Standing at the Window

On Christmas Eve, back when my brother and I were very small, my grandpa would lift us up to the back door as we shoved the curtain out of the way and pressed our noses against the cool window glass. "There's Rudolph"! he'd say, pointing into the dark. "See the red light?"

The scene more snugly fits the picture postcard frame if I don’t mention that our red dot, glowing through the tree branches and power lines, was a warning light at the oil refinery across the way, but it’s a memory I hang on to. Given the scant number of years between my earliest holiday memories and my grandpa's last healthy Christmas, it may have only happened once or twice: each year I run my finger over my recollection, making it more distinct each time.


It’s funny, though, that the scrap I have is Rudolph, because, for us, Santa only arrived through the tags on my Grandma’s presents, the generous gifts that we opened with all the others on Christmas Eve. When my Grandpa pointed out Santa’s sleigh, so low in the sky we should have been able to smell reindeer, our presents were already under the tree, with nothing to follow on Christmas Day but a visit to our other grandparents’ house for a package of socks.

Were we deprived? Hardly. Fewer hours to wait, more time to run down batteries and squabble over our loot. We considered our minimal rituals a holiday bonus. We didn’t know Santa well, but we didn’t care, and as for the baby Jesus, well, we didn’t miss him at all.

Were we unchurched heathens? Perish the thought. Our family went to services three times a week, but we never celebrated Christmas as a religious holiday. Let’s just say it was a very literal church, one that didn’t do anything for which it couldn’t cite chapter and verse. So, yes, we celebrated a Christmas, but a Christmas without Santa, and a Christmas without Jesus. What’s left? Rudolph?

Family. Generosity. Food. Bright lights and warmth on a cold dark night. All the things that have been celebrated for thousands of years regardless of the trappings.

I’m sure those church people would have been horrified to have anything in common with the Druids who brought the first winter evergreens inside, but I’m fond of my stripped down holiday. Oh, we do Santa now, and we even sing songs about Jesus when we feel like it, but if I can ever get back to that feeling, back to my grandpa in a cozy kitchen with a silly story, then I think I'll have something to celebrate.