1963

“Christmas Hurts ”

Christmas 1963

By Charles Moon

     I was 4. I was just beginning to get an idea that this time of year was something special. Even at this age, though, I felt something was amiss with our version of Christmas. We were one of only two Christian families in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood. There were virtually no decorations of any sorts outside. Inside wasn’t much better. My mother unceremoniously erected a small artificial tree with a single strand of lights, set out a few antique decorations passed down from my father’s side of the family, and played Christmas music. It was the music more than anything else that told me and my older brother Terry that Christmas was coming. My mother would play scratchy old vinyl records of both popular and religious carols on the one piece of furniture – a console stereo -- in our otherwise sparsely furnished house in Northeast Philadelphia. While the music was playing, she would sing, and for those moments everything was perfect and happy. She had a way of making you feel that way.

      Dad was not such a person by any stretch of the imagination. How a baby-faced self-absorbed Presbyterian Minister had ever made this hot-blooded Italian angel fall in love with him is beyond me, but at four years old, I never considered the mismatch that was my parents.

      Being a clergyman meant that we lived in the church’s house which, at times, seemed deliberately placed in the middle of a non-Christian neighborhood. He was paid very little for his services, but that lack of a mortgage seemed to offset the poor income, except at Christmas when there was a greater pressure on his time and emotions. He had to host several holiday functions as part of his duties as pastor, which included most of his congregation. While the church provided the facility and the food, he was responsible for the invitations and postage. He had to organize volunteers to serve at the events and oversee all the services. This was all in addition to his increased preaching schedule at this time of the year, which compelled him to drive to every nursing home, hospital and shelter to make sure that the spiritual needs of these people were met as well. It left very little for his family – very little money for gifts, very little compassion after empathetically dealing with the sorrows of his flock and, most importantly, very little time for us.

      Mom understood this as part of her duties as a preacher’s wife, but we only knew he became dark and distant at this time of the year.

      Mom sang out a resounding chorus of “I Saw Three Ships” as she placed the last of the unbroken ornaments on the little tree. She called Terry and me up from the basement and turned out the lights so we could sit and stare at the sparkling green cone lit only by the colored bulbs draped over the sagging branches. Terry knew better than I that it was Christmas Eve and the ritual of the lighting of the tree meant it was time for bed. I was getting excited because Christmas morning meant a trip to Grandma’s house, over the bridge in New Jersey.

      What wonderful memories I have of that house and its residents. The moment you walked in the door, the aroma of food would grab your senses and drag you into the kitchen, where Grandma sat playing solitaire, drinking coffee and letting her fifth cigarette burn down to the filter, unsmoked, in the ashtray. Behind her the stove was loaded with every imaginable pot, pan and kettle, bubbling and simmering, mixing aromas of the bountiful feast with a Tarryton 100.

      Grandpop, that cheerful old patriarch, sat in the living room with his floppy eared cocker spaniel, stuffing money into Christmas envelopes. When my mom appeared in the doorway with us, his face lit up at the sight of his daughter and only grandsons. My dad was still fussing with the packages in the car in a feeble attempt to shorten the amount of actual time he’d have to spend with his in-laws. They always thought mom could have done better in her choice of a husband and never let the opportunity pass to remind dad. These forced family gatherings were another reason he became sullen at this time of year.

      In the past years, my aunt and uncle along with my cousin Sarah would arrive shortly after we showed up. The rest of the day was spent in my grandparent’s house with free flowing food, presents and playing, interrupted only by the frequent visitors showing up at the front door to extend their holiday greetings. Grandma and Grandpop were very well known and liked in the neighborhood, so everyone seemed to stop by. Even at the age of four, something seemed very right about it.

      This year was a little different. My cousin Sarah had a new baby sister and she was much too young to be thrown into the mix of festivities and gawking strangers, or so was the explanation as to why we would be having dinner at my uncle’s house this year. For me, Christmas was not so entrenched of a routine that this deviation would bother me, but for the rest of the family, it seemed almost tragic not to have the day spent here.

      Grandpop packed the car with Grandma’s cooking and drove it the five blocks to my uncle’s house while we walked in the fine Christmas day air. Cold and brisk, you could see your breath, but it wasn’t a biting cold. Dad silently walked along by himself, 10 feet or so behind the group.

      Aunt Mary and Uncle Stuart lived in a house in the same neighborhood as my grandparents. The house was built about the same time, kept in the same well maintained condition and was about the same size. It seemed smaller to me. My cousin Sarah ran halfway down the block without her coat to greet us, and Terry and I ran ahead to meet her. Soon we were in their house playing and running and creating the cacophonous din of three young children at Christmas.

      My littlest cousin, Barbara, was the focus of all the attention, just lying there making noises. The adults found nothing more pleasing than to watch her wiggle on a blanket spread out on the floor. It gave us the opportunity to play longer and louder while our parents were preoccupied with the baby.

      Dinner was served in a random and disorganized manner. Grandma’s food in Aunt Mary’s kitchen was not a good mix. Neither wanted to relinquish their control of the meal so it was carried out as a joint effort. At times it seemed like a pair of air traffic controllers who held differing opinions of how the planes should be arriving. My cousin, brother and I were much more interested in playing our own games than getting involved in theirs.

      After dinner we were preparing to return to my Grandparent’s house when Uncle Stuart reached under their Christmas tree and produced an unopened package for Terry and myself. After a nod from mom, giving us permission to open the gifts, we tore open the paper each to find a plastic bag filled to the point of bursting with small green army figures. There were four different styles of figures. The most common was a standing soldier with legs braced holding a bayoneted rifle as if frozen in the act of thrusting it into his enemy. There were equal quantities of a soldier standing with his arm stretched back in the process of tossing a grenade, and a kneeling soldier sighting down the barrel of his rifle. The remaining few figures were of a soldier in the prone position holding the butt of an automatic rifle whose barrel was propped up by a tripod. Tucked into each bag were several military vehicles. I got a jeep and a truck, Terry got a half-track and a motorcycle.

      Mom and dad clearly disapproved of these gifts, much to the delight of both myself and Uncle Stuart. As a minister, he was required to speak out and counsel against violence of every type. Mom was a pacifist in her own right. That meant that toys that had any kind of violent connotation were not to be found in the Branch household. Uncle Stuart, a retired Marine Corps drill sergeant, had no problem in giving gifts to his nephews that his sister objected to.

      The toys themselves were forbidden fruit and therefore playing with them openly made it twice as sweet. Terry and I played with those diminutive soldiers the rest of the day and for months afterwards. We would bunch up a blanket and use its folds and bulges to represent the valleys and ridges of a foreign mountain range. Or, we would play along the seam of the carpet as it transitioned into the linoleum flooring of the kitchen, pretending it was the ocean meeting the coastline. We fought mock battles against each other and joined forces to vanquish and invisible foe. Mom eventually softened her position on the toys. Dad never said another word about them.

This is the first memory of any kind that I have about Christmas.

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