12/25/05

Twas the night of Christmas Eve....

No, Im not that good at rhyming.

Lets just tell the story, shall we?

I was this kid, see. I lived for Christmas. I even enjoyed the ritual deployment of the Nativity set, the careful placement of the various animals. We also, for unknown reasons, had a bunny in the manger. A little plastic bunny. Everyone's got a right I guess...

My biggest fear at Christmas was watching The original Sesame Street Christmas (Sans Elmo) with Big Bird waiting on the roof for Santa. To this day I still get a chill when I think of the normally harmess bird, with the fangs of ice hanging off the end of his beak... well - thats how they looked to me. Back in the days of analog, broadcast television.

Oh - and of course, the opening sequence of the various Sesame Street Muppets ice skating. That was kinda scary too, but in a different way. Did not know they had legs. My bad.

So anyway, Christmas Eve was the night of nights. When the family would schlep to our house, and eat - drink - make merry, play cards, Trivial Pursuit - whatever till the wee hours of the morning.

My bedroom was just above the dining room, so as I got older and spent more time up there - I grew accustomed to the sounds coming from the room below as I fell asleep on Christmas Eve.

Well, before that time, my biggest luxury at Christmas was sleeping on the pull-out sofa in the den. It kept me on the same floor as the entire party, just removed enough that I could hear them as a murmur. It kept me in direct eyeshot of the tree, and the empty space below. Talk about hard to sleep, but yet sleep I did and always would wake up at 5-6am to find that somehow, defying all youthful logic - the empty space was no more.

How can you describe the first gleaming visions of a tree lit in full splendor, darkness still beyond the windows and presents of all sizes underneath? I don't think you can, unless you go deep inside yourself and relive the moment.

Now in the den/spare bedroom there were two windows. One which looked over the driveway, and a 2nd which looked out to the garage and backyard. Laying on the sofa, my head would be both in perfect view to look out the crack in the door and see the glow of the tree, and look out the window over the driveway. Not much to see there, just a wall on the neighbors house. And the shadow of our roofline.

Understand, this was NY - which meant lights cast shadows in places there should be none. The shadow of a houses roof was not all that uncommon.

I know at some point I began to get drowsy, and possibly nodded off to the sounds of a game of 31 (like blackjack, but not. and played for 75 cents total). And as my eyes would fitfully open and close, alternating views between the glow of the tree and the light in the window, I can remember seeing fleeting shadows on the roof. Im not talking about full sleigh and team shadows, just quick shadows. And the sudden realization that everything in the house had become still in less than a moment.

No noise, no cards shuffling, none of my aunts playful accusations of cheating. Not even my dog moving. Just those memorys of a shadow on the roofline and a dim red glow showing in a place where even with a ladder, no one would attempt to create an illusion. To this day I can still picture the glow, even though the shadows have faded from my memory.

There was nothing much special about that Christmas Morning, I cannot tell you what gifts I recieved. But that instant moment when the world was silent, and mystery stepped in has been enough to keep me going all these years. I will not say if Santa is real, but to me - he is real enough. The spirit of what Santa stands for resides in all of us, year round. We just tend to ignore the small red glow.

Its the same light in the darkness that is talked about in religion. And all of them have the same idea, so I cannot say it is specific to any one.

"...And there to that light
That young Child showed to me
All the things that he dreamt
All the things that might be
How for everything given
That something was gained
Strike one match in the dark
And all the world's not the same

And then I asked that Child
Why this night has a star
And he said, "So we'd know
That we could see that far"

Roanoke has a star too.. ever wonder why? Perhaps something beyond the commercial reasons? Something larger than Roanoke? It's hard to think otherwise sometimes. This town is special, for whatever reasons.

Well, Im not about to launch into a homily on the virtues of Roanoke, but you get the general idea.

If Santa ever decided to move south, Im sure this would be his retirement choice. Or maybe he is allready here, among us.

Merry Christmas... more to come later in the day.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a lovely story. On a different note, the powers that be must be reading your blogs because the front page of the Roanoke Times has a wish list of restaurants and other stores they would like to come here. Hmmm what an original idea. Wonder where they came up with it?

Anonymous said...

What a sweet story.

I think at the end you got a couple of letters mixed up though...it was Satan that retired here, not Santa!

You keep on cheerleading, I love it, but let's talk after you've been here over a decade...

RoanokeFound said...

Ms. - We can talk after Ive been here a decade, although I feel my decade will be quite different from yours.

Anonymous said...

A very sweet story.