Places in time

Charlie Brown Christmas









The thing that I like most about holidays, any holiday, is how they mark time. Ask someone about a Tuesday or December 14 and they can’t tell you where they were or what they were doing. Sometimes with a year and context, they might be able to recall where they were and remember things about that time…



“Oh, I was in college, I remember that semester I took English with the guy with the funny hat…”


But to remember the specifics of the day? No can do. But a holiday is different. We might not remember each holiday from every year, but we can clearly remember some holidays and place them to a specific year.


I like the idea that one year ago, or ten years ago or whatever on the very same day I know what I was doing. I can remember what I was seeing and what I was thinking. I like remembering that I didn’t know what was to come. I like how it marks time.


Christmas marks time for me. I remember set Christmases. I remember one year driving home from the mall with my mother listening to the ‘Santa Watch’ on the radio and looking up to the sky and the stars and wondering who else was looking up at those same stars, thinking of Santa.


I remember helping our neighbor wrap last minute presents. She was a big woman, easily 300 lbs with two kids. The kids were around my age, elementary school, but for some reason they had been sent off to bed and I was allowed to stay up and ‘help.’ We wrapped presents and drank eggnog and placed the presents under the tree just right. The next day, the kids swore they saw Santa and an elf putting things under the tree. I didn’t correct them.


I remember the first Christmas with who would become my in-laws and wondering why I was there? There were too many people and I felt lost and lonely. Then came other Christmases, not quiet as overwhelming, but equally as tense.


My favorites though were those first two… driving to the Santa Watch and wrapping presents. They were both long enough ago, before I began to hate the holiday.


Still, even today when I dread the 48 hours that is Christmas, I like the way it marks time. I try to do or think something so that in the future, I remember THAT day along with all the others.