Viewpoint A marzipan strawberry and a tin alligator
By CHRISTOPHER DE VINCK
A few nights ago, in the quiet
darkness of my 50th December, my wife and I returned home from Christmas
shopping. As I turned off the engine of the car, I said, I think I see
Norman Rockwell peeking out the upstairs window.
She and I had spent the morning hanging Christmas wreaths outside
each window of our four-bedroom colonial. A red ribbon hangs from each wreath.
We have a single, electric candle in each window, and a spotlight illuminating
the entire façade of the house. An American flag hangs motionless to the
right of the front door.
It is easy to see why our little house could be on the front cover
of the old Saturday Evening Post. We, in this country, try hard to
re-create Christmas the way it used to be, or the way we imagine it was.
For Christmas one year I received six lead soldiers, British
loyalists cast in rigid marching positions, each holding a bayoneted rifle, and
each wearing a red coat and a tall hat that looked like a black olive.
Every Christmas when I was a boy my stocking contained marzipan
fruit, chocolate coins wrapped in gold, a bird call or a plastic submarine that
rose and sank in the bathtub with baking soda fuel.
My mother sewed my stocking the year I was born. It was a giant
sock, made of white cloth with prints of clowns and sprawling circus dogs. She
attached six little jingle bells to the stocking: red, green, blue and silver
bells. I especially like the one that was sewn at the tip of the toe.
For many years as a boy all I wanted for Christmas was a set of
walkie-talkies, which I never received.
When I was 10 my mother gave me Sterling Norths book,
Rascal. My father gave me a toy safe made of gray metal with a red
combination dial. My grandmother gave me a Lincoln Logs set, and my aunt sent
over from Belgium a glass snow-globe that, when you shook it, revealed a small
snowman with a black top hat standing in the swirl of little flakes that
floated around his stout belly.
I liked magic tricks for Christmas, especially the one where the
ball in the small plastic urn appeared and disappeared with a slight twist of
the fingers. I liked the windup tin alligator from my brother, and the
glow-in-the-dark superball from my sister.
This afternoon my wife and I drove our three grown children to
Pennsylvania to cut down our 25th Christmas tree. We, as usual, disagreed on
the height, the width, the shape. After much deliberation we agreed on the one
my 18-year-old daughter marked with her scarf in the first place. I cut down
the tree, and the two boys helped me carry it to the car. We sang Christmas
songs, and as we drove through town, I saw that Robbie Jones once again posed
the plywood Santa Claus and the eight reindeer along the rooftop of his
hardware store.
As we pulled into the driveway, my wife said she would make hot
chocolate. I turned off the engine as everyone stepped out of the car and
started walking down the driveway. I sat for a moment, leaned against the
steering wheel, looked out the windshield and thought I saw, peeking through
the upstairs window, a little boy with a walkie-talkie pressed against his left
ear, and then my 22-year-old son turned around and called, Come on,
Dad.
I hope I find in my stocking this year a large marzipan strawberry
and a tin alligator.
Christopher de Vincks most recent book is Compelled
to Write to You. He is a public school administrator and lives in Pompton
Plains, N.J.
National Catholic Reporter, December 21,
2001
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