Twelve: A Particular Fondness

December 12th, 2011 § 2

I can’t add much to this little dandy by The Spouse. As much as I enjoy parties and visits to church and being with friends, I do love Christmas on the homefront best. I will say that children are at their chattiest at Christmastime. I cherish some of the things they come up with. We’re still laughing at this one from when Maggie was younger: “Jesus can’t bring presents at Christmas. But Santa can.” This year Sadie has sympathy for Rudolph (weren’t the the other reindeer and Santa himself perfectly beastly on account of a red nose?). Sadie goes around saying (overly) sadly, “Poor Rudolph.” There’s only one thing she wants you to reply: “Yes, poor Rudolph.”  

My wife loves Christmas—and not in the everyday, run-of-the-mill way a lot of people love it. No, Laura loves Christmas with a consuming intensity that leaves her blue when it is over.

For example, Laura enjoys Christmas music so much that she imposes on herself an absolute embargo on playing it before Thanksgiving. Unless, of course, she really needs a pick-me-up a few days (or weeks) early. Then, the embargo goes out the window, at least long enough for a King’s College Choir disc or two.

My wife loves decorating for Christmas, too, even when she must do the same thing more than once. She dresses our mantle with magnolia leaves and pine fronds, replacing pieces as they turn brown.

As for me, I play a very limited role in the decorating process, offering zero creative input and handling mostly tasks requiring some limited measure of brute strength.

Tedious and dangerous jobs also fall to me, including the Advent wreath. Here, I have the unenviable task of turning a pile of unruly boxwood clippings into a serviceable wreath, working with only a circular frame and a hazardous old spool of florist wire. Every year, I cross my bloodied fingers that my tetanus shot is still current.

Laura also loves Christmas trees. Eons ago, we were a one-tree family, piling our then-young twin girls into the minivan and picking out the perfect tree at a picturesque wooded nursery. We would then spend multiple evenings stringing popcorn and cranberries while watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” and lesser holiday classics. Once, Laura’s tree was featured in the newspaper.

Several years ago, we added a second tree, for the twins’ room. Maggie and Emma, now 13, really enjoy the lights and aroma, along with having a tree of their own.

In 2007, when the economy was barreling along like an eager Escalade on Georgia 400 outside rush hour, two trees were suddenly not enough. I came home to find a third waiting to go in the dining room.

If that doesn’t sound odd, a better sense of our dining room may help. Ours is a modest-sized house, at least in our zip code. Even when cut down by half and squeezed into a corner, the bulging white pine seemed to have its own gravitational field.

The dining room tree went out with the economic boom and is at least as unlikely to return anytime soon.

Although her passion for Christmas is extraordinary, Laura is not without kindred spirits. She welcomes the season by hosting two dear friends for an Advent tea. Over brunch, Lanier, Rachel and Laura look forward to the coming holiday. In January, they assemble again to console each other.

Laura loves the external things of Christmas, all we can see, hear, touch, feel, smell and taste. But there is more she loves about it, unseen and mystical. To whom, after all, do the songs, traditions and rituals point us but a baby born in a stable two millennia ago? As such, there is great joy in Christmas. But there is also a certain melancholy spirit, an acknowledgment that the birth of Jesus begins His journey to the cross.

A few years ago, we were visiting Laura’s parents outside Greenville, South Carolina, and our young daughter Sadie became alarmingly listless. On Christmas Eve, Laura got all ready for church before choosing a different destination. We spent the evening with Sadie at Greenville Memorial Hospital.

It was past midnight when we shared Christmas Eve dinner back at Laura’s parents’ house. Delicious food and a bit of wine, by candlelight. It wasn’t how we had planned to spend Christmas Eve, but it was somehow perfect nonetheless.

Sadie, for her part, doesn’t understand all the season’s nuances and implications, but she is catching her mother’s enthusiasm.

In July, Sadie was still looking for Christmas trees at the local garden center. Months earlier, she had thrilled at the sight of the trees, and we had paused several times to linger among the man-made boughs, sprayed-on snow, and inflatable, light-up Santas.

By September, Sadie had figured out that, as she put it, “Not Christmas now.” A month later, with Halloween looming, she knew what she wanted: “Christmas come back.”

It was Laura’s wish then as well—and it will be again before we know it.

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