HOLIDAY HEART

For Dad, our Christmases held all the magic, the opportunity and the pleasure he missed as a child of the Depression. The tree was front and center, presents were many, stacked high; gifts of the heart and traditions like giant candy canes, Andes candies and Lifesaver Storybooks for each child, fudge for me, cherry cordials for Mom. He could make a million presents out of small nothings. And there was nothing he liked better than playing Santa on Christmas morning as we - one at a time - opened presents, ate cinnamon rolls and smelled the turkey cooking.

Although he has been gone now for fifteen years, Christmas is such a cherished time for me that in sixty-two years I have never missed being home for the holiday.

But I'm having trouble finding my holiday heart this Christmas.

A few short weeks ago an old acquaintance lost his miserably brief encounter with glioblastoma. And among our LiveStrong family, one has this month gone into hospice, one will be leaving us as I write, for one we have moved the Christmas gifts to this weekend and three are in that awful "suspect I am about to need hospice" place.

Elizabeth Edwards, Aretha Franklin, Ron Santo...this week alone.

My head knows I should grieve and then return to the fight with renewed determination. My head knows that allowing cancer to destroy even more of life than it already has gives it power it should not have. My head knows that honoring those who lived with cancer and are gone means living without quiting. My head knows that withdrawing from my life dishonors those who had no choice. My head knows that failure to use my rage and despair to change the course of this insidious disease is failing to dignify the long and painful journey of others.

My heart knows sorrow, grief, anger, bitterness and wrath - the violence of which pushes holiday spirits aside.

A still, small voice of reason reminds me that as the children glow with awe and anticipation, as quiet comfort is shared by family and friends, as the season's songs echo sweet refrains, as hope for a finer future arises; weariness will recede leaving room for the holiday spirit to once more inhabit my heart.

Maybe not yet, but surely.

ALL GROWN UP CHRISTMAS

With some amazement, a great deal of gratitude and not a little sadness, I have just realized that five days shy of my sixtieth birthday I will celebrate my first Christmas which will not include the presence of any children on Christmas Day.

Like many families, the Christmas tradition runs long and deep in ours. I had nearly reached a half century before a Christmas arrived when my parents, my sisters and our respective children were not all together. Not until that year did I become truly aware that our long standing ability to gather on Christmas was rare and privileged. For almost forty years my family came together from near and far to our childhood home. When Mom and Dad moved to my two thousand mile away city, only the location changed. Even the year one sister was recovering from cancer surgery we simply moved the site but not the celebration.

Over the years we had lots of guests, related and not, delivered cheer and gifts to those less fortunate and tried hard to honor the spirit of the season. Through good fortune and hardship we always had the family holiday and the season itself seemed to wrap us in a blanket of invincibility to an inevitable growth and subsequent geographical drift of family.

Holding us together was my Father, the genuine Santa Claus. Product of the Great Depression and seasoned in World War II, Christmas was the way in which he expressed his abounding delight and love, first for his family and then for his American Dream world. And while his generosity lasted all year round, Christmas provided the excuse to gift friends and family in abundance.

His most important gifts taught us that it was the thought that counted, that little things mattered and that traditions could be built around the simplest of gifts. Three delighted little girls became three grown sisters who still gift each other one large candy cane, one box of Andes Candies, one Lifesavers Stories box; who wrap in multiple layers, who's trees are piled with wrapped - but not always neatly - gifts of love. On Christmas morning gifts are opened individually, in rotating order so that each may be properly considered and applauded (oohs and ahs here, please) by recipient and onlooker alike. We were still young children when the pleasure of giving...thinking of, devising, planning, wrapping, making, finding the perfect gift...surpassed the pleasure of gifts received.

And so, around my half century mark, the flow of life began to change. One sister and her family could not make it home. My father died. My daughter married and had two families to honor. Christmas traditions remained, but the tides of change moved more swiftly now.

The single constant, I have belatedly realized, was the presence of children; mine, my sister's, my grandchildren. This year, the whims of time have conspired to leave my child and grandchildren as well as my sister, niece and nephew thousands of miles away.

And I'll admit this make me pretty blue. I still believe. Believe that Christmas should be seen through the eyes of a child, that hugging a child is the best Christmas breakfast, that adult wonder never quite matches that of a child, that quiet is not the proper atmosphere for Christmas morning, that Christmas can be special but is incomplete without a child present.

I also believe that life changes, that times are what they are, that one must never waste the present no matter what your circumstances, that quiet holidays are likely in the future, that love and children and Christmas can reach across the miles even when your heart is aching to touch. I believe in every word of "I'll be home for Christmas if only in my dreams."

Father's handmade, six foot Christmas star hangs on my home, our lights will twinkle and our tree will bend but not break loaded with all our child-made or family heirloom ornaments. My 2007 Christmas family, six adults, will wake Christmas morning with true holiday spirit; then with love and warmth for those present or absent, honor tradition, rejoice in the present and begin claiming the future.