What did you get? That was the question that bounced around the school yard on the first day back after Christmas vacation. Everyone wanted to know the coolest gift their friends got and, if the gift wasn’t cool, they wanted to know if the recipient talked their parents into returning it for the desired acquisition.
When you’re young, time occupies a narrow spectrum defined by questions like, “When are we going to be there?” “Why do we have to sit around waiting?” Age remolds our view of time and injects ever-increasing doses of nostalgia into our perceptions until longing to remember holidays and other events in the distance past mix with how we remember them and how we want to remember them.
I recall being 6 years old or a couple years older and worming under my grandmother’s piano where all the gifts were stacked waiting for my siblings and cousins to open them. I searched the boxes for ones with my name and compared the biggest gifts to ones my sister or brother might open the next morning.
Thinking back to those Christmas eves, I can remember one, maybe two, gifts I received. But the memory that shines through 55 years later is the way my grandparents’ generosity and love translated into a Christmas packed with hide-and-go-seek and other games, turkey, ham and pie, a blazing fireplace and fancy candles on the window sill highlighting snow falling on their front porch.
They gave me all of those memories and over the years the recollections have migrated from my head to my heart, igniting that warm, sometimes bittersweet nostalgia that defines holiday memories.
The holiday season begins with Thanksgiving giving us a strong hint, if not a direct edict, to give in at least equal measure as we contemplate a season of receiving.
At some mid-December, maybe a little later, after I manage to mail 20 pounds worth of packages and 100 greeting cards across the country, that sense of nostalgia ignites and I get a little more grateful for the opportunities I have to give to people I love and to make sure I don’t miss the opportunity to give someone I don’t know a smile or a hello.
The feeling intensifies on Christmas Day when our house fills with people celebrating and laughing at our dining room table. We have fed people enduring serious diseases, practicing different religions, in trouble with the law, and fighting with relatives.
They leave with their bellies full and a gift and their presence defines the Irish saying we display on our mantle with the words, “teach saoire” painted in green. Simply translated, it means “holiday house.” But it really defines how the merriment and celebration that only comes from giving to others fills a home with love and gratitude.
