Holiday Memories is a month long series of heartwarming holiday stories from authors all over the world. We at As the Pages Turn hope you will enjoy and have a happy holiday full of good and happy memories!
The Many Essences of Christmas Past
by J.W. Nicklaus
A small boy sits in a living room, awash in the low-tech fidelity of late 1960’s television. The CBS Special Presentation intro plays as his five-year-old eyes soak up what will become in his world, and many others, one of many Christmas season classics. Warm pajamas and blinking lights upon the tree don’t prevent the night from ending, but rather allow all the senses to coalesce into the makings of a wistful childhood memory.
There is no one particular Christmas memory I cling to. Frankly, I’m not a huge holiday person—I don’t even decorate, for any of the holidays. Not one. But I do retain the many essences of seasons past. See, I don’t live in a place where a child can recollect Currier and Ives type holidays. Snow doesn’t fall Three Feet From Hell. No need for horse-drawn sleds or warm woolen mittens, scarves, or snow boots. The weather can turn cold, yes, but not like northern and eastern winters do.
The Light, The Dark & Ember Between (if you like this story, click on cover to purchase for gift giving!)
My brother and I grew up being told the same legend of how Santa gets into the house and puts presents under the tree; as we all know, he comes down the chimney. Well, we didn’t have one, but we did have a faux, cardboard hearth. It was set up each year, close to the silver tree (yes, I said silver). I’m not sure what it was made of, but I remember it was shiny, and I recall at some point being able to help assemble it. We always got to help decorate it, although I’d bet that like most children we’d place a few ornaments on the tree then lose interest.
There was a cotton-poly thing we’d place under the tree to represent snow. When you live in a desert the holidays become more about symbols than actualities where matters of nature are concerned. And sitting underneath the tree was a small lamp with a multi-colored screen which slowly rotated in front of the light, casting shades of red, green, yellow, and diffused light upon the tree.
These trappings, albeit egregiously man-made, were the essence of what Christmas portended. With all the decorations, lights blinking (those big-fat ones—remember those?), tinsel gently moving and shimmering with the air current, and the television event for the evening—Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, or maybe Santa Clause is Coming to Town—about to stun us with it’s state-of-the-art stop motion animation . . . how could a child not remember such things?
I submit to you that the simple reason why we retain not just these memories but their nuances is . . . magic. Especially as children, we’re fascinated by the illusion and sleight-of-hand which life and holidays bring us. There is no shortage of magic in the innocence of youth. We take these moments and build upon them, hopeful that someday far in the future we can instill higher definition memories and warm thoughts which our children will call to mind every so often.
As children we latch onto the mystery of it all; as adults, we need the magic.
J.W. Nicklaus maintains his own personal space between the soul and soft machine in the arid southwest amongst the snowbirds and the Arizona Diamondbacks. After graduating with an Associate of Arts in Journalism and Photography and a B.S. in Telecommunications he’s spent the better part of twenty years experiencing life and working in trades as varied as a small advertising firm to a litigation service bureau. Two poems of his have been published in anthologies, and he maintains a blog (avomnia.wordpress.com) and a website (www.avomnia.com), which contains further articles about the craft of writing as well as the poems. The Light, The Dark, and Ember Between is his debut collection of short stories.
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