There was no Santa.
My three brothers and I knew that he was upstairs snoring. Dad had spent the night furiously putting toys together, and well, he didn't consider the left-over parts a big deal. He was a PhD scientist. Why would he need directions? And those eight random screws were probably just extras. For years, Dad suffered fitting together gadgets and widgets, until he realized assembling the toy was my little brother's favorite part of the gift.
When we asked mom if there really was a Santa, she remarked just once, "If you don't believe, you don't get anything from him." We never brought up the subject again.
The sweetheart of our family's Christmas decorations was a large silver revolving aluminum tree in our front window with matching pink glass ornaments, reflecting two blazing pink spotlights. This spectacular display appeared more suitable for Fifth Avenue in New York City than a quiet Chicago suburb, but the tree strategically blocked the entire living room window, dare a prowler look in and steal the non-existent presents.
Mom basked in its glory, but we hated that tree. Everyone in the world back then purchased freshly cut evergreen trees, strapped to the top of station wagons, parading through town. With Christmas songs playing in the background, they were decorated with handmade ornaments, popcorn garlands, strands of tinsel, and bubble lights. It was a wonder to my mom that the entire neighborhood did not explode in flames. And then after Christmas, every family within a four block area was invited to an enormous bonfire in a neighbor's back yard to incinerate the trees, a glorious start to the new year. And my mom's worst nightmare. We were banished from the festivities. And we had nothing to add.
As a professional violinist, Christmas was mom's equivalent of March Madness. She careened from one concert or recital to another, including church services and Christmas parties. Without even glancing at a calendar, we always knew when December 1 arrived. Handel's Messiah filled the sound waves of our house on continual repeat for 25 days, from sunrise to the last moments of the day.
My grandmother, who lived with us, hummed along with that soundtrack, ever present in our kitchen. In all the hustle and bustle, she quietly held us together, an arthritic powerhouse, no matter the season. She was always there.
Every year, Mom organized a neighborhood Christmas "concert" in our living room. She invited all the neighbors, cajoling them to dig out and dust off their old trombones or clarinets from high school, and even provided them with sheet music for their particular instrument. For some, she painted white-out on certain notes to make it easier to play. The little children shook jingle bells. Everyone sang along from Up On The Housetop to Joy to the World, one song blending into the next. The living room was packed with neighbors from every church around or none of all. And the name of Jesus was sung out loud.
Mom so wanted us, her own little prodigies, to excel in music. Every December, she took us down to a music studio to cut a record of us squawking miserably on our instruments to send to our other grandmother in New York whom we saw only a handful of times and barely knew. I'm not sure she ever listened to them.
Our household didn't follow the traditions of the season like other families we knew. We did not expect Santa to carefully arrange beautifully wrapped presents around the tree. On Christmas morning, when we sneaked down the stairs, ours were scattered in small piles on the floor, never wrapped, and some with fluorescent clearance price tags still stuck to the packaging. We never knew what Santa would literally dump in our living room, seemingly his last stop for the night. We once each received rickety plastic skis with roller skates glued to the bottoms. I don't remember them lasting the afternoon.
We never had Christmas stockings that I can remember. But every year, in front of the fireplace, there was a "book" of lifesavers candy for each of us, ten rolls of different flavors. Three of us consumed ours before Christmas break was over. Another brother carefully rationed his, finishing off his very last pieces sometime before Halloween, which at that point were sticky enough to pull out fillings..
At some point every Christmas Eve afternoon, it suddenly occurred to mom and dad that the next day was Christmas (shocker), and there were no presents, under the tree or hidden in the attic. Without warning, they piled all four of us into our sky blue station wagon and drove into the city, lurching into the snow-plowed parking lot of Bargain Town USA, the original ancestor of Toys R Us. It was Christmas Eve. The store was about to close. Perfect timing in their perspective. And not a moment to spare. They left us in that frigid parked car and ran into the store, searching for marked down toys. Fifteen minutes later, they emerged with several large bags that they stuffed in the back of the car, threatening us to not even think about looking in the back.
That night, long after our regular bedtimes, we put on our boots and heavy winter coats to go to our church's annual Christmas Eve candlelight service at 11 pm. My brothers, of course, wore their Santa Claus bow ties. I scooched next to my grandmother, holding her wrinkled hand, smelling Chiclets that she had in her pockets. and feeling the radiant warmth and scratchiness of her heavy black wool coat. Somehow even in the coldest places, she always still felt warm to me.
I loved that big stone sanctuary (the same church, by the way, that appeared decades later in the movie Home Alone). We squashed together as a family on a hard wooden pew amidst the crowds. The organ covered us in the glory of God. The choir made familiar carols sound like a chorus, their angel wings I supposed hidden under their robes.
For unto us a child is born, for to us a son in given... Isaiah 9. 6
And then, not able to outdo the words of Scripture, the minister simply read chapter two of the book of Luke, verse by incredible verse, the sacred chronicle of the surprised shepherds, Mary and Joseph, no room in the inn, and baby Jesus, the hope of the world. At the stroke of midnight, the church bells pealed throughout the community, and we sang Silent Night, carefully holding candles that lit up the darkness.
You never know what sticks so closely. Despite the rushing about and the chaos of the season, even as a little girl so very long ago, I vividly remember those crowded late night church services. I would not have been surprised at the time if the ceiling of the sanctuary had burst open for the joy of it all, revealing the star of Bethlehem and choirs of angels covering the skies singing Glory to God in the highest, not the end of a story, but the most exciting part that brings all of us into His story.
It's so easy to dwell on our parents' shortcomings. They weren't perfect, but then again, neither are we. But despite what my mom and dad did -- and didn't do-- they left our crazy family with something dear. The excitement wasn't all about Santa coming, but that Jesus already came. Theirs was not an emphasis on perfectly chosen and wrapped presents, but the gift of God's Son who came like light into this dark and broken world. They didn't worship the season, but the long-expected Jesus. They didn't ignore Santa like a pair of scrooges. He just wasn't the main event.
Many remember the huge Christmas light displays in the neighborhoods back then, stores competing with each other with elaborately decorated windows, pictures with Santa at the department store, and children hoping beyond hope for that long list of toys from the Sears catalog and Santa's workshop.
But year after year, people left that church on those Chicago nights so cold it took our breath away, scurrying home to bed, the children anticipating Santa's big delivery, and parents hoping they would sleep a little later. But we didn't have to wait until morning, nor for Santa.
Jesus already met us there.
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