Remembering When Christmas Was Slow

This is an excerpt from Bill’s book, “Some Assembly Required: A Daddy’s Christmas Book”….To order copies, return to the home page!

           My late Momma had a wonderful phrase. "Slow as Christmas," she would say, as in, "Son, I've told you three times to get dressed for school! Lord have mercy, you are as slow as Christmas!"

            I knew exactly what Momma meant. When I was a little boy, Christmas was mighty slow in coming.

            Nearly 50 years ago, when I was a child, life was slower, particularly in my hometown of Memphis. We didn't have e-mails or cell phones or express pizza deliveries. We took our own sweet time, thank you, whether we were shelling butter beans or swatting mosquitoes or just sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair listening to the crickets chirp.

            Life was particularly slow during the Christmas season. It was, in fact, as slow as Christmas.

            When I was a little boy, I thought Christmas would never arrive. My long, agonizing Advent wait for Christmas day began each year in early November when our mailman would deliver a very special book that indicated that Christmas indeed was coming. I am referring, of course, to the second greatest book ever published, the Sears & Roebuck catalog.

            On a very special day each year in early November, I would come home from school to be greeted by Momma, who would smile and calmly say, "Well, it's here. It's on the kitchen table."

            I knew exactly what Momma was referring to. I knew that the Christmas Wish Book had arrived, thanks to Mr. Sears and Mr. Roebuck, God bless them!

            I would race to the kitchen, sit at the table, and frantically leaf through the pages of the Wish Book, staring longingly at color photographs of bicycles and electric football sets and hoola hoops and pogo sticks. As I looked through the Wish Book, I would suddenly become both Bob Cratchett and Ebenezer Scrooge, as I was filled with both Christmas spirit and Christmas greed.

            Shortly thereafter, I would make my own wish list, review it with my Momma (who always counseled me not to be greedy), and then compose my annual letter to Santa. Stretching things a bit, I would tell him I had been a good boy all year, and that I would sure appreciate it if he would call Mr. Sears and Mr. Roebuck, get a few special toys for me, and bring them down our family's chimney on Christmas Eve. Of course, I always had to remind Santa that we didn't have a chimney at our house, and therefore Momma would leave the back door open for him.

            And then, after mailing the letter to the North Pole with a carbon copy to Mr. Sears and Mr. Roebuck in Chicago, I would wait. And wait, and wait, and wait.

            When I was a child, the longest period of my life was the era between Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Eve. It seemed to last a yule tide eternity.

            We had a Rexall Drug Store calendar posted in our family kitchen. It was one of those calendars that gave the weather forecast for every day of the entire year. It was a very succinct forecast ("March 15-Blustery"), but it was a remarkable meteorological achievement given the fact that the weatherman for the Rexall Company had to predict the weather a year in advance. These days, TV weathermen give a five day forecast. But in those days, the Rexall weatherman gave a 365 day forecast.

            Each day from Thanksgiving through December 24, I would painstakingly take a red pen and mark the day off on the Rexall calendar as if I were an inmate in the Christmas prison, hoping to get a reprieve from either the Governor, or in this case, Santa Claus.

            Momma liked to sing "The September Song", which featured the lyric that "the days grow short when you reach September." Well, as far as I was concerned, they should have written a Christmas sequel called "The November Song", which would feature the lyric, "the days grow long again when you reach Thanksgiving."

            No doubt about it, in those days, the holiday season moved like a glacier. And when, at long last, December 24th would finally arrive, it would turn out to be the longest day and night of the year.

            I can still remember trying to go to sleep on Christmas Eve. It was like trying to take a nap after guzzling a Starbucks Venti Double Latte. Momma and her kerchief and Daddy in his cap may have settled down for a long winter's nap, but in my tiny little bed, I was about as calm as a Christmas hummingbird.

            And then, a few hours after I would finally fall asleep, Christmas Day would suddenly and magically arrive. It would come long before sunrise in the darkness of our family living room. I would tiptoe past Momma and Daddy's bedroom, quietly plug in the Christmas tree lights, and miraculously, several items from the Sears & Roebuck catalog would appear at my feet.

            Fifty years later, nothing is slow anymore, especially Christmas. This holiday season has been the most frantic and stressful that I can ever remember. I can't quite figure it out, but it seems this year Thanksgiving came late and so Christmas arrived early.

            I have spent the last few weeks fighting traffic, rushing through crowded shopping malls, and eating everything in sight in a series of fast-paced Christmas parties.

            But there is a beautiful little girl who lives in my house. She is my daughter, her Royal Highness the Princess. For the Princess, the holiday season is not a frantic stressful time. It is agonizingly slow. Everyday she asks me, "Daddy, will Christmas ever be here?"

            "Yes," I tell her. "Christmas is coming, Princess. It will be here soon."

            And when I look into her eyes and see that glorious anticipation, I remember a time nearly 50 years ago when the holiday season was so wonderfully slow.

            As the Princess's grandmother used to say, it was as slow as Christmas.