along. Anyway, some of them lost interest, even though they wanted to eat their sister's great meals.

In the beginning, a few who attended would find shortcuts as to what to make, like Oreos dipped in chocolate with sprinkles on top, or pretzel rods dipped in chocolate with sprinkles. They were good and everyone enjoyed them. But as the years evolved, everyone tried to find different kinds of cookie recipes and would try those.

The packaging of the cookies became the high point of the exchange. Some were in Christmas boxes and others on Christmas trays. A few different packaging ideas were fancy Chinese containers or festive holiday, plastic ware.

Now our cookie exchange has seemed to come along way and it runs smoother. We still gather together, eat something and exchange the cookies. But the simple idea of one dozen cookies has evolved into a few dozen cookies, which isn't so bad. But the plus of all of this...we come together for a short time to talk, eat, and share cookies. For a few hours we forget about all that we have to do for the holidays, and we are family under one roof until our big Christmas Eve celebration.

The cookies don't last long but the memories do.

Chuck E. Cheese

Chuck E. Cheese - a name that would strike terror in my heart when I was a mother, and now as a grandmother. Every time my grandson would ask me to take him to Chuck E. Cheese, I would say, "No." I came up with every excuse that I could think of. Then one day, I actually said, "Yes," to my grandson, Tyler's delight.

That was the day I packed up my writing bag and took Tyler to Chuck E. Cheese. We arrived there early, before anyone else. The lady stamped the backs of our hands with the same number, to assure we came in together and we would leave together. Nice safety feature. Then she asked if we were here for anything special? "No," I replied,"We're here to just have fun."

Tyler took off for one of the booths and took off his hat and coat. He grabbed my hand and we went to place our pizza order. Besides that, I handed the lady a coupon for the pizza. I was able to use my second coupon to purchase 100 tokens. I handed Tyler a small plastic cup with half his tokens, and he ran off to play the games. With each game, Tyler, would get tickets from the machine. In the end, the tickets were fed into a machine that counted them, and then printed out a receipt with the
number on it. Tyler would be able to cash that in for prizes.

We ended up going to Chuck E. Cheese on a weekly basis. Tyler loved it. We ate pizza for lunch and in the end, I actually wrote and completed a novel. Sometimes I took breaks from my writing and played along side of Tyler. Or, sometimes, I just watched him, soaking up the joy that came from just seeing him play and his reactions.

Tyler taught me something important and that was to have fun. We found it at Chuck E. Cheese and I learned that the place wasn't just for kids. I also learned that these special times that I spent with Tyler would last a lifetime for me and hopefully he will remember the fun he had with his grandmother at Chuck E. Cheese.