Reflections on turning 50 and Christmases past

By STACY WOLFORD

MVI Managing Editor

Fifty years seems to have gotten here awfully quickly. I still remember my younger days vividly, and it seems like yesterday I was playing kickball in the front yard with skinned-up knees with the neighborhood kids or packing my trusty Smith Corona typewriter and Aqua Net hairspray and off to college I went to pursue my career in journalism. Or becoming a mother and having my sons. Or watching them grow up in the blink of an eye and create their own lives. Or saying goodbye to loved ones that meant the world to me. 

And now, here it is Christmas again.

One minute it’s summer holidays, vacations and enjoying the sun, and then, just like that, it’s time to crawl into the attic and get the Christmas decorations out and get ready for the long winter ahead. 

Is it just me, or is Christmas coming around faster every year?

I suppose I am now sounding like a true middle-ager, pondering where time went and starting sentences with, “Just wait until you get to be my age,” or shuffling through the house muttering under my breath, “Where the heck did I leave my glasses?” Or walking in circles and asking our dogs, “Why did I come into this room?”  

Of course, as I do every December, I have come down with a bad case of nostalgia. Turning 50 this year made those memories of days gone by even more important for me to hold onto.

While Christmas is a joyful time, for many of us Christmas is bittersweet. Many are grieving the loss of a loved one or family members estranged from the family.

Someone, it seems, is always missing, someone with whom we once shared Christmas and without whom Christmas seems a shade paler than before.

But even as I lament those who won’t be with us on Christmas Day, I know that all of them will. We’ll do what families do, plugging the holes in Christmas present with memories of Christmases come and gone, telling stories to conjure up the ghosts and fill the aching void in our hearts. 

If you had a magical snow globe that you shook and suddenly was filled with your Christmas memories, what scenes would be found there?

I see my Gram dressed up as Santa on Christmas Eve stopping at our house to deliver a bag full of gifts to place under our aluminum Christmas tree covered in icicles and handmade ornaments. 

I’m transported back to Hills department store in Belle Vernon, where the aroma of freshly roasted peanuts hits you as soon as you walk in. My Mom is holding mine and my sister’s hands as we walk up and down the aisles hoping Santa will gift us with the latest Barbie or Cabbage Patch Doll.

Fast forward to my days as a young mother holding my owns boys’ hands and trying my best to keep them neat and clean in their matching Christmas suits for their annual photos at the Kmart Portrait Studio. 

There were no photo filters back then, no trips to picturesque fields and barns with petting zoo animals to stage “the perfect photo” for a bunch of strangers to see and comment on via social media. Just five or six backdrops and a photographer rushing you out so the next family could take your spot. And guess what, every imperfect photo was perfect!

Shake that snow globe again and I can almost smell my Mom’s ham baking in the oven as my siblings and I watched “A Christmas Story” for the umpteenth time. I can hear the pitter-patter of my boys’ little feet in their Christmas jammies running down the steps with wide eyes and wild hair looking to see if Santa came.

It’s funny how we tend to forget all the stress, chaos and worry that often leads up to Christmas. Somehow, someway, my Mom always made sure we had the best Christmas. I always tried to do the same. 

But as time marches on, it’s not the gifts that were under the tree I remember the most, it’s the little moments, the ones not captured on a camera, that I keep close to my heart. 

I guess the important thing is to remember that time can fly by and before you know it, a half century is in the rearview mirror. 

So shake that snow globe again and envision your most treasured Christmas memories. I guarantee they are not about the gifts we received or the food we ate, but the time spent with those we love. 

In the wise words of the Grinch, “Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

Stacy Wolford is managing editor of the Mon Valley Independent.