Christmas

Not Too Thrilled With Pop-Pop's Santa

I was born in December of 1951. Mom says there was a violent storm that night with raging winds and rain. In the 1950s you stayed in the hospital for several days so they were sure everything was all right. The bill from Memorial Hospital in Woodbury, New Jersey would be $103.00. Railroad insurance would cover $75.00 of that, and my father would pay $28.00 plus an additional dollar for my baby bracelet. I was my mother's special gift that year, and we spent Christmas Eve looking at the hospital's tree.They would bring me home Christmas day, Mom's favorite holiday of the year.
My first memory of Christmas is not a good one. My mother's father, who we called Pop-Pop, was playing Santa Claus for the family. I don't remember if he ho-ho-hoed or behaved really jolly, because I was scared to death of him. He was wearing this expressionless mask that covered his entire face, and to me it had the look of death, not joy.
Later Uncle Dan Amey would play Santa, and his portrayal was as grand and as eloquent as any Santa should be, with a beautiful red suit and magnificent flowing white beard. He was loud and jolly without any lifeless mask obscuring his face. I caught on rather quickly that this Santa was really my Uncle Dan, because hey, I recognized the voice and one year I saw the suit hanging in his house months before. He was good at being Santa and he really seemed to enjoy it, so I never let on to him that I knew.
Every Christmas was the same happy ritual. Friends and neighbors and relatives would file in and out of our little house all night long, our kitchen and living room filled with laughing and singing. It was tough to go to bed, you couldn't really sleep because you just had to listen to all the adults having such a good time. Around 1 AM or so, everyone would be gone, and I'd listen to Mom and Dad clean up a little until they crawled into bed in their room across the hall. With our house finally quiet and still I'd finally be able to drift off to sleep, so Santa could make his appointed rounds.
Christmas morning we'd open presents, and after that we'd visit our neighbors to see how Santa treated them. The showing of gifts was a rite all its own, the mother of the house presenting what each family member received as we oohed and aahed our appreciation.
Next we'd go to Grandmom and Grandpop Woodward's, and then on to Nanny and Pop-Pop's. After we paid our respects to the grandparents it was over to Aunt Sis and Uncle Dan's for their Christmas Day spread.
My favorite time of all would be late in the afternoon. We would head back home, tired from all the celebrating and the gifting. We would all take a family nap in the living room. My warmest and most cherished memories of Christmas are those times when I was lying on the living room floor sleeping off the holiday with my Mom and Dad and my dog Whee-Zee, and later on my brother and sister.
We were safe, we were warm, we were family.