BY BRADY RHOADES: Christmas is everywhere – in stores, on TV, sleighing from radios, brightening homes.
The other night, I took a stroll around the neighborhood. A bunch of houses were colorful with Christmas lights; their front yards were adorned with nativity scenes, glowing reindeer, candy canes.
It was pleasant. Familiar. Warm.
It’s also bittersweet.
Four years ago this Dec. 13, my father passed. Fewer than three weeks later, on Jan. 2, 2014, my mother followed.
So while I cherish this time of year, it’s tinged with sadness.
At the Claremont home I grew up in, Christmas decorations were sure to be up during this, the first week of December. My Mom reveled in theming the house with miniature villages, signs (N-O-E-L), mistletoe, holiday cards. Christmas albums spun on the victrola, Charlie Brown was on the tube, crystal dishes loaded with nuts and candy beckoned from every coffee table.
And she laughed a lot.
For her, the Christmas festivities started the morning after Thanksgiving.
My Dad was responsible for stringing the lights and erecting a lush, large Christmas tree. Oh, and buying my Mom a shiny piece of jewelry; after we were burglarized, that’s all she wanted in the way of presents.
Gifted with a lovely voice, which he’d learned to control in his Indiana church, my Dad sang along with “Jingle Bells,” “White Christmas,” “Silent Night.” Carolers came to our front door and he’d join them.
Mostly, my parents relished family time. Decorations, a tree, big-bowed gifts and the like were… ornamental.
My Dad was a devoted family man. He exuded decency and kindness, almost like he was wearing a special cologne.
My Mom prized family above all else. As a child growing up in the Great Depression, she was not blessed with a stable home life, to put it gently.
Loss is inevitable. How do we cope? What I do – especially around the holidays – is carry on family traditions, and tell stories about loved ones whom I had the great luck of knowing, and caring about.
So on display in our house will be some of my Mom’s decorations, a little worse for the wear, but who cares? I’ll muster up the courage to say some words of gratitude, because that’s what my Dad did.
Those words — I can’t match his eloquent prayers, so I don’t call them prayers — will reflect the tolerance and compassion I learned from my folks.
Billions in the world don’t celebrate Christmas. In December, they celebrate Chanukah, Kwanzaa, etc. Or they aren’t religious; maybe they celebrate the Winter Solstice, or nothing at all. And for too many – especially the elderly – the holidays are not a mirthful time. They’re not just tinged with sorrow, they’re downright painful.
So I’ll work that into my words. And actions.
Lastly, I’ll remember to laugh a lot, like my Mom (she laughed all the way down to her feet), which I find easy.
Singing, like Dad?
Oy. I’ve got his zeal, but not his talent. I was cursed with a tin ear, so let me offer early apologies to my family members, for mangling the classics.
