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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Ghost of Christmas Past

Most of you are aware of Dickens's classic story, 'The Christmas Carol', Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by three ghosts, one of them is the Ghost of Christmas Past. Oddly enough, I was recently visited by the ghost of Christmas past as well. I am not sure what exactly caused this ghost to visit me. Maybe it was because I drove back to my boyhood home and the community where I grew up, Shady Grove, located on top of Horse Shoe Mountain. This is a place where cows are still to be found in what could be a yard, houses are built in groves of trees and are referred to as home-places of certain families. In these parts you see more Game Wardens than Policemen. There is a smell in the air of wood burning fires from fireplaces. The winter landscape is mostly open fields and groves of trees that are barren this time of the year, except for the mistletoe that grows in their tops. Most people there drive pickups and have gun racks. Tail-gating and horn blowing better be for true emergencies or it is almost certain there will be altercation for such rude city behavior. To the contrary, everyone waves when you drive by. Maybe it was seeing the church that I attended as a boy and remembering the endless games played in its yard and hiding and being sought in its many hiding places. Maybe it was just thinking about all of the people I loved in that place. Seeing these familiar sights smelling familiar smells and seeing some familiar people may have caused the Ghost from Christmas Past to visit me.

Or it could have been sitting in my parent's home where childhood memories pour forth in my mind that the Ghost of Christmas Past began to haunt me. My memories of home as a child were the place where Dad's chair was located, a throne of sorts that no lowly surfs were allowed to sit. Mom's kitchen was decorated with the standard dècor of the late 60's early 70's with a large fork and spoon on the wall next to the Ten Commandments located over the statuary of the praying hands and the plaque of the Prayer of Serenity. An avocado colored fridge and matching sink were in our stylish kitchen as we were, of course, a modern family. Important pictures and letters were kept in Prince Albert cigar boxes. The smell of country cooking was always lingering in the house from the last meal. A slop bucket was kept for dogs, or hogs, whatever was appropriate at the time. These thoughts may have conjured up the Ghost of Christmas Past for me.

Maybe it was rather the thoughts of Christmases past that brought forth its ghosts. Thoughts like a real Christmas tree that was always cut from the family farm. After several cedars were cut and brought into the yard for my mother to inspect. The only one that was acceptable was one with no bird's nest, cob webs, not too tall, too short, not funny shaped or with a large hole. Finally, after much searching, our perfect tree was put in the living room and decorated with lights (multi colored of course), and then that silver icicle stuff was thrown all over it. Christmas time was a sweet time and most of the gifts given were in the realm of necessity. A crock-pot for Mom, Aqua Velva and Vitalis for Dad. Underwear, tube socks, a shirt and new blue jeans or corduroy pants, maybe a leisure suit for my brother and I. Then of course the real stuff, a new basketball or football, perhaps even a walkie-talkie, or a new GI Joe with a kung fu grip or something for hunting like a night-light or a hunting dog leash. Then the best gift of all one year... The Jr. Trooper 410 single shot shotgun, for with that gift I was officially in the club, the man club. I have been a card carrying member of the man club ever since that faithful day. I am not sure still what a metro-sexual is, but I am certain that he never received such a gift as the Jr. Trooper 410 single shot shotgun, or he would be nothing of the sort. The ghost of Christmas past was catching up to me then an event sent me over the edge.

As I think of it, maybe I do know what summoned the Ghost of Christmas Past for a visit. There we were in my parents home this Christmas and out came the home videos. Not from my childhood but from my children's childhood. My mother made hundreds of hours of video of our girls when they were wee bits. There they stood in footy pajamas singing Christmas songs and talking about Christmas presents on the family TV. The TV that had previously showed things like ball games or reruns of Bonanza, Gunsmoke, or Hawaii Five O. There, instead, were my girls complete with hair-bows, big eyes and sweet little faces. And in one video April and I had been gone and upon the announcement of our arrival they jumped for joy in their footed pajamas and yelled 'yeah!' Running to the door to greet us as if we had been away for 6 months. That just did it. The old Ghost of Christmas Past was now fully haunting my life. Where had we been that night? Probably trying to make some people happy that we wouldnít even remember their names now. Perhaps it was on business that could have waited for another time. But in our absence we had missed a sweet concert of little girls in footed pajamas singing and dancing with all their might. There is something about watching home movies and seeing years of highlights of birthday parties and Christmases past, blow by in digital speed to make a man realize how much life just gets by so quickly.

I am a little melancholy over this visit from the Ghost of Christmas past, but I have determined to wake up and ask 'Is it Christmas Day Yet'? And if so, I am calling for the exorcist of the Ghost of Christmas Past. Today is a new day, it is a day that we are alive, and alive to love tenderly, talk softly, and care deeply and to make new memories, memories worthy of our best time to the ones we love the most. To speak the words our family and friends need to desperately hear. And finally a note of memory from my Grandfather, by way of my uncle who was leaving our house carrying someone a meal who was without family and in desperate medical need on Christmas. He said Dad always said, 'Do as much as you can for as many as you can, for as long as you can.' Now that is the Spirit of Christmas past, present and future. Go tell it on the Mountain!