Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.
Dr. Seuss
This Christmas far exceeded my expectations. I must admit, after an exhausting year, I set the bar kinda low. I just planned that this Christmas would be no different than any other day since mid-March when the world shut down and life as we knew it changed forever. Then it started to snow. I think someone was confused, “We can’t end a year like this with a white Christmas,” we need it to be seventy and sunny, the exact opposite of what might be on most of our Christmas cards. Snow at Christmas would be too perfect for a year like we have all had. Then I woke up to four inches of snow.
Our Christmas began this year at my mom and dad’s house on Christmas Eve. For the first time in my memory, my mom had names on her presents. I wasn’t sure if we should celebrate or worry about her. At any rate, none of the kids opened crockpots this year, and that was a small victory. I could tell more stories than you are willing to sit through about what happens when mom forgets what she has wrapped and has to guess which gift is yours. We all got the right gifts the first time, no one had to swap. It was perfect.
However, she did continue her tradition of telling my little brother what dad “wanted” for Christmas. She does this from time to time with my little brother because he continues to fall for it. This year dad “wanted” a set of sawhorses. Evidently, this lack of sawhorses prevented dad from completing many of the items on Mom’s retirement “to do” list. It’s an ongoing list with no real hope of an end. He will put the sawhorses in the basement with the stapler he “wanted” a few years ago. Bro, next time buy the gift dad “wants” and wrap it but put mom’s name on it. On second thought, don’t; it has become a fun part of our family story.
My nephew nearly scared us all to death at Christmas this year because he had decided he was old enough to carry a pocket knife. He said he would need it to open his presents, but thankfully, we could get them opened before he took matters into his own hands. I showed him the scar from the year I got a pocket knife for Christmas and decided to teach myself to whittle. We spent that Christmas in the ER while dinner was getting cold. It didn’t seem to phase him; he thought the scar looked cool. He did leave with all of his fingers and toes, so we can count that as a win. Sometimes the memories you don’t make are just as important as those that you do.
In the past few years, our Christmas gifts have become much more focused on memories. My mother has always been a bit sentimental. This year mom glued one of my matchboxes to a piece of wood and made a Christmas scene with it. She has always been crafty, and I am sure she saw it in Southern Living or one of her craft magazines. It was a neat gift, and my mind immediately went back to the five-year-old version of myself. Each Saturday, my grandfather would take me to the five and dime on Main Street. There was a massive selection of matchbox cars on the back wall in the basement corner, and we would pick out one. I would take it back to his house and add it to my collection. It’s funny how a memory will return. For just a few minutes, I was standing next to him again.
Mom followed it up with another gift from our family history, a framed 5×7 black and white photo of my grandfather’s Gulf station on Main Street from back in the sixties. It must have been Christmas because the lights are hung across Mainstreet. After Christmas, I will find the perfect spot for it in my office. It’s good to have reminders of how much time and energy has been invested in getting us to where we are today.
I was blessed with two amazing sets of grandparents. It was kinda like the city mouse and the country mouse. My mom’s parents lived in Hazelwood, just a block away from the old school site. My dad’s parents lived more than twenty miles outside of town in the country, well past where the paved roads had turned to gravel and far enough out that you only went to town once a week. I affectionately called my dads dad Papaw, a title my dad took when his first grandchild was born. Many of those trips out into the country to see my Papaw began at the drug store to pick up pipe tobacco. He didn’t like filters and rolled his own cigarettes. Over the years, Papaw had become proficient at rolling a cigarette with one hand while driving with the other. He taught me how to do it, but we decided it best not to tell my dad. This year for Christmas, my brother gave me a candle that smells just like his pipe tobacco and a box of butterscotch candy just like Papaw kept in a small glass container on the nightstand next to his recliner. After getting home, I lit the candle, sat back in my rocker, and had a piece of butterscotch. For just a moment, I was back in his house, hearing his bigger than life stories again.
It’s the pictures of forgotten times, the smell of pipe tobacco, and the taste of butterscotch that I will remember from Christmas this year. Those perfect memories that you savor like a fine meal. On Christmas morning, my wife gave me a framed quote for my office that summed up the last few days. The great philosopher Dr. Seuss once said, “Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.” It’s really up to us what we make of our moments and which ones we allow to become our memories.
Empty Your Cup... 