With Christmas just days away, I suddenly find my own existence completely oxymoronic. This time of year, my hypocrisies manifest themselves in countless ways, and to epic proportions. For example, I’m a perpetually cynical, consummately bitter, eternally skeptical bastard who despises anything falsely sugar coated. And yet, my dirty little secret is that I adore Christmas and everything that comes along with it. I loathe over-commercialization, exploitation, profiting from a once deeply religious celebration, and the fact that the true meaning of Christmas has been grossly lost amidst a sea of cartoonish icons and rituals not pertaining in any way to the birth of Christ. And yet, I’m not a proponent of organized religion. I’ll finally admit it, no matter how corny the jingle, or how bizarre and off base the animated story, I love all this Christmas stuff. All of the songs, shows, and freakishly unrelated decorations we’ve grown so accustomed to, make me as happy as…well, a child at Christmas.
I bet I’m the last person you expected to hear that from. The thinking man in me finds it all a little silly, but the loving father in me is elated. I’m not knowledgeable in geography, horticulture, or the Bible, but I’m reasonably certain that the blue spruce, Scotch pine, and Douglas fir were not indigenous foliage in Bethlehem on December 25, 0000. And yet, I have a beautiful, decorated Christmas tree proudly displayed in my living room. Somewhere along the lines, the birth of our savior morphed into Santa Claus delivering video game consoles towed by animals with illuminated facial features. I find it all rather outlandish, and yet it makes me smile. Are you beginning to grasp how contradictory my life becomes during the holidays?
It was a miniscule event that took place in my home this week, which spawned what you are about to read. A seemingly innocuous question asked of a father by his seven-year-old daughter prompted a lot of over analytical thought regarding what Christmas has meant to me throughout the course of my life. Allow me to first set the stage for you, and then I’ll tell you about the exchange between my daughter and I. My sweet little girl whom I’ve written about often (who incidentally will turn eight-years-old two days after this article posts), eagerly anticipates Christmas with an enthusiasm and vigor that we all should aspire to. In fact, the only things I’ve ever looked forward to with her level of excitement were the pending births of my children. She begins monitoring the cable music channel, Sounds of the Seasons around mid-October so she knows exactly what day it starts playing strictly Christmas music. This year, it happened to be November 2nd which she reminded me of repeatedly in the weeks prior. If it were up to her, this station would be on as background noise in our house 24 hours a day for two solid months. She can sit for hours, enjoying the music, and reading the pop up trivial facts pertaining to the songs, and the holiday. I have to admit, though I don’t want to hear it round the clock for 60 days, I rather enjoy it myself.
The innocent question that my daughter asked was: “How do you say Merry Christmas in Hawaiian?” I, from the other room responded without hesitation: “Mele Kalikimaka”. This prompted a series of “looks” from my wife. The first look said to me: “how can you mess with her like that? She’s just a child.” Most people don’t know this about me, but on rare occasion I’ve been known to employ sarcasm. No, it’s true. As incredulous as this may seem to most of you, when I do happen to substitute humor for sincerity, not even my own offspring are exempt. So my lovely bride’s suspicions did have some validity. But the fact is, I actually knew the answer, and I was being sincere. My daughter had already accepted my answer as correct, thanked me and moved on. She had come to grips long ago with the fact that her Daddy was a wealth of useless information but had no viable intellect whatsoever to speak of. If it’s a tutor you seek, delete me from your contacts list. If you need a partner for trivial pursuit, I’m your man. I can’t tackle the simplest problem that I learned on the very first day of seventh grade Algebra. But I can tell you with certainty that in 1979, it was Rupert Holmes who was the one hit wonder to bring us the song Escape, which we all know better as “The Pina Colada Song”.
The second look bestowed upon me by my wife said: “I don’t even want to know how you know that, I want to know why you know that.” A perfectly logical query. For the next hour or so, the two of them laughed repeatedly at me because 99% of the holiday songs that came on, I could identify within the first few notes. Regardless of how corny, the level of obscurity, the version, the genre, the era, or the artist, I could not only name the song and who was performing it, but I knew all of the words and could sing along. My wife and daughter found this to be hysterical. Far be it for me to ever entertain someone at my own expense. I’m like a savant when it comes to Christmas music. This prompted me to even question myself. Why did I know all of these cheesy tunes? Then it occurred to me, that each of these songs, even the really annoying ones triggered some kind of memory for me.
I had the most AMAZING childhood. I have nothing but fond memories of my upbringing. But most of my fondest memories were from Christmas time. I don’t remember one single holiday season that wasn’t spectacular and full of happiness and joy. Each of these songs was a reminder of that fact. I knew the “Mele Kalikimaka” answer because we had a 33 Bing Crosby Christmas album which we played every year without fail around the holidays. There were several other Christmas albums we played as well, but this is one I can still visualize and hear as if I’m holding it in my hand four decades later. It was a white album jacket with only Mr. Crosby’s head wearing a Santa hat adorning it. Over the course of the years, one of my family members had taken a black marker and drawn a pencil thin handle bar moustache, and devilish goatee on Bing. To this day, if I hear any song from that album I can still imagine the exact point where the record skipped from the scratches acquired from many years of use. It was played repeatedly on the turn table of our stereo which was roughly the same size and dimensions of our sofa. Another side effect of this particular album is that I can also sing all the words to “Christmas In Killarney”. I’ve never been to either Ireland or Hawaii however. Given my rate of reproduction, and my income, I’m pretty sure I’ll never visit, either. But it’s still fun to sing along.
Now, a quick side note pertaining to holiday music. Does anyone besides me find it humorously ironic that both Neil Diamond and Barbara Streisand have made Christmas albums each of which have sold millions of copies? Nothing wrong with it, I’m just sayin. And now back to our story.
In the days and weeks leading up to Christmas it was always super hectic around my house, but all happiness and fun. I remember helping my Dad with decorations both inside and out of the house. I’ll never forget my elation when I reached the age that I could actually contribute to the process and help instead of just watching in complete awe and adulation. Never before, nor since has another child taken such joy in the daunting task of straightening and stretching out a thirty foot strand of outdoor lights then checking each and every bulb individually for flaws and proper insertion. I loved every minute of it! I would then manually feed the strings up to my father on the ladder as he illuminated the exterior of our home like the Griswolds. Once the task was completed, it was always inevitably followed by the same ritual. Dad and I would come in from the cold and sit across the kitchen table from each other he with his coffee, and I with my hot chocolate and marshmallows. I still recall staring at him as I sipped as if he were a conquering hero. I was so immensely grateful to him for including me in the task.
Once the outside of the house was properly adorned for the pending holiday, we would go down to the basement to work on our Christmas garden. This is when Bing, Johnny Mathis, Nat King Cole, Mitch Miller and the gang, and several other artists would come in to play providing the eternally memorable soundtrack to my childhood. I would stand watching in awe as Dad painstakingly cleaned and placed each piece of train track, each section of race car track, and each miniature house. He let me help with this as well and I couldn’t have been more thrilled. Once everything was in its proper place and functioning, we would sprinkle bags and bags of artificial snow over the whole tiny village.
Looking back on it now, I realize that he didn’t have to do any of this, but he did. He did it every year, without fail, remorse, or hesitation. I know now that the entire process was at the very least, cumbersome. If his goal was to have the happiest little boy in the world, and provide him with wonderful holiday memories to last a lifetime, then mission accomplished! Thank you, Dad. I love you and Merry Christmas.
Happy birthday to my beautiful Princess. Daddy loves you. My fond childhood memories of Christmas were far too abundant to fit into one column, so check back next week for the conclusion. I still have Mom, my brother, my sister, and the Chipmunks to talk about. Thanks for playing along.
Until next week,
Syd Nichols
