So this is Christmas

I'm gonna guess that most households in America when it comes to how they celebrate holidays are governed by a certain set of traditions that are held sacrosanct for no other reason than they are. In my house growing up, for example, Santa came twice in December: the first on December 6 (St. Nick's Day) when my siblings and I would awaken to find our stockings stuffed with candy, fruit, nuts and small gifts and the second time on Christmas morning like everybody else. I didn't realize until much later that St. Nick's Day wasn't celebrated in every household in the neighborhood – ours, in fact, may have been the only one and that was credit to my mother's Eastern European ancestry more than anything else. Santa has continued to visit our house all these years later both on the 6th and the 25th and we have established certain holiday traditions with our children that unless they secretly despise them or their future spouse objects may very likely be carried on in the next generation.


One factor that helps us stay on task in observing these traditions is our son, Charlie. He has autism and one of the things peculiar to those with that condition is the need for same-ness. As in, every Thanksgiving morning for as long as he can remember, he has sat down to watch Macy's parade with his mother and sisters. Never mind if the football game comes on at 11:30 or that dinner may be ready before then, we watch it until Santa shows up and then we can eat. And every Black Friday evening the tree comes out and goes up. In his own gentle way he reminds me, “Well, Dad...should we put the tree up...?” His world will not be right until I start making my way to the tubs in the basement where the tree and the ornaments are kept the rest of the year.

Not PC for Charlie before Dec 1

So, this year was no different than any other. At the end of our Black Friday shopping day we got the tree up and decorated it. It's a couple of hours job what with stringing the lights (and making a couple of trips to the Dollar Store for more lights) and hanging the ornaments. When it was all done and the tree was lit and our house now suddenly had that “Christmassy look”, Emma suggested we watch a Christmas movie. Immediately Charlie balked: “But it's not Christmas yet.” I acknowledged as much but suggested that as long as the tree was up and some of our decorations out, why shouldn't we watch a Christmas movie as well. Charlie's response was pure Charlie: “But it's not Christmas yet.” As far as he's concerned, the Christmas season doesn't begin on Black Friday or even the First Sunday of Advent. It starts on December 1 and not a day before. I finally got him to pause when I suggested we watch Miracle on 34th Street (1947 version) because, after all, it started on Thanksgiving Day. That was really disconcerting to him as if I was luring him off the beaten path and so he agreed to watch up until the parade part was over and then he decided that it was not appropriate to watch a movie about Santa in November after all and quietly left the room.

But Thursday, December 1, Christmas officially began for us and after Linda and I had returned home after a day of shopping in the Twin Ports with a smile on his face Charlie asked if I wanted to watch a Christmas movie with him. “Sure,” I said and what did he want to watch? A Christmas Carol (1938)?, It's a Wonderful Life!?, The Grinch? No, Barney Night Before Christmas is what he was eager to show his mother and I and so via Netflix he took us there and for the next hour we watched the iconic purple dinosaur and his friends sing, decorate, visit Santa and Mrs. Claus and get back in time for Christmas Eve. It was standard Barney fare – er, not that I know – but I was impressed that they used three traditional Christmas carols in their show - “O Christmas Tree”, “Joy to the World” and “Silent Night”- and with the bell choir that came on at the tail end of the program. The fact that Charlie knew everybody's lines so well made me suspicious. “Charlie, did you watch this in November...?” I asked him to wit he immediately replied, “No...I didn't watch it in November.” He was fairly vehement in his denials and then he added cautiously, “I watched it....last...year.” Something tells me there is more to that story. After all just the other day I happened to come into his room and caught him watching How the Grinch Stole Christmas on his bedroom TV. He switched the channel so fast as if I had caught him watching an R-rated movie. Well, you're only human right?

So...he likes Barney...

Emma had refused to come down and watch the show with us. “Don't you think you should tell him he's too old to watch Barney?” she queried. Yeah...well, our son may be 21 years old but emotionally he's still very much a little boy and I don't know if watching Barney is going to hurt him all that much. After he went to bed she came down and put on The Nutcracker (1993) starring Macaulay Culkin at the height of his child stardom (I didn't know until today when I imbd-ed it that he studied at the School of American Ballet, the official training academy of the New York City Ballet.) The juxtaposition of the “I love you, you love me” jingle from Barney with Tchaikovsky's majestic "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" is about as stark as it comes. But the dancing was truly fabulous (how do those women do point so flawlessly?)

So Christmas is officially “on” at the Martin home. The tree is up, the village is up, the candles are positioned in every downstair window, and the wreaths are up, too. Father Christmas was hid for the first time last night and St. Nick is scheduled to visit sometime late Monday. And we now have the all clear to watch all things Christmas. Thank God (tonight's offering, Charlie gleefully informed me at dinner  is How the Grinch Stole Christmas.) Just this afternoon at lunch time I put on Pulitzer-prize winning historian David McCullough's In the Dark Streets Shineth: A 1941 Christmas Eve Story, a 15-minute excerpt from a guest appearance he made at the 2009 Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert. I listened to an arrangement that included both “O Little Town of Bethlehem” and “I'll Be Home For Christmas” with his back-story for both of them. My only criticism is I wish it had been longer. Good thing Charlie wasn't home. Even at a quarter of an hour (and though it was a Christmas story), it's way too much history for him.