Christmases Past

When our son and daughter were little, I assumed that when they became adults Christmases wouldn’t be the same. It would lose the magic children bring to the holiday. I’d miss the excitement they had each year when we brought out the ornaments or sat up the Lionel train that had belonged to Don’s dad. We would no longer leave cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeers. Oh, I understood that if I someday had grandchildren, I could recapture that special excitement children bring to Christmas.

My mother passed away exactly two months before Christmas Eve of this year, which is four days from now. While I am grieving the loss of my mother, I had actually lost her about five years ago to dementia. 

Friends have offered their condolences at the loss, some acknowledging the fact it will probably be a difficult Christmas for me. But the truth of the matter, it’s not Mom I am necessarily grieving for this Christmas. As I mentioned, I lost her over the past five years…little by little.

It is something else.

You might say the loss of Mom was an epiphany. A realization that it’s not the children who have grown into adults I mourn this Christmas, it’s the elders in my life whom I’ve shared decades of Christmas memories with, who are no longer here. Mom was the last one. Well, not exactly. There is Florence, my sister’s mother-in-law, who was like a second grandmother to my children, a constant in my adult life, and now at 102 years old, on Hospice in a memory care home not far from where Lynn lives in Morro Bay.

All of the elders from my Christmases—except for Florence are gone now. I miss them. 

It’s not just the family members I miss. There is Oma Head, one of the tenants from Havasu Palms. She was like a second grandma. She and her husband built a house in Lake Havasu City, and I’d often stay with her when I couldn’t make it home from school over the lake in bad weather. Every year at Christmas she would give us a tin of her homemade divinity. It was the best divinity in the world, and I have never been able to replicate it. It was the inspiration for Marie’s divinity in Haunting Danielle. Now that I think about it, Oma was the inspiration for Marie.

I miss Oma.

I miss my Aunt Margaret and Uncle George, who could sometimes be annoying, but they were always good to me, and good to my kids. They were a constant at our Christmases, joining us for Christmas Eve at my sister’s, and our house for Christmas dinner.

I miss my Dad, who like Mom, slipped away a few Christmases before he finally moved on. With him it wasn’t a memory issue, more that he was so tired and sick that the magic he brought to Christmas each year was gone. In Dad’s healthier years, after Grandma Hilda stopped hosting Christmas dinner, Dad was in the kitchen—and loving it. 

On TikTok I’ve watch videos where women complain about never having support from their husbands during Christmas, where the responsibility of bringing any magic to Christmas falls on the wife. That wasn’t true in my family. My dad threw himself into Christmas. He’d paint Christmas murals on our windows, make fudge, and cook most of Christmas dinner.

While Mom did a majority of the Christmas shopping and gift wrapping, each year Dad would buy something special for Lynn and me, just from him, and he was notorious for waiting until the last minute (often Christmas Eve) to buy Mom’s gift, but it was always spectacular.

I miss both sets of my grandparents, who would spend Christmas with us most years.  They’d find a comfortable place to sit and always seemed to enjoy watching the festivities and visiting with whomever stopped by to chat. I remember suggesting the grandparents open their gifts first one year, and my Grandma Madeline immediately put down that idea, telling me they enjoyed watching the grandchildren open their gifts. I didn’t understand it then, but I do now.

I miss my in-laws and I miss my sister’s in-laws. Unlike other families, who drag their kids from “his” parent’s house then to “her” parent’s house over the holidays, when my parents’ grandchildren were little, we all spent Christmas and Christmas eve together—all the grandparents, all the children.

But all those elders, except for Florence, have moved on. My sister and I no longer spend Christmases together. She is down in California, spending Christmas this year with her husband, sons, daughter-in-law, and grandsons.

Last year Don and I were able to spend Christmas with both our kids and grandchildren. (when I say ‘our kids’ that includes Joe and SeAnne.) We were able to arrange a ride for Mom to be with us on Christmas Eve, and we visited her on Christmas day at the home.

This year Don and I will be spending Christmas with Scott and SeAnne at the Holmestead.

I miss the elders this Christmas. But we are the elders now.