Nobody Reads This Page – "Christmas Charmed"

 

c. 2023 Rod Ice

All rights reserved

(12-23)

 

Note to Readers: This is a story that I have told before, but one that bears repeating during such a festive part of the year.

 

The holiday season is a time when people traditionally gather to celebrate family bonds that relate to shared genetics or a lineage of common history. It represents a point on the calendar which is both convenient and useful. One that allows memories and emotions to glow with purpose, after being pushed aside by cares and responsibilities throughout the greater year. Emotionally, the reward can be significant in terms of celebration and renewal. Faith of all kinds, whether authentically spiritual or reflected as a secular belief in comity and cooperation, fit the mood. Coming together fulfills the promise of this season.

 

We uplift each other, like twinkling stars that populate the cosmos.

 

During this joyful period, miracles may abound. Yet sometimes, they originate in places not deemed to be holy. Such blessings appear in the form of everyday folk, acting as angels. They need not be righteous or exalted to serve. Their presence in the moment makes them anointed by chance. Grace is the yield of these selfless actors. Through them, we are able to touch the face of deities that the mind itself cannot fully comprehend. Our hearts perceive what the eyes cannot capture by sight.

 

Love is their gift. The ultimate cause to bow in reflection, and contemplate our humanity.

 

For this writer, one of these encounters came in December of 1981, as my humble household was beset with challenges of all sorts. I lived as one of five in our brood, at a spot in the Finger Lakes Region of New York State. My father was a minister in the Church of Christ, a non-denominational fellowship. Our own financial condition had slipped into the red, as America was battling inflationary forces and economic recession. In Washington, D.C., much political debate ensued over how to handle this vexing situation. But for us, the horizon was a flat line that separated the earth and sky. Said plainly, we were very broke. My father drove a Ford station wagon from the 1960’s, a castoff relic that ran strong but was thirsty for fuel. We survived only with a severe amount of self-discipline and denial, often eating potatoes three times a day. Or dining on boxed macaroni-and-cheese kits, which were available for a pittance at our local grocery depot. My mother had a wizard’s ability to make meals appear out of empty cupboards. We never went hungry, even when teetering on the precipice.

 

Through Cornell University, I had served an apprenticeship at Channel 13, our local public-access television hub. The experience provided opportunities that I had never seen before. But afterward, I retreated to the anonymity and befuddlement of teenage years. Without a clear plan in effect, I wandered between impulses. This mistake made me begin to question everything. I quit attending church services and turned invisible, socially. Though I tried writing songs and working with friends who wanted to pursue music as a career. My creative output was spotty and inconsistent. I lived on fantasies with no solid foundation.

 

I had good advisers, but was not yet ready to listen.

 

Both parents were overwhelmed with the basic task of keeping our family together. So, their focus remained on big-picture necessities, not the tedious details of an errant child like myself. Days and weeks morphed into months spent pondering the futility of our existence in the house on North Cayuga Street. I began to think that we were pioneers huddled in a fort on the prairie. Wholly isolated from others by geography, and in philosophical terms. The bloodline to which we were connected came from Appalachia, and the Ohio Valley. Not the cold region where we had landed. This disparity had me searching for an identity.

 

Who spoke for me, I wondered? Vinyl platters from my father’s collection, and books from his library, had many nuggets of wisdom to offer. This riddle kept me searching for clues when the answers I needed were already close at hand.

 

As the Yuletide season approached, I had difficulty in finding my place. Lights and tinsel and baubles fashioned in silver and gold had all lost their appeal. I did not feel festive. I had no urge to be merry. Soon, this glum disposition found itself echoed in every member of our tribe. We were all sagging under the weight of happenstance. The evergreen tree that we received from a parishioner in the congregation withered quickly, like our spirits. Black coffee boiled on the stove with plain biscuits would be our breakfast for Christmas morning. It was enough to at least have a roof over our heads. And belief in the Lord Jesus Christ warming our hearts.

 

Quietly, my sister took it upon herself to combat this depression with a singular gesture of hope. Saving pennies throughout the year, she managed to afford one present for each of us, individually. For me, she chose an LP by the oddball, New Wave group DEVO. It was their most current release, called ‘New Traditionalists.’ An artistic statement that matched how I felt inside. Conflicted, confused, and disconnected.

 

To see packages under the wobbly tree made everyone in our biological circle gasp. Surprise filled the room like a mystical kind of incense. We breathed it in, gratefully. It rejuvenated us and changed the moment. Not because we had received things to hold, but because of the graciousness with which they were offered. Only later would I realize that my sibling was the one who had nothing on that special day. Her portion of the sparkling blanket around our tree trunk was bare. It did not matter, of course. Her heart was topped to the brim with glorious fulfillment.

 

Our joy was the reward she had sought.

 

When considering Christmas tales and traditions, many stories come to mind. But no memory is sweeter than the most humble of them all, when we had so little and yet indeed, so much. That was and is, my favorite to remember.

 

Thank you, sister. I will forever be in your debt.