Woe, Woe, Woe, Merry Christmas

Washington Post Staff
Sunday, December 25, 2005

Christmas is the hope of infinite possibility, like Jesus himself, along with America and childhood and the sun returning from its solstice sulk.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

There is comfort and joy, and joy to the world. Repeat the sounding joy, repeat the sounding joy . . .

But . . . In every Christmas lurks a dread, like a minor-key carol playing on a radio in another room. O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel, that mourns in lonely exile here . . .

And indeed there are the fiascos, the lonely exiles, the sort of cruelties that leave dead places in the eyes of children. The marriage that broke up on Christmas. The drunken fistfight. We dwell on these things. We like to believe the suicide rate jumps at Christmas, when actually it nears its yearly low. Why are these stories so eagerly told?

We tell them because on Christmas we believe -- against all evidence -- that these ordinary things are extraordinary, verging on the impossible; thereby reassuring ourselves that we believe the true state of things on Christmas is birds singing in the snow, astonishing joy, infinite possibility, heaven. Angels we have heard on high . . . And heaven and nature sing.

Think of the memories that follow as proof of glory.

Merry Christmas.

 -- Henry Allen

A Man With A Bright Past

The old man loved Christmas lights.

Jimmy, my grandfather, with whom my siblings and I lived, would never tell us which day he'd put the lights up. And so I'd come running around the corner onto North Fifth Street in Columbus, Ohio, and there they'd be, wrapped around our house, dazzling. They looped around the front of the house, up and down the pillars, and twinkled from the bushes.

When my grandfather died in 1985, however, there was no one to put the lights up anymore. My grandmother lived in the house with my mother. I think they froze in trying to do what Jimmy had done. I thought of it more than once: I'd put the lights up, no problem. But it was even hard for me to touch the ladder he had used. I'd freeze. I'd go outside and drop a tear. A Christmas candle in the window has had to do. Maybe it's the memory of him, on a ladder, all by himself, stringing the lights. A tough and gruff man who seemed to secretly vie with others on the block for the best lighting arrangement.

Now, when I'm home, my nephew Tony and I go riding around Columbus looking at opulent houses with their Christmas lights. We ride through Upper Arlington and Bexley. Our threadbare neighborhood never had much in common with those locales. Tony and I just ogle the lights in those pricey suburbs anyway. And, after some silence, we'll concur: We ain't seen the lights strung around a house -- or castle -- that can compete with Jimmy Burke's Christmas lights.

-- Wil Haygood

A Most Gloomy Christmas Eve

That Christmas Eve, my father was back in the hospital. He'd suffered a massive heart attack earlier that year, and now he was lying before us -- me, my older brother, and my mother -- under a thin blue hospital blanket, the machinery of his room chirping like the bird section in a pet shop. Speaking seemed to wear him out, and we filled up the room with our hushed, unconvincing talk. When we finally said our shaky goodbyes, our shoes squeaked all the way to the elevator.

We were on our way to church next. And when we pulled into the parking lot, we tried to arrange our faces in some acceptable form of Christmas hopefulness. But by the time we reached the main entrance, I couldn't hold my composure anymore. I was 19, and I hadn't cried so openly since I was a little boy. "I can't do it," I said to my mother. "I can't go in there." She understood immediately.

"Okay," she said, "we'll go home." She leaned in discreetly to my brother, pulling him back, and said we were going.

My brother, though, was furious and stomped behind us. Once he got in the front seat, he said something -- I can still hear the gnarled pitch of his voice, but I can no longer recall the words -- about our coming all this way for nothing, and that's when I let a wild left hook fly. My arm was stifled by the sleeve of my wool blazer, and mostly I hit the back of his head rest. But he seemed ready for it and, turning quickly, leaned over to hit me back, but I had more room to duck away. My mother screamed for us to stop, and for the next few seconds we fogged the car up with our heavy breathing.

When we got home, we turned on the Christmas tree, the specials on TV, and sat mostly in different rooms of the house, bracing ourselves for the metallic ring of the telephone.

-- David Rowell

A Loss Magnified

One year our calico cat, Sociable, drowned in the neighbor's almost-empty swimming pool, in a foot or two of water. They found her the day after Christmas and my dad went and got her, and buried her in the vacant acres behind the subdivision, and then I was told. I cried all day, and then the next day, and then the day after that. I tried to play with my new stuff -- the Bionic Woman sports car with the "sabotaged brakes" action, so your Bionic Woman doll could stop the speeding car by sticking her platform-sandaled feet out on the concrete -- but mostly I was wrapped in a child's sense of melodramatic grief over poor Sociable (who wasn't). My eyes crusted from crying. I played "A Star Is Born (Evergreen)" on the piano again and again. On the fourth day my mother told me that it was time to stop making such a show of myself.

And she was right. Even now, the only thing I remember about that cat is that she drowned in the neighbor's pool, on Christmas, and that I had overcried.

-- Hank Stuever

Seeing the Light, After It's Dimmed

My memories of Christmas have been as glowing as could be. Literally. For years, when I thought back on Christmas morning, the image it called up was of unalloyed joy -- of me and my five sibs and a mountain of presents, all bathed in a bright epiphany of light.

It was only much later, when I was an adult with a family of my own, that it dawned on me -- dusked on me, I guess I should say -- that my memory's illumination was hardly metaphysical, or even sentimental. It was simply the accurate recall of my father's blaring movie light, pointed straight into my face to make his Super-8 exposure come out right.

Fond childhood memories often pale with the advent of full adult awareness. My fondest Advent recollections have darkened instead.

-- Blake Gopnik

He Gave Her an Iron;

She Took Her Leave

I don't remember what Santa brought me on Dec. 25, 1980, but I've never forgotten what my father gave my mother for Christmas that year -- an iron. Even now, I can see the look on her face when she unwrapped it: bewilderment, followed by hurt and disappointment.

That day began as Christmases had for as long as I could remember in my 10 years -- my 4-year-old brother and I ripped into our gifts; my dad made a fire in the fireplace and let us throw wrapping paper in it, even though my mother always said not to do that; I helped my mother get ready for the onslaught of aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents invited for Christmas dinner.

But later that night my mother sent me to get a change of clothes for my brother and me, and told me to grab one thing from under the Christmas tree because we were spending the night at my grandma's house. My mother, brother and I wouldn't return to live in our house for another two years and we would never spend Christmas with my father as a family again.x x For years I wondered if I had just whispered to my dad that he should go out and get something better 'cause mama didn't seem to like the iron, maybe our little family would still be intact and spending Christmases together instead of my brother and me shuffling back and forth between parents, grandparents and states.

-- Tanya Ballard

Cowboys Don't Wear Pink

When I was 9, my stepfather gave me what I'd always coveted for Christmas -- a Dallas Cowboys uniform. Okay, it wasn't actually the Cowboys silver-blue togs, white jersey with blue numbers and silver-blue striped helmet adorned with a perfect blue star. The whole get-up was generic, all white. My stepdad, Cassell, painted the thing -- two big pink stars on a white helmet and two pink 19s -- the number of my favorite 'Boys receiver, the graceful Lance Alworth -- one on the front and another on the back of the white shirt. I played in it once. The older boys thought I took Alworth's nickname, Bambi, a bit too seriously.

-- Darryl Fears

'I Was a Stranger, And You Welcomed Me'

The old woman standing in my doorway on a snowy Christmas Eve more than 10 years ago looked vaguely familiar. Maybe she lived in my condo. I like to think that once I'd said hello to her, but probably not. Now, as I was preparing dinner for my family, she'd come to my door wearing slippers, a housedress and a cardigan.

"I'm lonely," she said. "Can I come in?"

Is there anything else to say but "Yes"?

This stranger hadn't rung my doorbell under the pretense of borrowing a cup of sugar. I assumed she was not planning to crack me over the head and steal the Christmas presents. Besides, she looked to be about 70 years old. I figured I could wrestle her to the ground if necessary.

I invited her in. I offered her tea and to my dismay she did not politely decline. We were sitting on my sofa making awkward small talk when my parents arrived.

They smiled and said hello and then my mother rushed me into the bedroom for a full interrogation. My father was left in the living room to make sure the old woman didn't rob the place.

I explained the situation to my mother who was placed in the uncomfortable position of having to admit that inviting the woman into my home was the kind and Christian thing to do.

"She was lonely," I said.

My family is a religious one. I grew up going to church every Sunday. I spent eight years in Lutheran school and performed in almost a decade's worth of Christmas pageants. I'd been cast as the Virgin Mary. I couldn't help but wonder: Maybe this was a biblical test. This wasn't just an elderly stranger who'd come to my door; it was a visitation. Jesus was on my stoop!

My mother wasn't convinced the old lady was Jesus in a housedress. But the worry was she was so depressed about being alone at Christmas she might pull a Sylvia Plath. My mother and I walked back into the living room just in time to hear my father enthusiastically inquire, "So how's your holiday going?"

Oh daddy.

We all sat in the living room for a bit, talking about the snow. She finished her tea and then said she should probably get going. I encouraged her to stay longer. I was sincere, but I was also trying to be polite.

Anyway, the old lady declined the invitation. She stood up, said thank you, and went home.

-- Robin Givhan

My American Holiday That Never Really Was

As a child of Russian immigrants, I wanted most what my parents couldn't provide -- a normal American Christmas. Our first Christmas tree came in a box from Sears. It was plastic. We decorated it with gaudy streamers, Russian ornaments and lights, only some of which actually worked. At Christmas dinner, instead of turkey and egg nog, we had borscht and beef stroganoff. The adults drank a vodka shot to toast my grandma's birthday, which fell on the same day. Eventually, I went away to college, my grandma passed and my family stopped eating Christmas dinner and exchanging presents. This year, I'll rise at dawn to catch the bus. And when I walk in the door, there won't be turkey or egg nog or anything of the things I wanted as a kid. But I'll be home for Christmas.

-- George Tarnow

The Dreidel And the Tree

As a teenage Jew in New York City, I liked to think of Christmas as national deprivation day, the time when the airwaves were filled wall to wall with images of happy families opening piles of gifts while I was left to play dreidel and warm myself by the light of a menorah. Oh joy. One year, I fished a tree out of the garbage, brought it up to my parents' living room and decorated it with used soda cans. I threw it out before they came home. Now that I'm married to a nice Catholic girl, I carry the real tree home, on my shoulder and festoon it not with empty soda cans but a Pat Nixon key chain, my kid's Superman and Batman, and other silly ephemera. I feel better. But only slightly. Maybe pain is my thing.

-- Paul Schwartzman

Looking Closer, Seeing a Smile

Pepa eluded me -- eludes me, still. I'm reminded of this every Christmas. I don't have much of her, don't know enough about her. When I was little, I slouched on the day after Christmas every year, grumbly and fidgety, to our Catholic church in central California for a special mass to commemorate her life on the anniversary of her death. Josefa Loredo Dominquez, Pepa for short. My Spanish grandmother, my abuela, the one all the old men call a saint. I have a painting of Pepa, a profile in thick oils of a woman seated with her back to me on a flowered Spanish balcony. For a long time, I thought it was sad. She is staring into the distance at a cloud holding an iconic image -- the Golden Gate Bridge -- of the state where her only son, my father, Manuel Roig Loredo, had left Spain to settle in.

On the day after Christmas 1972, I'm told, Pepa lay down for the siesta. She and my grandfather, my abuelo, had just bought airplane tickets to go to California the next Christmas -- her first overseas trip. I was 2 when my parents and I left Spain, six on that day after Christmas in 1972 when Pepa didn't wake up. Not long ago, around Christmastime, of course, I looked closer at my painting. For the first time, I detected something I'd missed before. If I really squinted, if I really concentrated, I could see it. She is smiling. Smiling at me.

-- Manuel Roig-Franzia

A Girl and Her Doll, A Survival Story

I couldn't wait. Christmas was coming and I just knew my parents were going to get me the talking Crickett doll I wanted.

She was a 5-year old's dream: She didn't care how much I blabbed and she talked back. And on Christmas morning, she was mine. After tearing open our gifts, my sister and I took them to my bedroom to play. Then, we heard my dad frantically calling for my mom.

"Valerie!" he screamed.

The end of the hallway was engulfed in flames from the floor to the ceiling. It turns out that he had mistakenly poured gasoline into the kerosene heater. As he tried to put out the fire, my mom yelled for my sister and me to get out of the house. Then, after pulling the rollers from her hair and changing out of her bathrobe, she fled, too, with my dad. Left behind were my beloved Crickett and our other new toys.

By the time I saw my doll again, her pale complexion and blond pigtails were covered with black ash. They cleaned her up as much as they could and gave her back to me. Somehow, I barely noticed the ashy tinge to her face. I loved her just the same.

-- January W. Payne

From the Basement Of My Heart

I begged my mother to marry him. Not so much because I liked him, but because he drove a sleek brown Monte Carlo, and his name was Mr. Brown. (My father's name was Mr. Brown too, but he and my mother had divorced long ago.) So if my mother married this new Mr. Brown, the white teachers would no longer ask me with condescension whether my mother's last name was Brown too.

I do not remember the wedding at the courthouse between my mother and Mr. Brown. What I do remember is when the new Mr. Brown moved into our little house, the house with four girls and Curtis Mayfield music and a red crushed velvet sofa and green shag wall-to-wall carpet, he was nice enough at first. Then he took away our Christmas.

My mother, trying to make him happy, complied with the demands of his religion. From that day forward, we didn't have a Christmas tree. We used to tell our friends that the tree was in the basement.

It wasn't.

But it was in the basement where we exchanged presents among my mother and my sisters, secretly unwrapping the secretly wrapped gifts. The cheap perfume we bought at Kmart for my mother. The Barbie dolls. The bell-bottom pants. The envelopes from my mother, each with a $100 bill tucked inside.

My mother and Mr. Brown would later divorce. My mother would not remember all those secret Christmases in the basement.

But as I sit at night, looking at my own Christmas tree with its white blinking lights, tall as the ceiling, as big a tree as I could carry off the lot, as many presents as I can stuff under the tree, standing as close to the picture window as possible, I remember emerging from the basement of my childhood, running up the stairs with my gifts.

-- DeNeen L. Brown