A Bittersweet Christmas Story Dick Cavett

[elleng]

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/24/a-bittersweet-christmas-story/

[hlthe2b]

1. Cavett certainly has a way of breaking right through to the issue...

and wiping away the myth-making we all do around our Christmas memories.

The comments are interesting as well... This one was especially poignant:

DeathbyInches
Arkansas
December 25th, 2010
3:32 pm
The Christmases of my childhood meant a very long car ride from wherever we were living to spend Christmas with my mother's family in a small town in Missouri. From my great grandparents on down and sideways, they were all simple working folks. The epicenter was my great grandparent's 3 room tar paper shack they had lived in since 1910. Somehow upwards of 45 relatives would meet not only for Christmas but for every other holiday of the year.

In a lean-to kitchen built onto the back, Granny would fix enough food for 80 on an apartment size propane fueled stove that sat next to a tiny 1930s refrigerator, between the 2 appliances was a small counter top space containing a porcelain covered tin wash bowl she used as a sink. Above the wash bowl was a plain cold water spigot, the only water supply in the house, also bereft of any bathroom facilities. Somehow that little old woman wove a Christmas dinner fit for a king, but loaves and fishes style, able to feed as many who showed up....year after year after year.

Being the out of town child, I reaped the most attention and literally my skin would be sore an hour after our car pulled onto the property. Mom's family invented kissing and hugging and patting....their pure simple love falling on me in abundance. I would learn later that the assembled 45 did a fair amount of fussing and sniping at each other through the year, but that was all put away on Christmas. Aunt Tiny was excused for all her high & mighty ways, the drinkers held up their drinking, the unhappily married pretended to be in love and the bank accounts were emptied to make sure every child had too many presents to unwrap under the tiny tree in the living room.

Very simply, it was the greatest Christmas atmosphere to be found on earth and amazingly I have zero memories of anyone slipping up by causing a ruckus. Like Mr. Cavett, I never thought of and still can't believe all those people are gone. There are only 8 of us left and we only gather to bury. My wife and I have always done our best to provide our 2 children with very merry Christmases and have had success in a modern way, I guess. But only I know what my children have missed. They'll always remember happy times with 5 of us scattering wrapping paper on Christmas morning. Now that my mother is gone, there are only 4, plus 2 boyfriends. We'll have a happy time later this morning, but if only I could magically add 40 more relatives to the mix, then my children might have a glimpse of what Christmas day was for me.....lucky lucky me!