A different kind of Christmas

New to my blog?  To better understand why this story was written. please read “A Child of the Greatest Generation” in the August 09 Blog Archive.

In December, the winter chill took on a different feel. It wasn’t quite so cold.  There was something special about the walk home from WI that time of year, regardless of how cold it was.  It was the Christmas season. It was always a special, warm time of year.

I would head out the side door of school (remember, only seniors were permitted to use the front steps) and on my way home, would head for the Arcade.  I often stopped at the bakery to buy a special treat before exiting onto Main Street, which celebrated the season festooned with holiday lights and garlands.  The store windows and their interiors complimented the spirit of the holiday with colorful and cheerful decorations.

Walking toward East End, the homes along Main Street mirrored the stores downtown with a beautiful holiday wreath on many doors, brightly decorated trees in most of the windows and blue, red, or gold staggered electric candles colorfully on display through other frosted windows in some of the homes.  It was an especially magical walk home, if a light snow was falling.

In our home my three brothers, my parents and I celebrated the day, December 25^th, but not the holiday.  We had no wreath on the door; no brightly decorated tree in the window, no electric candles either.  The candles we lit during the holiday season were on the Hanukah Menorah, a new candle for each of the eight nights of the holiday. 

Our parents wanted to have a Jewish home where we celebrated the Jewish holidays, but did not want their four sons to feel left out when all of the kids on the block trotted out with their new toys and gifts on Christmas Day.  Their solution was to exchange gifts on Christmas morning.  Instead of a tree as a symbol of the season, Father removed all of the furniture from our large dining room, and set up his huge model train track that formed a complete circle nearly touching each wall in the room.  In the center, the folks placed each son’s gifts behind a sign bearing each boy’s name; Billy, Joel, Gary and Bobby. 

Dad would set-up his movie lights to photograph each year’s festivities.  On cue we would come downstairs in our PJs and bathrobes (who wanted to take the time to get dressed) and file into the dining room, with bright lights shining in our eyes, and the sound of trains traveling around a mounds of goodies.

Before noon we were out on Terra Cotta with the rest of the neighborhood kids, showing off and sharing our new gifts, new bikes and trikes, shiny new toys, and for the older kids, new clothes.  Santa was good to everyone on the block even the Jewish kids who, like their gentile friends, loved the concept of giving and receiving and celebrating the moment.  We just didn’t celebrate the holiday.

Years later, when the brothers would get together to look at the old films one thing was very clear, Bill’s bathrobe worn last year was now Joel’s, and Gary is seen in it a few years later, until after it was Bob’s turn and then the bathrobe disappeared.  Tradition!