Holiday Musings--by Bryan F.

It’s difficult for me as a child of Southern California to relate to the hardships of winter. The Pagan rituals of dragging an evergreen into the house to keep the tree spirits warm and to ensure the trees would survive the winter is just a beautiful story. I have never shoveled a driveway or walk or been snowbound in my home for days. Or as in olden days worried my family might starve before winter relented.  

I did experience some winter energy when I lived in NW Washington state. It was by east coast standards, fairly mild though. I remember one time not being able to open my car door and another when I turned around and drove back home because the road was too slushy to control my car, even with stud tires. I have to admit to having it pretty easy as a west coaster, weather-wise.

It does get very cold in the high desert. We have had most nights below freezing in the last few weeks. When I lived in the valleys below the weather was very mild. Summers could get hot in the valleys; the winters have very little freezing and snow is mostly a freak occurrence unless you are in a few of the higher foothills. 

Christmas time in Southern California was not like the greeting cards my Mom sent out in the mail, with those snowy scenes and sleigh rides. You had to go up "the hill" to experience snow and to ski in the mountains and sometimes the snow was pretty late, so some years there was no skiing for winter holiday time. 

Snow Valley in the San Bernardino Mountains

Skiing was expensive and my Dad didn’t like driving in the mountains, so I never experienced the winters in the mountains. There was a Santa’s Village up there that was later bought and operated by a neighbor; their son, a friend of my little brother's; a place that I never got to visit. 

I do remember one of the freak snows that actually created a light blanket of snow on our front yard in 1968. Our home was in the north end on the foothill slopes, so we got more than our neighbors to the south. I was very sick with the flu; that was a flu epidemic year, and I went outside and watched it snow. My sibling got to go out in the snow and play. I was wrapped in a blanket on the front porch; five steps up looking down on the fun that was denied me on my holiday school break.

The Christmas holiday was mostly about the break from school and trying to decide what gift to ask for from our parents. We had no extended family gift exchange in those early years. My maternal grandparents always gave us kids something: pajamas, coloring books, and crayons and the like. We got one main gift from our parents. This was the only gift we received all year as our birthdays were only celebrated with a cake. We also, every Christmas received a plastic knit stocking that had candy in it. My parents would add in a few items including an orange. This might not seem like much, but in those days fresh fruit was expensive and we only got canned fruit; usually cling peaches, so a piece of fresh fruit was indeed a marvel for us. My olfactory Christmas memories are tied to the smell and spray of the orange on my face as I peeled and ate it. To this day, oranges make me think of Christmas.

I usually picked the weirdest gifts to ask for. One year I decided to ask for something I saw on TV. A toy bazooka. It was a cardboard tube that somehow shot a plastic ball out the end. I laid down on the floor, assuming the position of a warrior and shot it. My Dad saw the ball fly out and immediately took possession and likely threw it away.  So, I had a cardboard tube for my seven-year-old self to play with for the rest of the year. I didn't cry; I never cried.

The following year, ‘63, I asked for and got a chemistry set. I was eight and my siblings were younger, so I was only allowed to play with it under supervision. My Mom was generous with my playtime though. I had to set up at the kitchen table while concocting my potions. I dearly loved that chemistry set.

I think it was Christmas ’64, that I asked for a tape recorder. It was actually nice, small and wrapped in leather; a portable with a cover and handle to carry it. I have no idea what stimulated that request and I didn’t get much use out of it. I might have seen one on the television program Get Smart and thought it a cool idea. I was always acting out television programs. I got in big trouble once when we, my siblings and two cousins were acting out a Quick Draw McGraw cartoon and I accidentally smashed my brother's guitar he'd just received for Christmas, over his head. My acting skills needed practice. I still have tinges of guilt about that incident. No one thought to buy him a new one and I always thought that was wrong. I've made up for it many times over through the intervening fifty-two years though. 

The gift the following year, “65, was really weird. I was becoming aware of my parent's cigarette smoking habits. There was a “toy” advertised on TV that was just a bust of a man, but extended down to the upper abdomen and made of clear plastic. On the inside were a set of lungs made of soft plastic. You attached them to these tubes leading to an opening in the mouth. The idea was to have a grownup blow smoke into it so one could see the idea of smoke entering the lungs. My parents blew into it a few times and then it just became a plastic decoration on top of my chest of drawers. Most likely the weirdest and least satisfying of my choices. 

In 1966, I asked for a typewriter that I tried to learn to type on, but with no typing paper or replacement ribbons it ended up in the closet.

I finally got wise in 1969, when I was fifteen years old and asked for a stereo. I didn’t get the one I wanted; a turntable on a metal stand. Instead, I got the same model my fraternal Grandma had. A suitcase-style where the turntable folded up into the case. Also, two albums that I didn’t want then, but wish I had now. One was The Supremes with the Temptations and an Otis Redding, the title of which I do not recall. Sittin' On The Dock Of The Bay, maybe. I wanted The Beatles, but my guess is that those I got were from the bargain bin. 

The stereo was repossessed in a bankruptcy proceeding a few years later, in 1971. So was everything else in the house including our beds and all the kitchen wares. They wanted to take the draperies, but my Mom put herself between them and the repo man; he relented. They don’t do it that way now, but they did then. 

All of these events actually allowed me to see the lesson, the gift, of non-attachment. This sharing may have come off as sad and complaining but that is not my intention. This is the history and what happened that year and close to Christmas 1971. It did show me that you could persevere even as all your belonging disappeared. My Grandparents found us used furniture and dish-ware and gave my Mom their car. My Mom’s lifelong friend made arrangements for bedroom furniture that was offered at a very cheap price from one of her relatives. My gift that year was the gift of kindness and empathy. 

So my Dad was gone and we had lost the house and the car and were living in a two-bedroom apartment, but it was perhaps the Christmas that gave me the greatest gift I have ever received; the understanding of what it should be all about, all year round; helping those that are in need. You really can’t fully understand this until you are on the receiving end. It was also finally, blissfully peaceful after a lifetime of tension and anxiety; well at least for a while. 

So the winter can be hard for some even in more temperate climates. Giving if you can, can be the greatest gift you can receive. Receiving when you really need it can also be life-changing in a multitude of ways if you receive joyfully. It’s all how you choose to receive and perceive it. 

Keep an extra coat in your car this winter and hand it to someone that needs it; that’s really all you need to receive to find true joy, the gift of giving. Stereos get repossessed and that plastic bust got busted by a ball flying down the hallway. Those things never last.

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