Christmas memories
Growing up in America, Christmas was always a much-anticipated time of year. I am sure the same is true for many people from other countries as well. As a child, the holiday was more about pretty decorations, Christmas trees, Santa Claus and presents. Sure, churches had their Christmas celebrations that were ostensibly focused on the birth of Jesus, but most also had Christmas trees and parties with Santa Claus. Consumerism has kidnapped the holiday, turning it into a universal shopping frenzy. Black Friday sales are much more important than thinking about a humble manger in a forlorn village, thousands of kilometers away.
I grew up in the United States in the 1960s. One of my earliest memories must be from the time I was 4 or 5 years old. We were at my maternal grandmother’s house. It was a small bungalow, but the living room was large enough for a gathering of relatives. Family gatherings were always important in my formative years. I remember an old “aunt” who forced me to drink non-alcoholic eggnog. For millions of people, eggnog is a quintessential Christmas tradition. Nonetheless, I gagged on it. It has never been offered at any holiday parties I’ve hosted.
For the most part, Christmas memories circulate around time with my grandparents and siblings. For me, Thanksgiving was for the extended family (cousins, aunts, uncles) to gather, but Christmas was confined to our home living room, with a grandparent spending a few days with us, including Christmas Eve. When we lived some distance from town because of my dad’s job, we traveled about 150 kilometers to spend a couple of nights at my maternal grandmother’s house.
On Christmas Day, we often drove to the nearby town where my paternal grandfather lived and spent some time with him — often with grandma in tow. They are simple but fond memories. My paternal grandmother died a few days before Christmas the year I turned five, so the time of year was particularly emotional for my granddad and my dad.
We moved closer to extended family when I was about 10, and we brought my grandma from the nearby city to stay in our house for Christmas Eve that year. Little did we know it would be our last with her, as she died the following spring.
Mom had prepared candied popcorn and nuts, bought whole oranges — a rare treat in those days — and baked a pie or two. Christmas Eve was spent in the living room underneath our small tree as we ate goodies, sang carols (religious and secular---there’s some great music and lyrics in both) and then read the story of Jesus’s birth from the gospel of Luke. We did this for as long as I can remember and continued for the rest of my years growing up.
After Grandma died, we began spending Christmas with my maternal grandfather in California. He and my grandmother divorced when my mom was a child, but as children, we often visited grandpa or he came to visit us. Those trips to California were marathons. Since school wasn’t out until a day or two before Christmas, we got up before dawn, loaded the car (having prepared all the boxes and luggage ahead of time), and headed out from our house in rural Utah, driving the length of the state across the Las Vegas corner of Nevada and the mountainous side of California, all the way to the coastal area where grandpa lived. We left home in the dark and arrived well after dinnertime, but Grandpa was eagerly waiting for us, and we were excited to see him for the holiday. The next morning, we went out to see what might be left in the Christmas tree lots. Since it was often Christmas Eve, there wasn’t much but we always found something.
Now that I am a grandfather and live thousands of miles away from my son and grandchildren, Christmas is especially important. But I am the one who travels to them, instead of the way my family operated in my childhood. Just a few weeks ago, when chatting with my now adult granddaughter, she said, “Papa, it doesn’t matter if we ‘do’ things, just that you are here in our house with us is all we need.”
Family is the reason for the season.
Rev. Steven L. Shields, FRAS (slshields@gmail.com) has lived in Korea for many years, beginning in the 1970s. A Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, he is also a lifelong member of the Royal Asiatic Society Korea, of which he was a director, vice president, and president. He was a copy editor of The Korea Times in 1977. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect The Korea Times’ editorial stance.