Memory-Making, Christmas Traditions

I really struggle this time of year, even loving Christmas the way I do.    It's not the same with so many I love now gone from my life.   Mom, Dad, my little sister and brother.  All the memory-makers in the family, gone on in time, leaving me behind to pick up where they left off, continue the legacy of tradition and love.   I need mom with me now, to keep me playing the piano.  I can't do the Christmas carols from 'sight' the way she can with the Fireside Book of Christmas Carols, although I can do pretty well with figuring out these traditional tunes on the guitar.

 

And I can't do all of the harmony parts on my own, (well, not on one track anyway) the way that mom and Sissy and I used to harmonize, so have it imagine those angelic voices tonight as I play and record Silent Night, one of our favorites.  I keep thinking I'll have time to lay down the harmony vocal tracks, but know from years past, it is a pipe dream to think I can pull it off this year!  Never enough time or energy, more to the point.

 

I am sad because I know mom and dad and sissy and Tarbell would want more than anything, to keep the family together strong in traditions past - the ones that bound and centered us growing up.   Now, it is a race to get the tree up before everyone else gets the good ones, although I still prefer all those Charlie Brown trees dad use to get and tie together with binders twine so it would be sturdy enough to mimic a real, tall, Christmas tree!

 

We would always wait until Christmas Eve night when no one else was shopping for trees, and then we'd get home and decorate while mom sang Christmas carols at the piano.   We'd have a family meal and get all scrubbed up for church, the midnight service, then race home to stay up all night and help Santa put together all of those mysterious multi-moving-part Christmas gifts for the little kids.

 

I never slept much during Christmas in the old days and like it that way, because it meant I was packing every free minute I had into magical memories.   Now, I am the one remaining to create memories for my nephew, my sister's boy,  Tarbell, who counts on me to create that magic for him.  It is easy to get tired, cranky, and all very Grench like at Christmas. 

 

But, my job is to create memories.   I am the memory-maker this year, so write, and write and write, to preserve the record of this moment in time:  the night I got it that I am here to give Christmas to others.   Amen.