Saturday Ramblins, Vol. 1, No. 27 (December 24, 1998)

Every Christmas Eve for more than twenty years, I seek a quiet place in the darkness near midnight and, like Ebenezer Scrooge, wait for the ghosts to come. To me, Christmas Eve is the most magical night of the year, filled with shades of things that come at no other time.

At some point during the late evening -- the night that the angels filled the sky to announce our Savior's birth -- they come, marching one after another, those Christmases of long ago.

My grandmother, Georgia Brown ("Sweet Georgia Brown", as she was called most of her life though to me she was "Nana"), eating her Christmas Eve dinner agonizingly slow. We had to wait until after the meal to open the packages under the tree. We had to wait till the last dish was dried and put away before we could attack them. We had to wait till Nana was seated in her chair by the tree, her hands in her lap. She knew this and took her own, sweet time, dragging out a boy's delicious anticipation to the point of madness.

If only the years between now and then would have passed so slowly.

My father comes next, snoozing in his chair while we open the presents-one cup of Christmas cheer too many. My brothers -- boys again with eyes lit up like Bethlehem's star as one package after another is opened.

When it was over, when the last of the wrapping paper had been put into the fireplace to burn and each had their own stack of things in front of them, Nana would rise and take what she called her "little beta mess" into her room. There she would lie abed, reading her bible until the very small hours of Our Lord's birth.

The ghosts of my children's Christmases illuminate this night. Remembrances of little girls wanting every blue Smurf thing ever made and Cabbage Patch Dolls who suddenly became young women wanting only clothes and make-up flood my thoughts. Where did it go? Why did those years go so fast?

Swirling through the specters of those years is a Christmas that we were too broke to buy much of anything. Each of us wrote love letters to the others and put them in the appropriate stocking. Of all the gifts of all those years, the Smurfs have long since disappeared as has the clothing and other presents given. But each of us still has those love letters.

How those ghosts tug at me each year -- especially the Christmases spent alone in recent times. They have the power to evoke tears and warm smiles at one and the same time. Each memory is like a shining ornament in the dark. Each image is like a Christmas card saved from a December long ago.

So, tonight, I'll find that quiet and dark corner on this eve of Christ's birth. I'll sit quietly and wait. They'll find me -- those ghosts. They always do. But this year, I'll expect a new one, a dear and beloved one. Lana will come. And there, under the black majesty of starry night, we'll celebrate the Christmas we never had.

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