Christmas, Memories and Gifts

Some years ago, my friend Jeanette invited some of her friends to share their holiday memories. Anything, for any winter holiday, in any form: poem, essay, fiction, whatever, and she posted all submissions in an online marathon collection. This was mine, sort of. Except for the parts that have been changed, which is most of them.

We were wearing our holiday finest while squirming on our bellies under the Christmas tree, inching after Norton-the-cat; he disliked his medicine, liked hiding from it. We needed to medicate him before gathering up the children, the presents and our English houseguest for the trek from our downtown apartment to my Ex’s family on the Upper East Side. Not unusually, we were fighting bitterly, this time because I didn’t want to go. X’s family was contentious, at best; the previous Thanksgiving included a merry romp around the house when his stepmother suddenly came after his father with a paring knife. We just don’t chase each other in my family. Not even with spoons. To make matters worse, Stepmother was always belligerent on Christmas, which was her birthday, and resented any gifts that were not given to her.

On this particular year, I was excessively foul tempered. While I never liked X’s family dinners, this was even worse because after arriving uptown, we would be turning around to have dinner at Windows on the World, at the World Trade Center, less than three blocks from our apartment. “Just because you’re Jewish is no reason you shouldn’t be as miserable as the rest of us!” X screamed. I said that I thought that was the upside to being without any family traditions of my own.

When I was growing up, we didn’t have a tree or family dinner. We didn’t chase each other with cutlery or visit grandma. I imagined what families did on Christmas, and it was straight out of Currier and Ives or Norman Rockwell and certainly unlike what anyone I knew actually experienced. As an adult I got to invent my own traditions. For years, I held an “orphan’s dinner.” I had a tree, because I thought it was pretty. I learned to make Yorkshire pudding and goose, because I thought it was traditional, and learned to ice skate because of the Currier and Ives thing.

One Christmas, while sitting alone in a Greenwich Village Café, waiting to go to wherever I’d been invited, I struck up a conversation with a man sitting at the next table.  He was also alone, sipping espresso and reading a picture book.  The tables were quite close together and I could see the illustrations, which were very beautiful, predominated by ice-blues, and all of winter scenes.  The man showed me the book, which was of the carol “Good KingWenceslas,” my favorite carol, whether because of the pretty tune, which dates to the 16^th century, or the lyrics, which appealed to my sense of social justice, I don’t know. 

The man and I talked about illustration and children’s literature and storytelling.  When he got up to leave, he paid his bill then turned back to me.  “Merry Christmas,” he said, and handed me the book.  He left quickly, and I never learned his name, but I still have the book. 

When I got X and the kids, everything changed. There were no more orphan dinners, no more invitations to accept and certainly no more random conversations with generous strangers. These were replaced with the endless wrapping of presents. Christmas Eve was always spent with the in-laws, attending an annual performance of the Brandenburg Concertos, less lovely after the fifth year or so. Christmas day was always spent at a birthday dinner for my mother-in-law, who each year chose someplace fussier than the last. I did not want to go to Windows on the World.

 As a New Yorker, it had two major strikes: the food was not well regarded and it was tourist destination. It had it’s own elevator, attended by people in pastel uniforms, and I passed them daily on my way to the subway. Once, I had gone during the day to the World Trade Center viewing platform, but I thought that the towers were so high and so removed from most of the city that the details and the beauty were lost in the distance.

We had an exceptionally large crowd that night at Windows on the World. Between my in-laws, some of their friends, both of my sisters-in-law and their families, our family, and our visiting British ex-pat journalist friend, we were at least a dozen. I don’t remember what we ate or what we talked about, except that two food writers were present at an unexceptional meal, and they were both writing books about salt. I do remember that we were there late; it was after midnight when we finally left.  And I remember the view.  

What was unimpressive by day was transformed at night.  Before me was a city of magic, covered with fairy dust, ley lines stretching as far as the eye could see. The rivers were twin ribbons of darkness on either side, surrounding billions of tiny lights, each one from a single office or a single apartment, each one representing someone else’s life. The view that night was all I needed to believe in magic; nothing could possibly be so beautiful if not enchanted.

As we got up to leave, I lingered, wanting to gaze longer at my magic city, unsure that I would ever again see anything so perfect and pure.  The kids were tired and wanted to go home, nagged me to hurry up, and finally, I put on my coat, took a short ride on a fast elevator, and walked across the street to my apartment.

I never again saw that beauty, never again saw that view. You won’t ever see it, either. It was gone by the following Christmas, gone when two planes flew into the World Trade Center, gone with the towers fell. Eventually, there will be a new restaurant, in the new building. It will have a view. That’s the nature of life, of memories; things change, although usually less violently.  But my magic city of light remains, a gift for everyone who cares to see it, young and old, rich and poor, tourist and resident alike.

That next year, the four of us spent a quiet Christmas Eve at home. The girls and I had spent the day baking, and the day before that as well, hundreds of cookies in a dozen different varieties. Before dinner, we packaged them up, and after dinner, the three of us bundled up and trudged out in the cold. We delivered cookies to the firehouse and the police precinct. We brought cookies to the police officers standing guard and to the construction workers on the site. We brought cookies to everyone working outside on cold winter’s night, away from their own families while watching over ours. It was our small gift to the city.

Much has changed since I saw the city lights from 107 stories high, but this has not: I wish you a Merry Christmas, or if you don’t observe, a joyous winter holiday, and I wish you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. And when you have the chance, don’t hesitate to give small gifts of kindness.