Christmas Past

            We can all remember how Christmas was celebrated when we were kids. For most of us it probably revolved around family.

            I remember my father’s family coming from Lowell to spend Christmas Day with us. I still can’t imagine how Grandpa and Grandma Milot, Uncle Nap, Uncle Emile, Uncle George, and Aunt Laura all fit into one car for the 56-mile trip to Manville, our Rhode Island home. But they came, bringing presents for my brothers, my sister, and me.

            One year, Uncle Nap brought a box with a dozen chicks in it, all of them peeping away at the prospect, I suppose, of finding a new home. We kept those little yellow balls of fluff warm in their box between the legs of Mom’s kitchen stove until they began sprouting brown feathers. We knew then it was time to move them to a corner room upstairs in the barn, a rather fancy home with windows on two sides and shelves for them to roost. And later to lay eggs for us kids to fetch every morning.

            Uncle George, rotund but not very tall, was a perfect Santa. When no one was looking, he’d change into his costume and make a boisterous entrance, to the delight of us kids. Until the day we began to wonder why Uncle George was never present when Santa appeared.

            Then it was time to open our presents. Mom always had me give Dad a new container of shaving soap for him to brush on his face every morning while we watched. Some of those years after the war were rather lean, but finances got better after Dad found a new job in Providence. I can remember three special Christmas presents: a little red wagon, an erector set, and an American Flyer model train set. I wasn’t allowed to touch the train set until Dad and Uncle George had laid out the tracks, hooked up the transformer, and tested the cars to make sure everything was working right.

            The main course for Christmas dinner was always a turkey big enough to feed the whole gang. And there was always leftover “tourtière,” traditional Canadian-style pork pie consumed after midnight mass. I don’t remember anyone returning to Lowell on an empty stomach.

            The little red wagon is long gone, the erector set sold before a move, and the train set bequeathed to my baby brother André. But they remain fixed in my memory as icons of Christmas past, symbols of joyous days that brought family together to give, to receive, and to share.

            The relatives in that carful from Lowell are all ghosts now. I’m sure they are smiling at us as we cherish the traditions and values they once passed on to us.

            Merry Christmas to families everywhere.