I wish
I'd purchased an Advent calendar this year. When I
was little, the wait for Christmas day was agonizing in time’s slow
crawl, and each miniature paper door marked a step forward, progress made
toward the bliss of ripping off the wrappings and ribbons masking the presents
under the tree.
Mystery
beckoned in rectangular boxes, those deep enough to hold a doll. Such packages were eyed with near lust,
turned, treasured, and checked for heft.
Long flat boxes that rustled when shaken were shoved aside. Probably clothes. But… maybe not. Nothing could be totally dismissed
because one couldn’t really tell.
That was part of the exquisite pleasure.
Sometimes
I would lie on my stomach beneath our Christmas tree’s fragrant pine limbs,
haloed by glowing multi-colored lights, my chin resting on my hands. While I yearned to know what lay
concealed in the surrounding parcels, I also sought to transport myself to the
scene captured in carved wooden figures in the crèche tucked at the tree’s
base. I’d close my eyes and seek
the chill of night under a black velvet sky in Bethlehem. I strove to conjure
steaming breath puffed from soft nostrils, bristly camel fur, wide brown cow
eyes fringed with dark lashes. The
scent of hay and manure. Rough men
drawing ragged robes tight over sinewy shoulders. And always, a radiance around a young mother holding her
baby.
When
Tucker and Casey were born, Dave and I regained the magic of the season. Santa resumed prominence on Christmas
Eve, and now, decades later, so easily can I picture Tucker in red feet-pajamas and toddler Casey
in a red flannel mop cap and nightie, both children dancing with excitement as
they listened for sleigh bells.
Oh, the anticipation in reading “The Night Before Christmas” and setting
out Santa’s snacks! I still have
the notes the kids’ wrote to him, their words spidery and crooked, haphazard on
the page, with polite inquiries about Santa’s summer and sleigh ride, an
invitation to cookies and milk, and the list of toy requests, lengthy enough to require
parental help to transcribe them.
The passage of days to that night were a joyful march of projects,
seasonal stories, baking, loving secrets, and the glitter-bright promise of
Advent calendar doors to open every morning.
Having
marked the past four months with chemo infusions, completion of each treatment
was cause for celebration, as sure as opening doors #1, 2, and 3. In My
Grandfather’s Blessings, Rachel Naomi Remen
writes of her grandfather’s belief that, “To be alive was to wait for the will
of God to reveal itself. And one
waited with curiosity. A sense of
adventure.” A sense that the next day, behind the next door, might be…who
knows? A doll? A puppet? New hair? A healthy body? How my wishes have changed!
At
this point, I feel a giddy bubbling inside. I no longer have the chemo countdown, and ahead lies the
return of energy, taste, enjoyment of food, my hair. By January, I should have about a half inch, by March, a
pixie cut. Well, a sparse pixie
cut. By May, my wig – for which I
have been so grateful – will be relieved of duty.
Until
then, there are presents to buy, the tree to decorate, parties to attend, the kids
coming home. So many blessings,
and I awake each day giving thanks for the potential it holds.
Next
year, I am definitely getting an Advent calendar.
* Yet another note: This year, I have one, and it's a beauty!
