SPOILER ALERT: If Santa Claus is coming to your house you might not want to continue reading.
One tradition that we can’t let go of is the hanging and filling of the stockings.
Flash back 60 years: As a child I always looked forward to Christmas morning because we were free to get up and go through our stocking. One thing I remember was that each of us found a huge naval orange as part of the picture. I am sure my childish memory exaggerates, but I have not seen oranges that large in years. I think we ship them all to Japan now or I just don’t shop at the high priced organic stores. It was a sign of our poverty that an orange was a high point of Christmas.
Flash back 55 years: One year I decided it was payback time. I bought my dad a pair of sox, a small toy car for him and a set of jacks for my mom, and assorted useful items and stuffed the sox for my parents. I left them laying outside their bedroom door and began a new part of the tradition for us.
Santa Claus is not a part of our Christmas. We have banished his image from our house. It is not a fanatical crusade, just an observation of how he seems to be more and more a sign of the secular spirit of Christmas. Instead, we have the Wise Men come to our house. Historically, that is also a common tradition around the world. I don’t know when we made the transition so I can’t give you a flash back number but it was when the children were very small.
The concept of the wise men has become more true as the years go by and I end up doing more of the stocking stuffing. I think last year I almost had to fill my own but managed to get my daughter up before any one else was around.
A ruse to keep the children quiet has become a long drawn out routine. In my family the children could go through their stocking when they got up. This allowed the parents a few hours extra of sleep. My wife’s family did it different. They would wait until everyone was up and then one at a time go through each stocking. It was a major production. I won’t even ask you to guess which way we do now.
Stockings have gotten bigger but they are still a big mystery on Christmas morning.
Merry Christmas.
To be continued...
homo unius libri
I remember when oranges were valued, too.
ReplyDeleteI can also remember driving through orange groves when I was a kid. That was in Southern California in areas that are now covered with houses. I would think they might have been hard to get in West Virginia.
DeleteGrace and peace.