Month: December 2017

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Screening the New Year

The lights went dark. The ads went quiet. The familiar words appeared on the screen.

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away …

And with that, it was time to hit the holiday hyperdrive into another universe – even if it was without the usual crew.

Once upon a time, this would have been time spent with my Dad. After I graduated college and took my first job in Kansas, I made sure to come back to Colorado for the holidays. That was when our favorite literary universe of Middle-Earth first hit the big screen, so Dad and I always carved out a night to go see it. From there, it became a habit, even after I came back to the Front Range.

The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit. Jason Bourne. Harry Potter. The Force Awakens. Something big and bold and splashy to wave out the old year and welcome the new one. As a kid, this would have been a summertime adventure, especially since Star Wars movies were always released in May. Now, it was something as brilliant as any string of Christmas lights and as dependable as any Times Square ball dropping.

This year, the count’s off a little bit. This year, with my parents in Washington State, it was my 7-year-old nephew Gil who got to see The Last Jedi with Dad. (Funny enough, that’s the same age at which I saw The Empire Strikes Back with Dad and became a fan for life.) This year, Heather and I watched the movie with friends even while our memories were with an audience far, far away.

And this year, it still felt more right than any countdown with Dick Clark ever could.

I’ve never been much for New Year’s resolutions. Easily made, easily forgotten. But with apologies to Robert Fulghum, everything I do know about New Year’s lessons, I learned from a night at the movies:

The story will go unexpected places. Let it. With the Tolkien movies, it was because Hollywood can never leave a literary adaptation alone, even when it’s done well. With something that’s pure cinema, like Star Wars, the directors will still have something in their back pocket. Maybe several somethings. (“Darth Vader is his what??”) Whatever story you find, take it on its own merits and follow where it goes – arguing about it in your head at the time will just mean you miss the best parts.

Talk with your family. Some of those surprises, of course, fueled many a conversation outside of the theater. The fate of Han Solo. The craftiness of Luke. Talking about them afterward not only drove them in more firmly, they tied us more firmly and created a family story to go with the fictional one.

Never give up hope. OK, this is practically routine for Hollywood, but it still bears remembering. Empire became one of my favorite films because its victory was survival. Nobody blew up a battle station. Everyone came away battered and scarred, sometimes literally. But they did get away. The fight went on, with promises made that friends would not be forgotten. That’s something that I think most of us can identify with.

Remember, and say goodbye. Not everyone gets to finish the story. On screen, we got that memory – and a catch in the throat — as Carrie Fisher performed what would be her last turn as Leia. Off screen … well, we all have our own separations and farewells, none of them at a time we would have chosen. Acknowledge them. They’re part of your tale.

Now it’s time for a new chapter. And whether it enters to the strains of “Auld Lang Syne” or of John Williams, it will be yours to tell. Tell it well.

And don’t forget to bring a few dollars for popcorn.

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Ghosts of Christmas Past

Each Christmas, the same lyrics echo on the speakers:

 

“Through the years, we all will be together,

If the fates allow … “

 

And each year, we get reminded of the ones that the fates aren’t allowing to return.

Don’t get me wrong. Christmas Day is my favorite day of the year. From childhood into my early teens, I would sit up all night on Christmas Eve, softly singing carols to stay awake until 6 a.m. That’s the magic moment when my sisters and I were allowed to sneak downstairs and ogle the tree and the presents beneath, though not to awaken Mom and Dad (who usually came down around 7 a.m. when Grandma Elsie started making coffee.).

To this day, it’s still a great day for us to bask in the presence of family, spending quiet moments in the morning with each other before taking off to Heather’s mom or dad or sister and the relatives that have gathered with them. But each time, for just a moment, our minds visit a few others as well.

Some are simply separated by distance, like my parents and sisters in Washington State, with their collection of the little nieces and nephews. Reachable in theory – and maybe someday in practice – but kept apart for now by time, money, and logistics.

Others are a little more final.

Folks like my English grandmother and Heather’s, who brought their own touch to the season, from teasing Christmas carols to full dinners (complete with burned carrots).

Or like Heather’s uncle Andy (the brother of our disabled ward Missy), a lighthearted soul who left the holidays too soon.

Or like Duchess the Wonder Dog, who we still half-expect to hear digging into the wrapping-paper trash and sneaking into the stockings. After all, it’s our first Christmas without her.

For many, the holidays can bring this back powerfully, even painfully. Our own church has a “Blue Christmas” service for when the memories weigh heavily, and I’m sure it’s not the only one. It’s not an easy thing to be reminded of the empty seats at the table, especially if they became vacant during the holidays or not long after.

And yet, as hard as it is, it’s also an odd source of comfort.

It’s a reminder that they’re not truly gone. Not entirely.

OK, so they’re not exactly going to walk through the door bearing a fruitcake in the next five minutes. But at this time of all times, they live on. In hearts. In memories. In a dozen stories that get retold. Gone, perhaps, but not forgotten.

And in that, as much as anything, the Christmas season shows its power.

It’s a time to remember those who showed you love – and to show it in return to those with you, while you can. To draw together those who are close, and remember those who are far. To carry on what you’ve been left, as best as you know how.

It’s not always easy. Sometimes it’s more than a little bittersweet. But it, too, is part of the beauty of the season.

Be open to the memories, whether they’re triggered by an old ornament, a stray song on the radio, or just a piece of wrapping paper that looks like a dog chewed it. If you can, let them lift you up rather than weigh you down. After all, this is the time for loving visitors.

Give a moment to the past. And then, when you’re ready, celebrate in the present.

And have yourself a merry little Christmas now.

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First Gifts

Every year, you could count on it. The Rochat Family Christmas Eve Parade of Nightwear was the most exclusive ticket in town.

You could tell simply by looking at the invited audience, a bustling throng of three people, max, plus assorted pets. The models were not under contract anywhere else. Heck, for much of its existence, the models hadn’t even entered secondary school.

No runway in New York or Paris could touch it. Not when it was Dec. 24, the first packages had been opened, and my two sisters and I were modeling our brand-new pajamas.

“Oooh! Aaah!”

My parents, reinforced by Grandma Elsie, were most appreciative. And well they should have been. After all, they had once again completed an amazing double act: they had gotten young children excited about receiving clothes for Christmas AND ensured that said children would look presentable in family pictures the next morning.

Amazing, did I say? They made it look easy. And maybe it was. After all, they had just harnessed the most primal forces of the universe:

 

1) The desire of a child to open a gift, any gift, before Christmas morning actually arrived. Pajamas and out-of-town presents were always the exception for us, and thus eagerly torn into.

2) The desire of these children – especially my sisters – to put on a show for their parents.

3) The raw power of accumulated tradition, where something becomes exciting and anticipated simply because it’s always been.

 

With those forces on their side, even the most mundane items could become something magical. Even wonderful.

That’s a power I think the holidays still hold, though sometimes I think we’re in danger of inverting it. At a time that can be so special, we risk turning the magical into the ordinary.

It’s easy to do. We hurry and we hustle, weighed down with stress and worry and the accumulated cares of the world. December can all too easily become an obstacle course, one more list of things to do and accomplishments to check off before breathing a sigh of relief and packing it all off into the attic for another year.

We don’t stop. And look. And marvel.

Each night, someone somewhere has put out lights. They might be a soft gleam or a Disneyland glare, but it’s a moment of beauty free to any passerby. So routine we don’t think of it anymore.

Each day, you hear music you hear at no other time. And yes, some of it is silly or annoying or cringe-inducing. But some of it touches hearts and memories, different strains for different people. With me, “Good King Wenceslas” and “Here We Come A Wassailing” still bring back my English grandma; “Silent Night” still evokes my family decorating the tree while the vinyl-aided voice of John Denver explained the song’s origins.

Somewhere, always, small acts of decency and kindness and hospitality are offered and accepted, just because that’s what you do. It may not always be visible in a crowded parking lot (all things have their limits) but even if the practice sometimes falls short, the ideal is known and at least attempted. A training ground, maybe, for something quiet but vital.

Before the first bits of paper are torn and the first ribbons cut, these things and a hundred other ordinary things like them are the first gifts of the season. And if we can see the gift, if we can anticipate the gift and even desire to share it, we can re-awaken the magic all over again.

Christmas is coming. Check your gifts. The ones without labels and bows.

If you’re really lucky, there might even be some pajamas waiting for you.

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Angels Askew

As I looked at our freshly liberated Christmas tree in its brilliant, slightly scrunched glory, I couldn’t help remembering the long-familiar tale.

“And Lo, the angel of the Lord did look down from the heavens and said unto them … ‘Ouch! Should I not be two inches to the right?’”

Or maybe that’s just us.

You see, in most respects, our tree is pretty traditional. There are the thousand-and-one colored lights on every branch, carefully obscuring the burned-out strands that were built into the tree itself. There’s the 40 years of ornaments that invade every square inch, looking like the Ghost of Christmas Past got mugged in a yard sale. The cute and the memorable merge with the odd and bizarre (“Is that Holly Hobbie’s head?”), all of it arranged so that the wagging tail of Big Blake, the World’s Clumsiest Dog can’t hit anything fragile.

And presiding over all of it, bestowing its graceful presence on everything below, is our tree-topper angel—teetering dangerously forward as though she were about to leap from her place of heavenly glory and into a swimming pool far below. You know, the one at the first motel, where the angels did stay?

The reason for this perilous perch? Well, our home used to belong to Heather’s grandparents, and her English grandmother wanted one that had a Tudor “look.” So there’s a big, beautiful bay window in the front room, just perfect for framing a Christmas tree – and behind it, a series of thick brown beams projecting from the ceiling, one of them hanging above the exact center of the window.

So every year, we have to choose. We can either shift the tree off-center so that it can extend to its full glorious height, while triggering the OCD of every resident and passing driver. Or we can put the tree in its natural spot, where the angel of the Lord is squeezed into submission by a burst of misplaced architectural enthusiasm.

This year, we squeezed. In an odd way, it seemed fitting.

In the musical “1776,” Ben Franklin talked about how revolutions are brought into the world “half improvised and half compromised.” To my mind, it’s even truer of the Christmas season. Beneath the wonder and beauty – and sometimes not far beneath – is a constant tap dance of just making things work. We cover for lost or damaged decorations. We negotiate over whose turn it is to visit for dinner this year. We struggle to find enough hours in the day, dollars in the budget, or sanity in the mind to make everything work. Heck, even the original Christmas story featured a feed box that was pressed into services as a baby bed.

And somehow, we do make it work. Not because it’s picture-perfect. But because it’s ours, brought forth in love and desperation, cobbled together from what we have.

That’s Christmas. That’s family. That’s life.

And despite all the choices and compromises – or maybe even because of them – it often still becomes something wonderful. A bit strange, maybe. But wonderful all the same.

There’s an odd kind of peace in that. A chance to truly “be not afraid” and see things from a more forgiving perspective.

In fact, we may be right on the beam.

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Putting In a Good Word

The text from home caught me by surprise. It seems we’d gotten a special gift, and not via UPS or the U.S. Postal Service.

Missy had added a new word to her vocabulary.

“We’re watching Christmas videos,” my wife Heather wrote me, “and the Hallelujah Chorus was on and she sang ‘Hallelujah’ clearly.”

I blinked. And blinked again. And smiled.

For those who are new to this column, Missy is our disabled ward. She’s my age, but can seem much younger, especially since she’s a lady of few words, some of which do double duty. “Book” can refer to our reading time, or to an inquiry about where her purse is. “I wan’ a pop” can mean that she wants a soda from the fridge, or that she thinks it’d be cool to have a fast food night.

Sometimes, when her emotions are high, the words get more numerous and clearer. (The most infamous was when she told her father, after a near-accident on the road, “Damn it, Frank, are you trying to ****ing kill me?”) And in the six and a half years since Heather and I moved in, we’ve noticed how much she really understands and seen some additions to the vocabulary.

But going from the usual words and phrases to “Hallelujah” … well, even for someone who loves Christmas as much as Missy does, that’s a big leap.

I’ll admit, when something like that happens, there’s a temptation to doubt the miracle. The little voice in your head starts whispering “It was a coincidence. You want to hear it. You’re just making assumptions.”

Except … that same night, Missy and I went out on our near-daily Christmas light run. And as we observed the golden trees, and the sparkling roofs, and the Santas dressed in hula skirts, a really sickly-sweet cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” came on the radio.

And as the chorus came up, Missy echoed “Hallelujah.” It was slightly swallowed in the middle, but unmistakable.

Did you know your jaw can get sore from dropping it too many times in one day?

In an odd way, this underlined what I love best about the holiday season – how a seemingly ordinary moment can suddenly become extraordinary.

Snow transforms a landscape you’ve seen a thousand times into something new and amazing.

Lights and decorations turn a row of ordinary homes into something that shatters the winter night and brings smiles or laughter.

And so many stories from so many faiths celebrate the same kind of transformation, whether it’s a seemingly ordinary flask of oil stretching to eight days of devotion, or a seemingly ordinary family that suddenly becomes the start of a message to the world.

Like presents under a tree, the ordinary holds surprises – and we’re usually not the ones who decide when to open them. The paper can fall away and the ribbons loosen at any moment, introducing something we never expected. Sometimes it’s just a moment’s reaction. Sometimes it’s life-changing.

I think we notice it a little more at this time of year. We pay better attention. So much is both new and long-familiar that we can slip out of our usual habits of thinking and see things that we might otherwise miss.

Sure, it’s easy to get too busy, or stressed, or maybe even overwhelmed with memories that hurt more than they cheer. But the moments are still there, whenever we’re ready to meet them. Sometimes even when we’re not ready.

Joy can ambush us from strange corners. It only takes one unexpected moment, and the day is suddenly new, and different, and wonderful.

And to that, I say hallelujah.