Something was off. Things were terribly amiss at our friends’ house across the street and I didn’t know what to do.
Everything looked the same — the house I knew as well as my own, the people I’d known for as long as I could remember, their kitchen, their Tupperware cereal bowls, their dog. But things weren’t right.
Should I say something? Should I try to fix it? Christmas was just two days away. Surely I should alert some sort of authority, which in my 5-year-old world, meant running home to tell mom.
They were doing it wrong. All wrong. How does anyone screw up Christmas? CHRISTMAS — the most important, most anticipated, day of the whole year.
The holiday spanned an entire month of preparations, decorations and celebrations. Countdowns were conducted on construction paper chains and advent calendars with little windows to open each morning for four weeks. There was a Christmas concert at school, carols on the radio, packages arriving in the mail from aunts, uncles and grandparents. The boxes marked “Christmas” came up from the basement and revealed the treasures we had forgotten since last year — the snow-flecked candles, the nativity scene, the cheap plastic Santa and sleigh that my mom had been trying to toss forever, but that Kevin and I adored. (She still hasn’t gotten rid of it.)
There was the tree selection in the freezing cold. Dad strung the lights, then retreated with a glass of wine while the three of us hung the colored balls and special ornaments. Dad then stepped back in to expertly loop the garland to finish the job.
Our names were written in glitter on red stockings, including one for “Sneakers.” (Best. Dog. Ever.)
The tree glowed majestically in the living room we almost never used. Stockings were in the family room, above the fireplace. Those were always checked last, after the maelstrom on Christmas morning. Mass was on Christmas Eve, all of us decked out. Then we’d ride around and look at the lights on our way home, carols playing in the car. Kevin and I could each open one present on Christmas Eve — one from aunts and uncles that had been artfully placed beneath the tree in the section that would become “our” pile once Santa arrived.
We wrote a note for Santa and the reindeer and carefully set out cookies, milk and some carrots. Dad would read “Twas the Night Before Christmas” with all of us gathered on the couch, then bed, though sleep would be elusive. We couldn’t wake mom and dad until 7 a.m., so I’d head into Kevin’s room around 6 a.m. (He was always awake, even though we weren’t supposed to set an alarm.)
At exactly 7, we’d race into mom and dad’s room and rush them through the eternity they took to brush their teeth. Dad would go downstairs first to be sure Santa had come (and perhaps to plug the tree lights in, get the camera ready and start the coffee.)
Then came the rapture — Kevin’s gifts and mine, separate piles, different wrapping paper. Cookie crumbs. A note from Santa. Pure ecstasy.
This was Christmas. (Still is, for the most part, by the way.)
It was all I knew. I thought it was all everyone knew, as if hard and fast rules had been etched in stone by Santa, or maybe the baby Jesus.
So when our best friends installed their tree in the family room, next to stockings that had their names sewn on, not written in glitter, my 5-year-old world crumbled a bit.
They didn’t know what advent calendars were and they didn’t go to Mass. Of course, it turns out, they’re not Catholic. But at 5, I assumed everyone was, just as I assumed everyone celebrated Christmas the exact same way. Clearly, they were doing it wrong.
When I got home that fateful day, Mom, as usual, put my world back on its axis and assured me there is no right or wrong way to celebrate Christmas — or anything else for that matter.
And now, here I am 42 years later, wearing shorts in December and stringing lights on the palm trees out front — and all’s right with the world.
No matter how or what you celebrate, it’ll be the right way. I know that now.
