(no subject)

[thrylos]

When and where I was growing up, we did not have Santa. Christmas was a fairly solemn religious holiday (even though we never fasted) with a more spiritual meaning. My mom used to have a Christmas tree every year. The same artificial sorry looking tree that was stored in a large dusty box in the crawl space above the bathroom (that's where the water heater and a bunch of other mysterious and attractive to us kids stuff -like my grandfather's WWII army uniform that I saw only once and all of our "noisy" battery-operated toys- resided.) That tree box and the enclosed tree would make its annual trip from the crawl space to the rest of the house every year about five or six days before christmas. My job was to hold the ladder for my mom while climbing up the crawl space and then later on (when I got stronger) to grab the box before it reached the ground (no fumbles allowed.) We did not have lights on the tree (from what I remember), neither had presents under the tree. After the dusty tree-containing box fell of from the crawl space into my arms, other boxes containing decorations and ornaments followed (with my mom in her arms.) One of those boxes held the same nativity scene with the magi and little porcelain animals, which made the bottom of the christmas tree a little Bethlehem facsimile every year. For some reason, after the crawl space ordeal was finished, my brother and I were escorted out of the house (now I know why) with our grandpa or grandma for a couple of hours and when we came back, the tree was up in all of its glory. I did not mind, probably because there was 2-3 weeks without school (and I had classes even on Saturdays -not to mention final exams- until 7th grade -don't you love those German-inspired school systems?) and the couple of hours walk down and then up our hill was refreshing. Even without Santa, the Christmas holidays were quite profitable for us kids. The day before Christmas we used to get up early (like 7Am) and run around our neighborhood and every other neighborhood within our reach to carol. In this country (US) Caroling is a kind of a cool tradition that involves adults and holiday spirit fortified by spirits in the forms of cognac or spiked eggnog, but where I grew up it was totally entrepreneurial, akin to trick-or-treating: We (I dragged my 3-years younger baby brother along for the cuteness factor) used to go door to door and sing (or try to sing) the same song as many times as we could, ringing multiple doorbells and gladly accepting the pennies, nickels and dimes people gave us. We covered a radius of 5-10 square miles usually (that's like ringing the bells and staying in the front steps of more than 500 strangers being alone vulnerable and cute -well, the latter is debatable- at the tender ages of single digits; can you imagine a kid doing this today?) and sometimes, fortified by those extra legs we built going up and down the hill walking with our grandpa, we made it all the way downtown, where the big jackpot was because the store owners would gladly pay 50 cents or so to get the kids out from between the legs of their customers. At the end of the day, we would make the climb home up the hill where we would count our loot. This process was repeated in the morning of new year's eve, with a whole different song. New year's eve was the big day. That was the day where the anticipation of St. Basil's coming was built up. St. Basil is a cool saint. Not only he brings gifts to kids and makes their parents buy them stuff, but he kinda permeated the space time continuum by mastering the change of the old year to the new year, which had to be done appropriately. What appropriately meant was that the whole family (and that includes cousins and friends and whomever was associated with some degree of closeness) about 9 o'clock in the evening or so gathered around a big table and got occupied in everlasting gambling games (blackjack, pocker, roulette) through the passing of the old year and the coming of the new (clairvoyantly noting changes of 'luck' occuring after 12:01 AM), interrupted by 2 major events at midnight: The turning of all lights off (interesting living on a hill, you could see the whole city lit on moment, dark the other, bringing up post-traumatic memories of 1974, but that's another story...) accompanied by a trip of the adults in the balcony with welcome crisp air neutralizing the deep cigarette smoke in the house coming in and the sounds of champagne corks popping and the trip of mom and grandma in the kitchen bringing champagne glasses and the vasilopita on the table. That was followed by pouring champagne in glasses for each of us ("it's ok, you'll sleep in tomorrow"; I've been wondering whether there was a hint of sorts in this one...) and the cutting of the vasilopita into pieces for each of us (and for Jesus and Mary and St. Basil and the "home"). Now, vasilopita contains a coin (in the olden days it used to be a gold piece, or so they say, but I am not that old...) and to whom the coin tolled, was supposed to be blessed with holy good fortune for the whole year (i never reconciled how the gambling fortune and the vasilopita fortune were related; if i lost all of my caroling loot in a 7-year-old bad blackjack bet and ended up getting the vasilopita coin, did that mean I was lucky or what?) And thus the night continued till my tired and drunk little self passed out to be waken up by cheery sounds that declared St. Basil's coming and leaving presents for us kids along with exchanges of presents with the rest of the family (and the extended family that crashed for the night.) Not sure whether my parents are doing a tree these days. A few years ago they told me that they were going to decorate a boat and I assume that this is what they are doing this year. I know that my grandpa would never walk up or down another hill again, since several years ago... Trees, boats, Santa or not, does not matter. What matters is that your heart is in the right place and it is warmed by the faces, the smiles, the memories of people who matter, of people who are your family wherever they are whomever they are in whichever way they are related to you, like my once little 7 year old insides were warmed up by sips of new year's champagne and my every day is warmed up with the thankfullness of living by the side of the love of my life...

happy holidays everyone!