Christmas: Circa New Jersey

Most of our Christmases were similar with few standing out in particular with 2 exceptions. The year we All received new bicycles, and our last as a family. The others followed a similar course.

The average Christmas season started with an abrupt and startling discovery by my mom. One night, sometime in the beginning of December, and only when it started getting late and when she wanted us to our rooms, she would stop mid stream from whatever she was doing and with wide eyes she would freeze and say..."Ssshhhhh. Do you hear that?" We would all freeze. Then she would quickly look in the direction of the closest window and say, "Did you see that?" We would all look in that direction with equally wide eyes. Mom would whisper, "elves." "I just saw elves peeking in the window." This was the beginning of every Christmas season I can remember.

Her penchant for drama was well known and these episodes were constant. As us children got older, we were able to participate, complete with taking bells outside the home to mimic sleigh bells for the little ones. Dad would get involved with making noises of hooves on the roof top, I think with 2 broom handles from inside one of the bedrooms. The older children loved helping with the drama for the little ones. Once the stories began, the questions began. Shouldn't we leave more cookies? Does Santa like home made powdered milk? Shouldn't we put out the fire? As this question and answer session began it all accomplished the same goal and always took place as we were ran up the stairs in succession. We all ran off to bed so as not to be on the naughty list for fear of receiving the dreaded lump of coal, which we truly believed we were all more than worthy of...at least us boys.


The Christmas Eve tradition was to open our one gift from Grandma and Grandpa Call and play with it that night. They never missed sending us a box of gifts. My most memorable gift was a remote control police car that came with a constant siren that was reminiscent of the old English bobbie cars. It was sturdy, built to last, and banged in to everyone and everything with the most obnoxious siren blaring non stop. Wheeeee-Whooooo---Wheeeee----Whooooo; relentless.

Setting up the tree was a family event. I recall going to chop them down, buying them from tree lots and strapping them on the top of station wagons, and ultimately getting the same one down from the attic in the form of a fake tree all depending on the year and our budget. One year we bought a live tree and were able to plant it in the front yard making it the second spruce in the front yard, this Christmas Spruce and a huge Blue Spruce. All had similar goals of family time. Some years we made popcorn tinsel by threading popcorn for hours and putting it around the tree. Other years we would make ornaments etc...The constant was that throughout the years of school ornaments and projects and through gradual acquisitions, we had the most eclectic tree on the planet. Our trees had ornaments ranging from homemade styrofoam candy canes that had stripes made from red tape, to fine glass colorful balls, to 10 different types of lights from the past 3 decades. No ornament was very well preserved, so they all bore their age and in hind sight looked like 10 different cultures and artists with 10 distinct visions for a road show  back drop competing to be the most recognized. At the time, it was OUR tree and each trinket represented distinct personalities without question. No one complained, just admired. I have no idea how we never had a fire.

One year we were gathered at the top of the stairs and were prohibited from coming down until we were all up and ready to come down at the same time. This was like torture as some were harder than others to get up. Our tree was always in the living room, which was situated at the bottom of the stairs and to the left. I say this because we knew our vision was blocked by inches. If we could make it down one or two simple steps we would just be able to make out the beginning of the sea of gifts that Santa had left for us. As the seconds counted down we would try to slide down on our bellies one step at a time, technically still remaining at the top of the stairs because part of our body was still at the top of the stairs. When this part of our body remaining at the top was simply a big toe straining to remain compliant, we could see the gifts and have the edge over the other children. This year was different. No matter how much we had grown over that year, thus increasing our scope of vision, we could not make out the beginning what was usually hundreds of presents. We had often been warned that times were tough, and of the likelihood of coal had reached its peak, nothing could have prepared us for no presents. As permission was granted, we made our way down to find a near empty Christmas tree and were brought in and told to close our eyes. We were then directed to the other room, the family room instead of the living room where we were to simultaneously open our eyes. There, in the house, was a row of bikes more full than any bike rack could seemingly hold. Pink ones and small ones, 10 speeds and 3 speeds, bikes with training wheels...and there it was, an all black Huffy with nobby tires, cool hand grips and pads on the handle bars and center bar all reading HUFFY. This was obviously mine and was the coolest of all the bikes. It was my height, my style, and immediately my greatest possession. This was the greatest Christmas I recall...but not the most memorable.

Mark Lawrence married my oldest sister Monica who lived in Provo and attended BYU. They came back for the Christmas season when it was announced that my mother was not doing very well. As I recall, she had gotten down to a weight somewhere in the 80s and you could barely hear her when she tried to speak. It came out more as a wheeze. Even her makeshift bell, which signified she needed someone to attend to her, was faint. This "bell" was a wooden spoon and the back of a pot she kept near for emergencies. She would bang on it and one or more would come to see what she needed. I recall her hitting it slightly and Mark responding. I believe she had asked for the hospital, or perhaps it was his own assessment, but I remember him carrying her to the car and taking her to the emergency room. I remember how frail she looked, how skinny her naked ankles were, and her beleaguered breaths. This was the last time I saw her alive. I don't recall how many days prior to Christmas it was when she entered the hospital, but I remember being gathered at dusk in the living room with all the kids by my dad. He had a look on his face I had never seen before on him; a distant look that I saw faintly on his face ever since. He expressed to us the best he could, that our mother had returned to her Father in Heaven that Christmas Eve.

I believe Melba and Vee Call were present and then for Christmas day, but gone were the rituals, the feelings, the anticipatory antics shared among the children that unfolded each Christmas morning. Gifts were there, the tree was there in all its hodge-podge glory, each child was present sitting in their pajamas and robes on any couch or chair they could find and in the form of a half circle around the tree. While the little ones stirred, the older ones looked glossy, distant, and transformed. I recall the older children, Darron, Loni, Tony, and Monica there, but not present. As a profound and overwhelming right of passage splashed over us simultaneously, with questions on the grand scheme of things, from Adam in England not yet knowing, to where will she be buried, to how did this happen to us...not this family...not this once vibrant woman, almost simultaneously each of us began what changed from helping with the little ones to what can only be described as rearing. We each came out of it slowly as if in a fog clearing and began our new roles in this family. We encouraged the little ones to hunt for their gifts and open them with all the vigor they could muster. We were the older ones and each of us bid our childhood farewell.