Ghosts of Christmas Past

It's impossible for me to not be reflective this time of year. Growing up, my sister and I would plop ourselves on the couch and watch homevideo's of previous Christmas mornings - both in anticipation and out of our innate need to look back.

For me, the feeling of the holidays is found in the details - in remembering holding my Christmas stocking, feeling it's soft weight shift in my palm, sliding my fingers in to pull out foil wrapped kisses. The smell and crinkle of paper and tape and the sticky scent of pine. It's in remembering the carpet-grain dots on my knees from kneeling before the tree in my nightgown - and in the smell of cinnamon rolls - and the vision of my bathrobe clad mother sipping coffee in the doorway to the kitchen.

Silly and absurd details, like my father's feet - bare and pale and playfully prodding our catnip drunk kitty's nose. My skinny little brother excitedly waving his presents in the air and yelling for the video camera's attention. Or, the three of us kids parading down the stairs in dramatic fashion - flips and songs, whatever we could think of in our Christmas-Morning enthusiasm.

This year, nothing is so simple - it's all loose threads - gifts to wrap, treats to make for Christmas and birthday parties (I do not recommend having a baby so close to Christmas), cleaning to do, and work to finish. I feel breathless, but not with anticipation.

And oddly, this is the first year I haven't yearned for those childhood video tapes. Rather, the nostalgia was set in motion by the black and white's that I found recently, and so my yearning has been to look back on more recent years. On that tiny tree in our first apartment, sitting on a miniature coffee table, hardly a decoration upon it, and hardly a gift beneath it. Yet, it was perfect.

It's what we make it, I suppose.

Huh. Look at that. I sat down here to babble and procrastinate before attempting to clean - and yet I found a little peace.

Imagine that.