I thought I would share with you some cherished childhood memories from my youth in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Perhaps it’ll remind you of a few of your own.
Christmas Specials Anticipation
The earliest, best sign that Christmas was nigh was when my mom would start to scotch-tape clippings from the Baton Rouge Morning Advocate onto the television set featuring Christmas specials. There would be the crucial ones such as Charlie Brown and the Grinch, and the lame-ass ones like Little Drummer Boy. In those days, of course, it was your ONLY chance all year long to see any of these, so it was terribly exciting to anticipate each one of them and relish every marvelous second.
The Candy Cane Tree
Decorating my bedroom with Christmas gear was the first thing I did after Thanksgiving, and to this day, now with my own family, I’m the one who brings out all the boxes of seasonal festoonery and decorates the house with it. A favorite item of mine was a little “tree”, which was nothing more than a branch about two feet tall that my mom had cemented into a pot and painted white. I would hang candy canes off of it, which I would consume slowly through December.
Sneaking a Peek
Try though she might, my mom could never manage to hide Christmas gifts from my sneaky self. When everyone was out of the house, I was going full-on detective to figure out where they were hidden, which more often than not was way up in the attic. I would very, very carefully unto the scotch tape and peek inside to get a sense as to what was coming on Christmas Day. Naturally, I had to go for the Oscar-winning performance of surprise when the big day actually arrived, since I pretty much knew everything that was coming already. I just couldn’t stand waiting to find out.
Hoping for Ice
Louisiana is a sub-tropical climate. It gets much hotter and much colder than Palo Alto, and the swings are wilder. For this post, I plucked out the forecast for Baton Rouge, and as you can see, a December day can be nearly 80 degrees and then, once a cold front passes through, it drops down to freezing. I was a nerdy little kid, and I really dug inclement weather (be it hurricanes or temperatures in the 20s), so I always made a point of leaving water glasses out on a night when it would be 32 or below, since it was a kick to see the frozen ice the next morning.
Luminaries
On Christmas Eve, we would line the sidewalks with paper bags that had some sand on the bottom (to keep them from blowing away) and a little candle inside. Invariably, some of these would burst into flames, but on the whole, it was a really cool effect. The goal, I was informed, was to give Santa landing lights. Works for me! I thought it made the neighborhood look magical.
Silent Night Candles
Once darkness was fully upon us, all six of us would be carted off in the Country Squire and head over to the Broadmoor United Methodist Church, where we’d crowd in with all the other good suburban protestants and enjoy the Christmas Service. The big finish was that everyone – – even the kids! – – was being provided a candle with a little paper shield (so you didn’t get hot wax on your hands) and, one by one, the flame would get passed from one person to the next until many hundreds of candles were lit. All during this time, the choir and the congregation would sing Silent Night. It was really quite touching, and a lovely way to finish Christmas Eve before we all headed home to wait for Santa.
Incarceration by Sister
Of course, my parents weren’t about to risk letting their curious and youngest child lie in wait to catch Kris Kringle, so this was the one night of the year that I’d be required to sleep with my older sister in her bedroom. Being seven years older than me, it was her task to make sure I didn’t leave the room and, sooner or later, get to sleep. From time to time, there would be some noise going on outside, which my sister assured me was Santa stumbling around the roof with his reindeer, which I thought was just about the coolest thing imaginable.
The Drive to Bogalusa
On Christmas Day itself, after the presents were all opened, the family would load up into the car and head toward Bogalusa, which was about a two-hour drive. This was the one and only time of the year that I’d get to see all my aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins. We would go to two separate houses: first, my mother’s childhood home (which is basically where the poor folks lived) and then, for a lengthier stay, to the much nicer home of one of my uncles, where dozens of family members would be gathered. All of the kids were older than me, most by about a decade, but it was still thrilling to be with the extended family, since the other 364 days of the year I didn’t see any of them.
The one thing that occurred to me in writing this post was one aspect of Christmas which wasn’t a special memory at all: opening the presents. They didn’t even cross my mind. All that counts, in the end, is the family. I suppose that’s the lesson to take away from this entire exercise.
Merry Christmas, and as Tiny Tim says, God Bless Us. Everyone.
