The Christmas Family

 

 Men ought always to pray and not to faint. Luke 18:1 KJV

 

When I was in the second grade, one of my best pals was nicknamed Dirt. He was still in first grade. He hung out with the older bad boys at the pool hall my Uncle Tony owned. I'm not sure how that happened or why, since they were a decade his senior. He was tough as nails, for a first grader. They'd do cool stuff to him, like put their big leather belts around his neck and pick him up and hold him a foot off the ground. He just wiggled about like a pinata and protested while they laughed and pointed. Dirt already knew how to inhale. He smoked Marlboro Reds, just like Father Gilbride down at the Sacred Heart of Jesus. We both attended our Catechism classes there together. At 6 years old, Dirt already had the faint beginnings of a mustache. 

But second grade is where you make big changes, having already learned a ton about life in kindergarten and first. That's when I tried changing my name from 'Raymond' to 'Richard'. Clearly, a way better name. We didn't have "Brock's" or "Tyler's" back then, just saint names. Except for Raymond. I took a lot of flack for not being named for a real saint and stuff. Who ever heard of Saint Raymond? Later in life I discovered that he was saint of the coal bin and the ashes.

 

I didn't do it immediately, but first adding a middle initial of R, then both full names on my papers, then putting 'Richard' first and finally dropping the Raymond altogether. Mrs. Bagley, my second grade teacher, finally confronted me. it was close to Christmas and she was wearing reindeer antlers at the time. "OK, is your name Raymond or is it Richard?", she finally demanded. That ended that. It was about that time when I told my mom I was going to grow out my sideburns into lamb chops, like Elvis and our local hot-rodder, Dippy DePew. Like I said, big changes. I can't remember why I never did.

Dirt's mom was a nurse trying to raise three boys on her own. Dirt got his olive skin and jet black hair from her. My buddies and I exchanged covert winks behind her back. If she caught us, she would roll her eyes and whack us in the side of the head and that was OK. 

 

Dirt and his brothers threw up a few lights on the bush by the front porch and an aluminum tree with blue lights, but Christmas was just a nice winter break from school for them. Divorce meant you lost your Midnight Mass flash pass down at the Sacred Heart of Jesus, so I never saw them there. For some families in my neighborhood, Christmas was a holy, sacred family time. Others like Dirt, just rode their bikes up to Danny's Market, the only store open on Christmas Day, to get mom a pack of Salem's like any other day

Tanks family was different. For them, Christmas was sacred. Food was sacred, family was sacred and there was a lot of liquid cheer in many forms. People were always coming and going and talking loud. The smells from Nona's kitchen was incredible. The though of that combination of pastas and sauces and tripe and meats and breads and alter wine still has me salivating. I thought they were all angry and yelling, but understood later that they were just Italian. Now I realize it was probably both. No matter, Christmas was a raucous and family time. 

 

On Christmas Eve, Uncle Chet or one of the other WWII vets from the VFW would dress as Santa and ride slowly around the neighborhoods on top of the Borough fire truck with a giant spotlight on him and the siren wailing. If he stopped at your house, you fainted. Cataplexy. It was that simple. I got a giant Tonka truck delivered when I was four, so I know this firsthand. If Santa were to come down my street tonight atop a fire truck with blaring siren and spotlight, the hair on my arms would probably still stand up like it did then. 

 

Riding atop a fire truck served another purpose though, for at every house that Santa stopped to drop a toy, a shot or highball was waiting for him. After 8pm, all bets were off. Any contact Santa made with an open flame would have resulted in a massive flare-up and ensuing explosion of red and white polyester fluff. The fire truck was considered best practice.

 

The result was that a lot of us grew up missing the point of Christmas because of these paradoxical extremes. One tries to create perfection in a holiday and world where there is none and the other denies there is anything evil the world.

 

The two best Christmas movies of all time depict the Christmas family in similar, yet diametric ways, and I watch them both every year. One depicts the bad possible in a world without us and the other, the good in the world possible for our being here. In both movies, the protagonist teaches us an important lesson about family, friends and Christmas. George Bailey demonstrates that you can lose yourself and your dreams, hurt your family and friends, and still find forgiveness, confirming that you can go on to live a meaningful and happy life in the process. George teaches us that the world would be a darker place without us, if we live out the Christmas Spirit the other 364 days of the year. 

In stark contrast, yet no less powerfully, Jack Campbell is given the gift of a powerful ‘glimpse’ of what it means to be a Family Man. This occurs after a chance encounter with a ‘different kind of angel’ over a lottery ticket in a Manhattan convenience store. He's no George Bailey, and his angel is no Clarence, but they teach us that no matter where we are in life this Christmas, we can change. This film gives us a glimpse of what is offered in the power of change with the snow falling behind Kate and Jack at the airport. Yet life offers us no guarantee of the outcome.

This Christmas, try your best to give your family members the benefit of the doubt, even if you feel they don’t deserve it. I can tell you for certain that ours will be so much better this year for having done so.