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A Change of Seasons in Virginia

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Written by Greg Holland

Wednesday, 26 November 2008 14:56

From my childhood, I remember the changes from summer to fall and then from fall to winter. Maybe it’s just my faded memory, but those changes always seemed to happen just as you’d expect; they had a predictable rhythm. The leaves on the trees turned the same colors at about the same time. School was in session and you were finally adjusted to new teachers and schedules. Football season was in full swing, whether it was playing YMCA flag football or rooting for the Hilltoppers down at Sullivan Field. When I was even younger, it really started the day the Sears Christmas catalog arrived in the mailbox. Sometime near the beginning of August, I began a daily trek down the driveway to look in the mailbox to see if it had arrived. For a couple of years, my companion on these driveway trips was our cat Spike. Sometimes he followed me, playfully darting back and forth on some adventure like a dog would do (he thought he was a dog, making him history's coolest cat), while at other times he’d rub on my legs and purr, tripping me all the way to the street. Hope built with each step of the way from the door until the mailbox door was opened and the contents examined. Only one thing was sure each day – Spike’s insistence that the trip down had been a physical strain and that it was only proper he be carried back to the house. But eventually the day would come that something different in the mailbox caught my eye. There’s a catalog in there alright, but hope would give way to a bit of disappointment; the JC Penny catalog had arrived first again. Don’t get me wrong, it was great to look through, but any kid who was a student of Christmas knew that the Sears catalog was the true, authoritative source, and that the JC Penny catalog was a cheap imposture, merely a bridge to the real McCoy. Eventually, the one true Christmas catalog would arrive and a boy knew exactly where he stood in the rhythm of the seasons and fall was on the way. Soon the leaves would turn, the smell of chile roasting would highlight each farmer’s market as you passed it, and each evening began to smell of piñon burning in neighborhood fireplaces. Flag football games gave way to Halloween, which gave way to a small birthday dinner, featuring Brian Booth or Fred Montoya as a guest for dinner and a sleep-over. After dinner it was time for pictures at the table and candles on top of one of mom’s angel food cakes, just the way I liked it. I’ve yet to see a birthday picture where I couldn’t tell you with certainty what was in the still wrapped package. My birthday then gave way to Thanksgiving, either at our house or at the Ramsay’s, depending on where it had been the year before; we’re in a rhythm, you see, which is bigger than just that change of season. It spans years, but you have to synch up with it, which is why the Sears Christmas catalog is so important. There would be turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and wine for the adults to go along with discussions that eventually turned to politics and horses. Next came time to put up and decorate the Christmas tree. Dad cut off a piece off the bottom of the tree with his bow saw. I remember an attempt or two to make the tree look fuller by taking a branch cut from the bottom and putting it in a hole he’d drilled into the trunk. It was a great moment when dad pulled the tree through the front door, some needles falling to the ground from the already partially dried tree. Dad put it in the stand, watered it, strung the lights on and wrapped a sheet around the base for the presents. The rest was now up to us. Mom began pulling out the ornaments while my sisters and I rummaged through decoration boxes, each looking for all the ornaments the belonged strictly to us. It was a major breach in etiquette to hang an ornament on the tree that belonged to one of your siblings. Dad sat by the fireplace watching, drinking eggnog, while mom hung ornaments with us. After hanging my ornaments, I quickly grew impatient with the rest of them because I was ready to move on to hanging icicles and couldn’t until all the decorations were hung. I usually tried to get an early start by rummaging through the boxes to find my favorites – the old lead-based icicles known to us as “leadies.” These were a source of joy to a small boy since they had some real heft to them, enabling you to throw them to high, otherwise unreachable, branches. They later held even greater appeal to me when I found out they could no long be sold because of their lead content – I was now an outlaw hanging them. The newfangled, non-leaded icicles were still fun to hang and I hung them in large clumps for mom to redistribute more appropriately later on. The next few weeks were occupied by staring at the Sears Christmas catalog, now quite dog-eared from use, and shaking presents under the tree. We’d probably seen some light snow at this time but knew the real snow wouldn’t come until after Christmas, in keeping with the rhythm. Christmas Eve brought excitement! We could really begin to celebrate in earnest. After dinner, my sisters and I were in the living room in a flash waiting impatiently while mom and dad seemed to purposely drag their feet doing dishes, putting food away, and brewing coffee. They arrived after what seemed like hours and we each picked out our one present we were allowed to open that night. Later that evening, the Ramsay’s and Miss Gross arrived for a visit before the Ramsay’s headed off for a seat at Midnight Mass. If you were lucky, you had opened a gift you could play with for the evening. If not, you listened to the latest news about Miss Gross’ horses, her dogs or something to do with the Ramsay’s horses and how their oldest was faring at the Naval Academy. Either way, the real constant was Mrs. Ramsay’s gift of a Christmas Stollen. This is a traditional German Christmas cake with fruits and nuts in it, but nothing dryer is known to mankind than Mrs. Ramsay’s interpretation of Stollen. To top it off, the icing was garnished by candied fruit that had to be from the original Christmas. I still wonder how it’s possible to make anything taste so bad with the word “candy” in it. Our guests eventually left and the final preparations for Santa were made by putting out a small plate with some Oreo cookies and a cold bottle of Coca Cola. It was the only night of the year I wanted to get to bed. Sometime after sunrise the next morning, I began to play in my room with an increasing amount of noise in hopes of gently, but quickly waking my father up so we could get on with it. We were not allowed to just go to the living room and dive in; there was a protocol to be followed. We gathered in the hallway until dad was ready. He went ahead of us to plug in the tree lights, looked around the living room that we could not yet see, and announced, “It looks like he didn’t come this year.” That was our signal – and part of the rhythm. We moved on that room with conviction and found the gifts Santa left by our stockings. Santa often didn’t bring what I’d been hinting at from the Sears catalog, but it was always good. My stocking was full of small surprises, but always had a box of chocolate covered cherries. Now came the unfortunate part of our tradition. We had to abandon what Santa brought, the rest of our presents still wrapped and under the tree, and move into the kitchen for a slice of Christmas Stollen. Without the lure of unwrapped presents waiting to be torn into, getting me to actually eat that slice of Stollen would have like moving a glacier with your mind, but the power of all that potential under the tree eventually brought me to choke it down. To make it just a little more difficult, if that were possible, Mom would put a glass of orange juice in front of us and we had to finish that too. The combination of Stollen and orange juice is a taste I’d love to erase from my mind, but never will. Back in the living room, the presents were opened in a time that always went by too quickly and it was over. We played with presents, went to church, came home and played some more until it was time to eat Christmas dinner with the Booth’s, location depending on what happened last year. August had turned to fall and now it was winter. With our family now, Tanya and I have tried to establish our own traditions and I’ve tried to get in synch with that rhythm that comes with the change of seasons. We’ve had some great times and I hope we’ve created some great memories. We’ve tried to make Christmas about Jesus, not just Santa Claus. I can see the impact it’s had – they’re good kids, better than I could ask. As the kids have gotten older, life has become busier. Since moving to Virginia, I’ve had a more difficult time synching up with that rhythm. It’s still warm out on Halloween – I’ve gone trick-or-treating with the kids in shorts. I can’t remember ever trick-or-treating as a kid without a winter coat over my costume. The fall is beautiful here, but even the leaves are odd to me. We’re a week out from Thanksgiving and some trees have already shed all their leaves. Another tree in my yard has just started to turn to its fall colors. They seem out of synch to me. I’ve never smelled green chile roasting here. The fall was warm and perfect for field hockey and football games. Ryan, my oldest, just turned 13 and I’m not prepared to be the father of a teenage girl. I just turned 45, which is one of those ages at which you think you won’t arrive for decades to come, but it is here. No one burns piñon or juniper here. I don’t know if Sears makes a Christmas catalog anymore, but if they do, they don’t ship them unless you ask for it. I’m not certain if JC Penney is even still in business. I’ve heard Mrs. Ramsay’s Christmas Stollen has gotten progressively better over the years. While I applaud her, and I’ll take their word for it, there’s something not right about it. I need to find that rhythm again this year. It turned cold about 3 days ago – winter cold. The economy is in the toilet, we’ve just lived through an election I believe our country will regret, and we could use an injection of hope (not the campaign promise kind). Today it finally dawned on me what’s making it hard to get into that rhythm – Reese, my youngest, no longer believes in Santa. He held out longer than most kids. I suspect he was mildly skeptical last year, but when push came to shove, it was still better and safer to believe. This year, we had to talk about it, since he’s in middle school. If you believe in Santa in middle school, you’ve got a big target painted on your back and that wouldn’t be good. Now I’m the only one left in the family who believes in him. I work across the street from the Pentagon City Mall and frequently eat lunch in their food court. Last week, the Christmas decorations went up in a hurry as merchants try to stretch out what promises to be a slow retail season. In the middle of the food court, Santa is already there, waiting to talk with the kids and have his picture taken with them. It’s earlier than ever and business looks slow. My friend Don and I said “Hi Santa” to him the first day we saw him. He waved to us. Don still believes too. The next time Don and I saw him, he was talking to another Santa in civilian clothes. I figured there was a rule against being seen together in public like that, but they were obviously talking shop. This one was wearing blue jeans, a leather jacket, and a ball cap. Maybe they have a union. Anyway, today I ate alone in the food court just a table away from the Santa in the ball cap. I’ve seen him around. He works in the Drug Enforcement Agency building I walk by every day. At the end of my meal I had to ask him, “Hey Santa, my youngest doesn’t believe anymore. What do I do?” This man and his lunch companions looked at me like I was crazy. The funny thing is, their disbelief triggered something in me. I know exactly what to do. I’m going to demand we watch “The Grinch.” We’ll make our paper Christmas chain, each link giving us some holiday task to accomplish as we remove it. We’ll eat Thanksgiving with Tanya’s parents, and the Dugas’, and the Everson’s. On Christmas Eve, we’ll bake Jesus a birthday cake, leave cookies and milk for Santa, and carrots for the reindeer. On Christmas morning I will beat the kids down the stairs, turn the lights on, and say, “It looks like he didn’t come this year.” They’ll probably roll their eyes at me, but some day they’ll appreciate the consistency of it all – how it helped them manage the change of seasons. I wonder if there’s some place I can pick up a hard, dry Christmas Stollen at a discount.

Last Updated ( Monday, 29 December 2008 15:40 )