As I mentioned before, I was just laying around doing nothing. It is rare that I do this. I'm not super industrious or anything, but I rarely do nothing. As I sat on the floor and stared at the tree it felt very familiar. I think I did this a lot as a kid. Remember, 24-hour children's programming is a fairly new concept. There was a reason we got up early on Saturday for cartoons--they weren't on any other time. And while I remember--fondly--watching plenty of TV both day and night, there were long lapses when there simply wasn't anything on. I loved to look at the tree in the dark and I remember almost all of the ornaments and decorations we had around the house.
One thing I remember was a very thick "candle" made out of red shag carpet. It sat on a piece of cardboard covered with tin foil and it had real wax drippings on it. That carpet candle seems so strange to me now but at the time is was a harbinger of Christmas, like our red and white cardboard fireplace which was neither kitchy nor ironic to me.
I realized that maybe the reason Christmas seemed to come around so slowly for me was because I just sat around a didn't do much of anything. That always makes time go by slowly. Waiting for Christmas was painful and Christmas Eve was torture. I actually dreaded it because it was so hard to fall asleep and the night seemed so long. That is probably the only way Christmas is better for me as an adult than it was for me as a child.Listening to Elvis also brought back the vague notion I had as a child that he was my father. The way I saw it, it could have been him or Neil Diamond. They still seem very paternal to me even though I have since been dispossessed of that misconception.
11 days 'til Christmas!
I feel the same way when we sing O Come All Ye Faithful in church. It's like, where are the background singers? The dramatic pauses? The drumrolls? It's sort of lame when it isn't sung by Elvis, isn't it? I totally remember that candle, but never knew it was made of carpet. I will never forget how it smelled, though. And that cardboard fireplace rocked my world. Remember when I enacted the nativity all by myself? I miss our days together.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it amazing how time went so sloowwllyy waiting for Christmas as a kid, but as a mom it absolutely flies by. It's the 14th already? What? I still have way too much to do.
ReplyDeleteI am fascinated by that candle. I simply cannot picture it.
ReplyDeleteFirst the firestarters and now a shag carpet candle? What is it with you and weird wax oddities?
ReplyDeleteI always wanted to sing Jingle Bells like Barbra Streisand. Occasionally I would try, but people just gave me weird stares.
I'm a total stranger who found you via your LRS blog. . . and just have to applaud your genius play on words. I wonder if your mother laments your “misconception?” Neil Diamond or Elvis huh? Never saw either as father figures. Your sense of humor/irony is delightful.
ReplyDeleteYour Elvis is my Johnny Mathis.
ReplyDeleteMisconception?? Now it can be told,your low voice = nature not nurture.
ReplyDeleteI have a thing for Elvis too, especially his Christmas stuff.
ReplyDeleteI remember laying under the tree and looking up at the lights when I was a kid too. And I remember all of our old Christmas decorations. I guess that's why I can't get rid of any of ours, because I want the boys to remember the same ones, year after year...even if they're kind of ugly.
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