This past weekend, while sidelined with the flu, I was watching television in the afternoon and noted that a number of channels were running Christmas movies, in July. It's a thing. It did make me all warm and fuzzy inside (not that the climbing temperatures as we were easing from a period of mild weather into a much warmer pattern wouldn't also have done that). And it made me nostalgic for that warmth and closeness you feel as fall becomes winter and your family gathers closer.
I have a trove of treasured memories of Christmases as a child, especially the ones when my parents would bundle us all into the station wagon on Christmas Eve and we'd leave our modest suburban home and stop first in the Curtis Park area of Sacramento at my Aunt Sara and Uncle Manuel's house, which was full of relatives and friends and smelled of Italian sausage and fresh basked cookies - and then we'd drive just a few blocks further to the South Land Park home of my grandparents. My grandmother always had this small, leafless tree with tasteful shiny ornaments on it set atop the piano in their living room. She would be busy in the kitchen, my mother and father would sit with my grandfather in the living room, often with whatever relatives or friends were in town visiting my grandparents, and my sisters and I would go into the den to play. Especially at that time of year the den was magical because all of the beautiful colored glass curios my grandmother kept on shelves in the picture windows in that room sparkled in the glow of holiday lights beaming forth in the neighborhood. By the time we'd make the long drive home I would be very tired and fall asleep in the car, often to be carried in by my parents once we arrived and not awaken until the magical Christmas pre-dawn.
I have subsequently had many, many delightful and warm Christmases while raising my own children, and have been blessed to experience the holiday as a sleep deprived parent catching glimpses of wonder, in the way each of my children experienced the holiday. I think about us all gathered in front of the fireplace, of the kids decorating the tree together, of a ski trip or two to round out the holiday week, and as they began to grow of that real homecoming feel when we were all finally together in the same place.
If I had to pick just one year, one panoramic snapshot of a moment when I stopped to look around and there was everyone all gathered together and full of the joy of the season, I think I know what year that would be, what the moment of crystal realization felt like. It was the year our daughter Audrey was in the hospital at Stanford, about eight months into her battle with anorexia. I remember that my former husband and I were both somewhat at a loss still in understanding the disease and its impact on our entire family, let alone fully grasping how it was devastating Audrey physically and emotionally. I remember being at a place where I was heartbroken so much of the time to watch my vibrant fourteen year old daughter literally vanishing before our eyes. She was a freshman in high school, and it was just after Thanksgiving that her pediatrician advised me we had reached a crisis point and that she would need to get into inpatient care to survive. I remember that those were the terms she used, 'to survive'.
It was a stressful time. My oldest was in her senior year of high school and my youngest was still in grammar school. I worked long hours, and on Tuesdays evenings make the more than three hour each way drive out to Stanford to visit with Audrey and participate in a parent support group. On Saturdays we would all drive out, Lucy and Mack coming with me from outside Sacramento and the three little children coming with Rahmon and Rosemary from the east bay. We would gather in this opulent home in Atherton that had been converted into an inpatient facility, and for about an hour we could all visit with Audrey in the common room while other families also met with their children. It was draining, and about a month into the process I couldn't honestly tell if real progress was being made, but I took heart in the reality that Audrey was very engaged in wanting to make sure I bought specific presents for the three younger children that she had spent a great deal of time determining would be perfect for them. At the time I saw it as a sign of her confidently re-emerging into her family, although the reality was we had many years still ahead of us in the struggle to conquer the disease.
But, that Christmas was one for the ages. It was a blessing beyond measure. I remember that it was very cold, about twenty-eight degrees when we left Sacramento early in the morning and only a few degrees above thirty when we reached Atherton. Some of the children (they were adolescents and young teens) had been allowed to go home on special passes, but the ones who were in shakier physical condition had to remain, although their families could visit and we were allowed to bring and exchange Christmas gifts. We had the common room, which boasted a large Christmas tree in the corner, all to ourselves that day as the only other family visiting used the front room of the house. There were ten of us gathered, the six children, Rahmon, Rosemary and me, and Rosemary's mother. I remember being relieved that I had remembered to pack a gift for grandma. We gathered and the children were laughing and playing and there was a Christmas movie playing on the large flat screen TV above the fireplace. The children were 17, 14, 11,9, 8 and 4 that Christmas, the youngest just shy of her fifth birthday. We are a predominantly Nigerian-American family, and there is a light-heartedness in the way we all fold so easily together that is greatly influenced by West African culture. We each opened one present, and there was much support and anticipation as surprises were unveiled. And there is nothing more musical than the peels of laughter of children bouncing off hard wood floors and rolling up the walls and across the beamed ceilings of warm room on a cold day.
We were able to have a longer stay than usual, but because of special rules in a place where people are being treated for eating disorders, the children couldn't eat while we were there, and they were getting hungry as morning became afternoon. The attendant, a young man who was a graduate student at the university, told us he could sign Audrey out for an hour if we wanted to get out and let the children have a snack. He said we were a very short drive from the Rodin sculpture garden, which he thought would be a fun place to gather for more holiday fun. And so we did that. We packed into cars and bundled up and drove the few blocks to the outside garden. I remember that grandma was wearing traditional Nigerian clothes, and even with a shawl pulled around her and the brightly colored scarf I'd given her wrapped around her neck, I didn't think she'd be comfortable too long outside, not to mention how the cold would impact Audrey. But it was a bright, sunny day, and the children had so much energy to vent that they just burst forth into the courtyard and began to run around chasing each other. Rahmon was shooting pictures of them with his camera and Rosemary and I walked among the sculptures, including The Thinker, admiring Rodin's work. I remember looking over at the two boys, Mack and Justin, playing a game of tag and running in circles around grandma in front of Rodin's "Gates of Hell". Lucy, the oldest, took Ashley, who does not do well in the cold , first by the hand and then wrapped a big arm around her, holding Audrey's hand firmly in her other hand, as she danced with her younger sisters from sculpture to sculpture. And the littlest, Sabrina, flitted from one group to the next, and Rahmon kept snapping picture after picture of her. At one point Sabrina poked her head through the legs of one of the statues and smiled up at her father and her took a picture before realizing the statue was a male nude and her little apple cheeked face was resting just below the penis. It was a lark though, the whole time we were there. It could have been a playground or Disneyland for all the delight the children took in running and playing with each other there. And because it was cold, we all kept close together. I remember thinking how fortunate we were that it didn't matter where we were (for certainly one doesn't imagine cementing a holiday memory in front of the Gates of Hell) it was that we were together and that we all really love each other so very much.
All of the children remember that holiday so vividly. They remember being happy. And for me it was a special moment when I understood we were a family, a unit woven intricately and solidly together out of love. I know that wherever we are in life or in the world, any of us and all of us, we will always be able to conjure that Christmas, those moments, in our hearts. Because it really was the best Christmas ever.
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