MARY LAMPHERE AUTHOR

When you reminisce about Christmases past, where does your nostalgia take you?
If I were to ask for a favorite Christmas memory, what would it be?

Are you a recent reflector? Eves or mornings with your grandkids? Or your children? Or do you find yourself diving deeper into your own childhood?

Do you immediately recall the best gift ever? A time you celebrated a new tradition or repeated a long held one for (what seems like) the hundredth time? Maybe, sadly, the last with a favorite friend or relative? Or, haha, the worst gift ever? That maybe now, sure, still sucks, but at least you can find the humor in it?

Or are you a Christmas present person? Do your panicked thoughts dash through the never-ending to-do list? Frantic, on overdrive with less than a week to complete? Is your focus on making new memories?

I’m genuinely curious.

Today, for instance, as I’m writing this, I am not worried about the to-do list. This year, specifically, it will either get done or it won’t and I’m really not too concerned. It’s been that kind of year.

Instead, I’m remembering making Christmas cookies with my mom in our apartment on Lee Street. I was four or five, standing at the counter on a kitchen chair, covered in flour and aggressively shoving shaped cutters into irregularly rolled dough. That’s probably one of my earliest holiday memories.

Why did that come to mind the quickest?
Why not the Christmas I ate so much of my Gram Fran’s divinity, I vomited. (And never ate divinity again.) Or the year we pulled to the side of the road on our way to cut down our tree when the news of John Lennon’s death came on the radio, then returned home treeless and grief-filled? What about the several seasons I went caroling with my church youth group at old folks’ homes in the early 80’s, miming the words with enthusiasm without ever really singing aloud? Or the Secret Santa gift exchange with my fellow NIU Neptune North Two-Odders where I clothed a Playgirl centerfold in a Santa suit? (Which was shared again recently and I must say, my craft skills have held up impressively.) Or the holiday in Mississippi where we attended a party at a mansion and celebrated in Southern style? Of course, they’re all coming now. A flood of memories, roiling over each other for their turn to be remembered, to be relevant again, if only for a moment.

But, still, what’s the hierarchy and why? Where do the years spent with my stepmom’s German and Italian grandmothers, complete with extended family, all the aunts, uncles, cousins, and more (!) rank? Tables spread with feasts reminiscent of home countries, lebkuchen and biscotti, chenille accent pillows, and a visit to Grandpa Cal’s pigeon coop on the frosty roof.

And egg coffee.
Which I just looked up and seems to be neither Italian nor German, but I know I enjoyed it.

It’s funny what you remember.
Sometimes, it’s fun to remember.

So, I’m asking…
Upon reading this, what was the first Christmas memory that popped into your head?

And what memories are following?
Take a moment to wade into the tide.

Then do share.