By Heather Stergos
As a child nothing spoke of the magic of Christmas like my grandparents house. I can still clearly remember the thrill of pulling up the snowy drive, for it seems like it was always snowy when we arrived at the big house for the holidays. My grandparents lived in a large three-story house built in 1908. At any point during the year it was a magical place for a child, filled with all sorts of treasures, but it seemed especially so during the Christmas season.
We would arrive several days before Christmas, in time to help decorate. This was the only time during the year in which I was allowed to make my way up to the attic with my grandfather to help pull out the seemingly endless boxes of decorations. He would unlock the large, heavy wooden door and open it, always with the instructions for me to wait right by the door. The “attic” was really more of a long, narrow storage area off of the third floor study, and oh, how excited I would be when the door would open and I could glimpse the shelves stacked floor to ceiling with all of the odds and ends collected after three children and 30 years of marriage: old watering cans, board games no longer played with, an old sewing machine, books, papers, knick-knacks and old Halloween costumes; an old croquet set, empty fishbowls, bits of China without their matching counterparts. I would stand on tiptoes trying to take in everything, as my grandfather would slide the boxes, one by one to the door. Once they were all out in the hallway he would lock the door, and my peek into that little world would be at an end for another year.
Then my grandfather would begin the process of carrying the boxes down four flights of stairs to the sitting room where the Christmas tree would go, and where “Decorating Central” was located. Unfailingly, my grandmother would meet my grandfather at the sitting room door, very displeased that he was doing all of this strenuous work, insisting that he let my parents or other various relatives who were present carry the boxes down. This little scene took place every year that my grandfather lived, and it always ended the same way: my grandfather would pat my grandmother on the head, wink at me and then would continue his mission.
All of these years later I can still remember the smell of the boxes, as they were open and their contents unloaded and spread around on the floor. It was a sort of musty smell mixed with pine and cinnamon. I can also clearly remember how content I was, looking at the decorations – most of which were already 50+ years old when I was eight. My grandmother never bought new Christmas decorations. Every year she spent hours wrapping everything up in tissue or newspaper very carefully before putting them back in the boxes. There was something important to me, even as a child, in looking at the sparkly, blown-glass ornaments and knowing that they were bought by my great-grandmother for the first Christmas she and my great-grandfather were married in 1920.
As the Christmas decorations were being unpacked my grandmother would put a roast in the oven and my aunt or uncle and I would go and pick up the tree. I say pick up and not out because each year my grandmother would call a little nursery called Rolling Ridge and would tell them the type of tree she wanted: a Scotch Pine, six and a half feet tall, no branches on the bottom six inches and the trunk must be straight. Now, when I was young I had no idea that she called and ordered a tree so when we arrived each year to pick it up I was always amazed that we had this huge tree that looked almost exactly the same from year to year. I was told that Santa was a friend of my grandmother’s and he dropped off the tree every year. My family kept this little ruse going successfully until I was older than I would like to admit! We would tie the tree to the top of my grandfathers Buick station wagon and off we would go down the snowy road in the grayness of the winter afternoon. I remember driving down my grandparents’ street, the large houses with their expansive front lawns lining each side of the road. Most of the houses had candles sparkling in all of their windows; smoke wafting from the chimneys, bright red bows adorning the front doors. It was as if we had stepped into another time, which is a feeling that the owners of the old Victorian houses still try to preserve to this day.
We would arrive back at the house to find the smell of roast permeating the house and my mother & aunts untangling the lights. After his mission of carrying the boxes down was accomplished, my grandfather would retreat upstairs until the decorating was complete, sometimes venturing down to help me put the star on top of the tree. My grandmother would direct where the tree needed to go exactly. Then came the part that to a child was never much fun: putting on the lights. My aunt and my mother would ultimately end up in a bit of a tiff about how to do it, dragging it out longer than a child’s patience could handle and I would go off to help my grandmother with the other decorations.
We would hang the stockings over the fireplace – each one handmade by some family member; mistletoe would be hung in several doorways, Christmas cards from past years as well as the current year set up on the tea cart next to the living room fireplace; candles in their little brass holders would be placed in each window in the house, first floor through the third floor; ceramic and china angels, Christmas trees and other holiday knick-knacks would be placed throughout the house, and bowls of holiday potpourri were strategically distributed. As my grandmother and I did this, she would tell stories about the decorations, who made them, where they came from, and little anecdotes from over the years. I can remember only half listening, but as the years went on, those stories became so important.
The last thing that we would put out was the Nativity scene. This was our ritual, my grandmother’s and mine, that continued well into my 20’s. She would pull the shoebox out of one of the larger boxes and hand it to me. Reverently, I would unwrap each individual statue and set them up on the tall radiator in the back of the living room. There was a small book of the Christmas Story that went with the Nativity scene, and when I was young, my grandmother would read it to me before placing it next to the scene. It was a small thing, it probably took all of 15 minutes to unwrap and place all of the statues in their designated spots, but that memory encompasses my entire childhood.
By the time that was finished it would finally be time to decorate the tree. My grandmother would come and sit in the sitting room with us, occasionally directing where an ornament should go, but mainly she would relay more stories about the individual pieces. There was a box that held the ornaments that my mother, her brother and sister had made growing up, and each year it would be as if they had not seen those precious ornaments in 20 years. They were like excited school children that had discovered a new treasure. They would hold them up and the room would be full of “Do you remember when…” and “I can’t believe it’s still here… and “I made this the year that…” It was always so amusing to me to see these grown ups actually giggling and all talking at the same time. I do believe they actually became young again right before my eyes. Along with the laughter there would also be some tears; ornaments that were reminders of family no longer with us; gifts from friends not seen in years; mementos from a time that would not come again. It was during this point that my grandmother would excuse herself to go check on supper returning from the kitchen when she heard the laughter resume.
The tree would finally be finished, my grandfather would appear to hold me up to put the star on top and then after a count of three, the lights would be turned on. Pure magic, in the eyes of a child, when the brilliance of a Christmas tree is fully seen. That little leap in my stomach I got then, I still have at the moment the tree is lighted.
We would eat supper then, in the large Oak dining room, with the candles glowing in the windows, the heavy curtains pulled back to revel the snow in the glare of the streetlights, and the candles in the windows of the houses across the street. After supper my grandfather and my uncle would go outside to put up the lights on the house and the large pine tree in the front yard, and then the large wreath in the middle of the front of the house. This would drive my grandmother crazy, that he would do all of this in the dark. I do believe that is why he did it! Once again, the scene would be of my grandmother following my grandfather around as he pulled on his coat, hat, gloves and scarf, begging him to be responsible and wait until morning. Then she would follow my uncle around, with the same pleas. The pleas went unheeded and they would both troop outside with their boxes of lights, across the yard to the old carriage house, which served as a garage, to get the ladder and then back to the house to begin. I wasn’t very interested in this part, until it was all finished and I could go outside to see the finished product, so my aunt and I would play games, or my great-grandmother would play the piano and my mother and I would dance around the living room to songs from “Camelot” and “Oklahoma”. My grandmother would drink cup after cup of coffee, following the men outside from each room inside, looking out of the windows, waiting for someone to fall and break their leg. Another routine that continued until my grandfather died, much too young. It is funny but since my grandfather’s death, this is the part of the holidays that my grandmother says she misses the most…where she most feels his absence.
Once the lights are all up and the men have come inside to tell us, we all bundle up and head out to see. Another count of three and the house blazes with color. Even though this is the 1980’s, the outside lights are the big, heavy colored lights that my grandparents have, miraculously had since the 1950’s. The house is outlined in color, and the big tree in front blazes with light. We are now ready for Christmas.
Even though Christmas Eve will bring relatives from out of town, and the anticipation of Santa’s visit, and Christmas Day brings the excitement of opening presents, this is the magic of the holidays that I have carried with me through the years. It is the sights, smells, and sounds of this day that I can recall so clearly and that bring these people, my family, so close to my heart, some of whom are now so very far away. It is the traditions of this day that are carried on into my own family. My son and I, though he is only two, still put the Nativity scene up after all of the other decorations are up. My sisters and I are now the ones that turn into children again when we put the tree up at our mother’s house, and the room is once again filled with “Do you remember when…” And I even have a possible answer as to why my grandfather put the lights on the house in the dark, on the day of our decorating. When my husband went to put the lights on the house in the dark last year when my sisters and mother were visiting I asked him why he was doing that. He replied with a smile that it was the only place to get a little peace and quiet in a house full of “holiday-crazy women”. I think my grandfather is getting a good chuckle out of that.
Published in U S Legacies Magazine December 2004
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