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We all have our own memories of Christmases-past. Mine<br />
mostly involve my grandmother’s house. I was the only child<br />
of a single working-parent, and my mother and I would most<br />
often rely on my grandmother to create and fulfill all our<br />
holiday experiences. And she was happy to do it, too.<br />
She’d have the yard man haul her eight-foot artificial tree<br />
down from the attic every year and stand it in the corner of the<br />
living room–along with ornaments stored in partitioned boxes<br />
once gathered from some liquor store. We’d string the colored<br />
lights around the tree and then I would begin the task of<br />
strategically placing all the balls and tinsel garland. Sometimes<br />
we’d use icicles to finish it off and it would inevitably end up<br />
looking like an explosion of aluminum.<br />
On Christmas morning the house would smell divine. There<br />
would be a turkey in the oven along with cornbread dressing and<br />
a sweet potato casserole. The dressing was a family favorite and<br />
was especially delicious when served mashed-up with white rice<br />
and gravy.<br />
We’d be seated at the kitchen table and each place setting<br />
would be complete with a freshly-ironed cloth napkin. Christmas<br />
Day was not a day for folded paper towels. It was special. We’d<br />
use the good plates, too.<br />
Everyone had their glass of tea made from that granulated<br />
instant tea powder-stuff that just dissolved in water–and one<br />
solid can-shaped, ribbed, jellied cranberry sauce jiggled on a<br />
saucer in the middle of it all. I never understood the cranberry<br />
sauce. Or the Le Sueur peas, for that matter. Clearly I had not<br />
yet developed a sophisticated palette. I was just a kid, after all.<br />
And when it was time to give thanks, it would always be the<br />
same: “Father we thank Thee for these and all our blessings.<br />
Amen.” Didn’t matter who said it–it was always those exact<br />
words. For decades.<br />
✧ ✧ ✧<br />
When my grandmother died in 2012, I brought her kitchen<br />
table to my house. I didn’t have room for it but it was just one of<br />
those things that I couldn’t part with. We had played countless<br />
hands of double-solitaire on that table, had a thousand<br />
conversations–and had eaten all those Christmas dinners.<br />
I had to put it on the back porch. It wasn’t “in” the elements,<br />
but wasn’t inside, either. Not surprisingly, after a few years, the<br />
polyurethane began to peel and the wood was showing damage.<br />
So I decided to refinish it. I sanded it, by hand, for no less<br />
than twelve hours–with no TV and no radio. The sound of<br />
rubbing away generations of DNA consumed me completely.<br />
And after all the rubbing and sanding and scraping and<br />
remembering, I got to bare wood. The table was completely raw.<br />
And it smelled amazing.<br />
It was a cross between cedar and perfume. It was an<br />
emotional smell. I felt transported to another time. Memories<br />
flooded my eyes.<br />
✧ ✧ ✧<br />
As the years wore on, Christmases at my grandmother’s<br />
became less involved. There was less participation. She was<br />
getting older. Everyone had other lives. They lived in far-off<br />
places and experienced life’s normal distractions. Our group<br />
had become fractured. Sometimes family dynamics, themselves,<br />
presented their own difficulties.<br />
At some point, gatherings and gifts had become more<br />
obligatory and less meaningful. Christmas mornings were<br />
filled with socks, and bathrobes, and packaged undershirts–<br />
and stress. It was easier to give an envelope containing a<br />
twenty-dollar bill. The faded excitement of Christmas<br />
morning had become a distant expectation.<br />
But on one particular Christmas morning, ironically the<br />
last that I remember celebrating there, there was one wrapped<br />
package that was larger than the rest. It disrupted the otherwise<br />
low-lying landscape of the few gifts under the tree. It was a<br />
single box, had one of those big puffy bows on top, and it had<br />
my name on it.<br />
Hometown madison • 43