Christmas is so wonderful.

Wednesday, December 19, 2001

Christmas is so wonderful. I look forward to Christmas each year with the same anticipation as I did when I was a child.

In those days, I would join many others of my age in feigning being good boys and girls for at least a week prior to Christmas. This acting had a tendency to cause irritability in some of the lesser-dedicated youth among us. Good behavior did not come easy for all. If being a kid were a job, I’d have been fired from it.

Each year, my mother would take me to visit a department store Santa. &uot;Tell Santa what you want,&uot; I’d be told. I thought Santa should know what I wanted. Santa was supposed to be an expert on Christmas. It was his job. The store Santa often came equipped with strange smells of cigarettes, beer and cheap aftershave. His costume and his beard never quite fit him properly, his beard skewed to one side as though his chin had made a 90-degree turn.

Each year, I’d tell Santa that I wanted a squirrel monkey -&160;the one I had seen advertised in the back of a comic book. I would read comic books in the barbershop, this activity being a very important part of my educational process. I hoped for that gift every year, but really didn’t expect to receive it. Gift giving is not a very democratic process.

Santa would tell me to be a good boy or I would be sorry that I had ever heard of Santa. I would leave milk and sugar cookies out for Santa the night before Christmas. I don’t think Santa ever got them. Christmas morning, Dad had crumbs on his flannel shirt and was sporting a milk moustache. Coming downstairs, I would see the brightly wrapped presents under the Christmas tree. Each would be covered with a fine layer of pine needles shed by our discount tree. Encouraged by the sight, I would close my eyes and make a Christmas wish. I knew that the gifts would not be everything I desired.

The problem with children is that they grow too fast and are always in need of new clothes. This clothing all too often finds itself inside Christmas gift-wrapping. Our Christmas day tradition was to wait for the extended family to come for a huge midday meal. There was food enough to feed an army. We had things called the kids’ tables. They were dreadful little card tables with spindly, folding legs. The women of the family got a lot of exercise hauling food back and forth between the tables.

We were merry. Giggles came easy and stopped hard for the patrons of those kids’ tables. The adults often became distracted by our enthusiasm and found the need to yell, &uot;Don’t make me come over there!&uot; at us. The dog would sit near our table and sigh, waiting impatiently for the spills it knew would come. Sooner or later one of the smaller children would exclaim, &uot;I’m sick to death of creamed peas!&uot; and would give one of the table legs, weakened by the weight of all the food, a kick. All the food on the entire table would fall into my lap. I was so glad when I became old enough to sit at the grown-up’s table.

The meal finished, we would have to wait for the dishes to be washed and dried. This was an interminable process. Finally, after what seemed like days, we tore into the presents. It wasn’t an easy process. Do you open the big ones or the small ones first? Some of us felt the need to shake each present before opening it. Us kids were like a mosquito in a nudist colony; we knew what we were going to do, we just didn’t know where to start.

We played with our new toys and we played with the new toys of others. Little green army men dropped like flies -&160;those who live by the sword die by the sword. It took a good toy to live through Christmas Day.

Everyone wished everyone else a merry Christmas. My mother would say the word, &uot;Christmas,&uot; in a way that made it into a complete sentence. Her face would light up with the true meaning of Christmas. My father would teach us that how much you loved someone should never be measured by the price paid for gifts. If only we had known then what we sometimes forget today. You can never tell people that you love them too often. It truly is a wonderful life. Happy holidays.

Hartland resident Al Batt writes columns for the Wednesday and Sunday editions of the Tribune.