The other day I was watching the TV morning news, when
suddenly it broke away for a commercial. Now this was October 15, so Halloween
has not arrived yet, and what do I see, but the Rockettes of Radio City Music
Hall. And what are they selling but the Christmas show! I have seen the boxes
of Christmas and Holiday cards in Wal-Mart back in August as they were planning
their space for the holiday rush.
I can’t blame anyone for getting excited about the holidays,
especially when there is such terrible news all the time. The guns killing, the
rapists and the politicians, all spewing their evil as they do all year long,
we can all use some joy in our lives.
As a child, growing up in Brooklyn the holidays meant
Christmas. All I knew was that I was going to get a present, that I needed to
express out loud that desire and it would become a reality brought to me by the
unreal Santa Clause. For all you adults reading who believe in Santa, disregard
the last sentience.
The whole world was transformed immediately after eating the
last morsels of Thanksgiving dinner. It started on the radio with the playing
of Christmas songs on the Arthur Godfrey show, and continued throughout the day
with a jaunt on Broadway under the el where the stores would decorate, toy
stores in particular with a train set that my mother had difficulty pulling me
away from as I dreamed against the glass partition that separated me from the
dream.
In Our Lady of Lourdes School, the pastor: Father Lacey would visit
each classroom and give a little talk not more than 5 minutes and distribute a
box of candy, hard sugar candy that had a little white string on it and was
gaily decorated with red and white striped candy inside. This was a traditional
occurrence.
Perhaps the best memory was when Mom shopped for the
Christmas dinner. In those days there were not too many supermarkets and
everything was sold in a mom and pop store. Vegetables by Sloppy John or
Louise, butcher shops and bakeries all were the source of our food supplies and
helped foster the spirit of the holiday. Coming in from the cold and into a
bakery, with the bread fresh out of the ovens, or standing in the cold picking
over the vegetables and fruit, we had brown paper bags filled with the goods
that meant the holidays were here.
The anticipated fish dinner of Christmas Eve and the get
together of family heightened the excitement of it all. Then came Christmas
Day, and my older sister Tessie (much older) and I would be up at the crack of
midnight, (we weren’t waiting for dawn with our presents in the house) chased
back to bed by Mom as she returned form mid-night mass and then her giving up even trying.
Of course the Church had a hand in it too. Yes, they pulled
me away from my stuff and made me sit in church for an hour when all I wanted
to do was be home and playing. Getting all dressed up for Mass, we trudged off
to church in the cold wintry morning, the sun out but not helping much and into
the huge church going to our assigned area and sitting through the rituals that
made it all possible, but for a 7 year-old, unappreciated.
1 comment:
Takes me back, Joe. As I recall, Father Lacey was a tough cookie who could have given Bogey a run for his money.
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