December is a great month to think about nostalgia, especially because so much of Christmas is related to traditions that go back decades. How many of us have holiday routines that include decorating the tree on Thanksgiving (or the day after), opening the first gift on Christmas Eve, leaving snacks out for Santa Claus and watching a cherished holiday movie. (My personal favorite is “It’s a Wonderful Life,” but there are so many others that are required during Christmas season.)
This year, however, nostalgia was a high gear for me. My Dad died a few weeks before Christmas, so I found myself spending a lot of time thinking about Christmas memories that involved him. This is the third time I’ve gone down that road; my mother died in June 2007 and my stepfather passed in 2022, also just before Christmas. The holidays have become fairly bittersweet as my mind is flooded with Christmas memories that include each of them.
My earliest Christmas memories include my mother reading “The Night Before Christmas” to my brother and me. Actually, she could have read it beautifully, but she chose to play a version of the story performed by Glen Campbell on his Christmas album. I still love looking at the story while listening to Glen reciting it.
My stepfather was responsible for a lot of memories that preceded Christmas. He was an Episcopal priest and his ordination took place on December 21, 1964. Each year, he celebrated that date as an anniversary, including a private service where we gathered for a renewal of his ordinational vows. I began to see December 21 as a part of the Christmas season, and no Advent was complete without that service.
My parents were divorced in late 1973, so each Christmas involved my brother and me traveling to see my father and stepmother. So many of my Christmas memories come from those travels, including some very special Christmases spent at my grandfather’s old cabin in Ruidoso, N.M. Divorce is no fun, but I miss those flights or long car rides to spend the holidays with my Dad.
There are so many other memories that I have, and I imagine that I’ll be spending a lot of time in the coming months and years thinking about special times I shared with each of them. Losing a parent, well, sucks, for lack of a better word. But at least I have the memories I shared with my parents to help me cope with the loss as I struggle to move ahead without them.
