'Tis the Season on Lincoln Street
Christmas doesn’t come from a store, maybe Christmas… perhaps… means a little bit more. - Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!
It always began with the thud
of the Sears catalog on the kitchen table,
thick enough to stop a bullet,
and filled with more dreams
than the average nine-year-old
I treated it like scripture,
turning each glossy page
as if Revelation might finally explain
why my parents refused to buy
the slot-car racetrack
that could loop, twist, and apparently
defy several known laws of physics.
My brother lobbied for a Big Wheel
as though cross-examining a hostile witness,
while my sister circled sweaters
with the solemnity of a Supreme Court clerk.
Dad folded down the corners on power tools
he already owned...
not because he needed them,
but because he liked confirming
that Sears still made them
to his exacting specifications.
He was midway through remodeling the house,
measuring twice, cutting once,
and muttering at the walls
as if they were the ones
who had gotten the math wrong.
Outside, leaves scraped across the pavement
like low-budget sound effects,
and the old Zenith TV took its time warming up,
the picture emerging slowly,
as if Charlie Brown and Linus
were shy guests at a dinner party.
Every year, my sister pretended
she wasn’t crying
when Linus was abandoned
in the pumpkin patch again,
while Dad pretended
he wasn’t asleep
twenty minutes into
It’s a Wonderful Life,
the fate of Bedford Falls be damned.
By the time A Charlie Brown Christmas aired,
we were all barefoot,
toes roasting on the heat register
like a family of small, under-seasoned hens.
Christmas morning arrived
in a blur of cinnamon rolls,
wrapping paper shrapnel,
and my brother squealing so loudly
the dog briefly reconsidered living with us.
My sister rolled her eyes
with professional precision,
and Mom beamed
like she herself had invented joy.
Then we packed into the Galaxie,
which was approximately
the same temperature as the moon,
breath fogging the glass
as we drove to Grandma’s,
where the cousins vibrated
at unsafe frequencies
and someone always got a Slinky
that would be tangled beyond recognition
by nightfall.
The adults laughed in the kitchen
as if laughter might keep winter
from advancing across the floor.
And I, age nine,
believed the whole season
could be summoned forever
simply by wanting it hard enough.
Which is probably why
even now, fifty years later,
a part of me still pauses in December,
waiting for the Sears catalog
to land on the counter again,
announcing the holidays
with all the subtlety
of a bowling ball dropped from a balcony.
GBS jr
2018
Christmas waves a magic wand over this world, and behold, everything is softer and more beautiful. - Norman Vincent Peale
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