A Christmas Wish
From Ross Morse

My favorite Christmas memory cannot be summed up with one event, but with a multitude of Christmases spanning my early childhood.

If Santa Claus is Father Christmas then my “little Nana” will forever be Mother Christmas. “Little Nana” wasn’t, in fact, little. I remember her to stand towering over me at heights reserved for the early NBA days. We called her “little Nana” because her mom was “big Nana”. I never quite understood until my older years why this never sat well with “big Nana”, but nonetheless, “little Nana” had a lock on Christmas all year long. It seemed she would begin preparing for the next year’s Christmas as soon as the present year’s had passed. As the holidays drew nearer, my anticipation grew and grew.

We spent our Christmas Eves with “little Nana”. Memories come flooding back of a Christmas tree covered with Angel Hair, a roast pig complete with apple in mouth, a roast duck sans apple, aunts, uncles, cousins and goody bags... The goody bags were my little Nana’s greatest gift to us kids. Goody bags needn’t be reserved for after dinner or whatever other timeframe the parents would extend to us in order to maintain Seasonal civility. Goody bags were paper grocery store bags, filled with little trinkets and candies, a pre-cursor to the wonderfully large presents wrapped under the Christmas tree, the largest of which we all hoped was for us.

Little Nana understood very well that Christmas was meant for us children. I can’t recall a single gift she received, but I remember unwrapping red shoelace licorice, 2 liter bottles of Mt. Dew, and some evil toy that would only be allowed to be played with because little Nana gave it to us and she said it was “OK” as long as nobody wound up in the hospital for Christmas.

Little Nana taught me about how Christmas lasts all year long without saying a word. She almost singlehandedly shaped the way I see Christmas even now. I know no matter how hard I try, I won’t be able to master the holiday like she did, but she should know, no one ever will and I won’t stop trying.

My wish for you this Christmas is to feel the way I felt jumping in the car on my way to little Nana’s. And if you can’t feel that, I hope you’re feeling the way my little Nana felt when she saw all of us tearing through our goody bags.

Merry Christmas!