The Angel

If you look very closely, you can see it: The Angel. The Angel, standing around six inches tall, made of white plastic with gold-colored paint, had rested atop my parents' Christmas trees every year throughout their life together. In a few years short of six decades, it had figuratively seen everything, survived everything-- including a fire that had destroyed nearly everything around it. The fire destroyed many things of monetary value, many things of practical value-- yet The Angel survived.

For us, as well as everyone we knew, Christmas was about family. There was never a good reason or excuse to be anywhere other than home on Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. The few people we knew who took in a midnight Mass or visited nearby relatives, they took these nice little extras as something brief before getting home. Home was where everyone wanted to be-- with their families, with their traditions.

The first Christmas that had an impact on me was the year when I was five years old. I had the measles; and, with a fever that would not break, unable to fully gain consciousness, I was later told they thought I might not make it. My father sat beside me, day and night, until I was o.k.

Christmas had traditions; and there were many. Plates and platters of every kind of homemade Christmas cookie imaginable; candies; mixed nuts. As the house where we lived had a huge alcove in the living room, this meant an equally-huge tree every year. My father went to Gordon's gas station, bought the tree, and brought it home. It was put up and decorated on Christmas Eve, and taken down on New Year's Day. Decorations-- some purchased, some made, some heirlooms, plus silver tinsel and candy canes. The alcove was also the place for Christmas cards-- hundreds of cards-- and Christmas stockings.

Christmas also brought the tradition of LEON. There were four individual ceramic letters, made to spell 'NOEL.' As soon as they appeared on top of the piano, my youngest brother would begin arranging them to spell different words; 'LEON' was the favorite. No matter how many times my parents would rearrange them, LEON would reappear.

Thinking back, Christmas shopping was the only thing my parents did separately. Each had their own idea of how it was best done. My mother shopped throughout the year, while my father felt the way to include the most festivity was to shop on Christmas Eve.

During my growing-up years, I always received plenty of presents; and, with only one exception, I always received the one special gift I requested each year. Sometimes the favored gift arrived in the mail, sent by my Aunt. One year I opened my gifts, and tried to hide my disappointment-- the one present I'd asked for was not there. As my youngest brother had a band, I'd become like a mini-teenager, and had requested a pair of white go-go boots. Although I had received many gifts and did not want to seem ungrateful, I guess my disappointment was still clear. I was told the lady who lived across the street had something for me, too. After dinner that evening, Mrs. S. came to the door, handing me a large package-- it was the boots! I was absolutely delighted! The only year I didn't receive the gift I'd asked for was the year I requested a set of drums-- I was told "girls don't play drums."

My parents were not wealthy, and I was not spoiled. They, as well as most parents I knew, didn't believe in showering kids with luxuries throughout the year. There was a time for being practical and saving money, and there was a time to splurge-- and Christmas was the latter. It was a matter of priorities.

As my brothers were nearly a generation older than myself, Christmas and other holidays with my original nuclear family was only during my earliest years. When my oldest brother joined the Marines, everything changed. I guess the way to explain it is his absence was noticeable. The rest of us went through the motions, but it was difficult-- especially the year he was in Vietnam. Shortly after, my other brother went into the military, too.

While this came to mean that anything that was to be done, I did, eventually another change took place. As Christmas became "less," I found something I came to enjoy much more: Thanksgiving. Regardless of where I happened to live, or whichever family members and relatives happened to be present, it became the highlight of my entire year. Little meant more to me than being able to prepare Thanksgiving dinners, and that point of view stayed with me.

However, in my early teen years I found something else. One of my favorite t.v. shows focused on a large family, and one tradition they had was each family member putting his or her own personalized ornament on their tree. I thought that was very nice-- and hoped to do that in my own life someday.

Eventually, I did exactly that. With two children of my own, I ordered ornaments from a gift catalog-- one for each of us. Each of us had a flat, metal ornament with our name engraved on it, and we started every year's Christmas decorating by placing our own personal ornament on our tree. We also had stockings-- mine was a rather plain stocking that I'd had since infancy, and my kids had stockings with decorative bears.

Another change occurred; it was not positive. Throughout the years, I had been in a number of different places-- yet each was "home." Throughout the years, there had been various people present-- yet they were all "family." At one point, both of those factors changed-- and nothing was ever the same again. First, all of our personalized ornaments and Christmas stockings-- stolen. A couple of times I considered replacing these items-- but while one may be able to replace metal and material, it is not possible to replace the sense of tradition that went along with those items for years and decades. It may sound odd, but to me it was the end-- or the beginning of the end. Everything of meaning was lost-- not even so much the material items, but the way Christmas had always been for us.

The Angel? A couple of years before the road took a turn in the wrong direction, there was a fire. Nearly everything in my parents' garage was destroyed. When I left my house and went there to see if anything could be rescued, amongst a garage full of burned possessions I found The Angel. The plain plastic figurine that had had its place on their tree every single year for many decades was completely unharmed. I grabbed the angel and rushed into their house with it. Tons of valuable tools, income tax papers, even the large freezer was little but ash-- but The Angel was unharmed.

Traditions matter. Start new ones-- but do not dismiss the old ones. Whether you are living it in the moment or looking back from decades in the future, traditions are one part of life that makes life meaningful. As I have seen both sides, I can say living traditions is much better than only having memories. When it comes down to it, what matters most is indestructible-- like The Angel.