December | 2021 | Eye-Dancers

Without question, Christmas was the most looked-forward-to day of the year for my family when I was growing up in Rochester, New York, in the 1980s. I look back at those days now with a sense of nostalgia that would have mystified my child-self. Back then, the 1980s were the alpha and the omega, the here and the when, the be-all and the end-all. Little did I realize in that last decade before email and the internet that at some future point, decades hence, popular culture would “look back” at the decade in which I spent my childhood and use it as the backdrop for television shows and movies. I wouldn’t have thought such a thing possible. When you’re ten or twelve, you are eternally young, and the world where you grow up is young with you. It feels like a forever state, a permanent condition of things. But of course it is not.

It is fleeting.

I blinked and the 1990s came and went. Then the 2000s. Then the 2010s. And here we are now, on the precipice of 2022. So many years. So many changes. Yet the memories remain. The traditions and stories and experiences of childhood linger, like woodsmoke on a winter wind. Enduring. Tangy. And real.

And while there were many traditions my family shared when I was a kid, the most festive ones revolved around Christmas.

It started with my mother. She had the most exuberant Christmas spirit in the neighborhood. One of (many) holiday traditions she started was shopping for the family Christmas tree the first Sunday every December. It was the same every year. She’d round us up early that Sunday morning, and we’d drive the family station wagon the mile and a half through the neighborhood to Wambach Farms, an old country store/farmstand that, during the Christmas season, had an enormous variety of Christmas trees for sale out on the back lot. We’d park the car and head right back to the lot, wasting no time to examine the trees.

It was serious business. We weren’t going to settle for just any tree. It had to be the perfect one. Not too tall, not too fat, not too thin. Just right. The process generally took twenty minutes to a half hour. We’d fan out–me, my two brothers, my sister, my parents–and scan the merchandise. Without fail, within a couple of minutes, someone would yell, “Hey! Everyone! Mom! I found it! This is our tree!” And we’d all go over to whoever exclaimed it, and, also without fail, the consensus would be to keep looking. “Nah, it’s too tall and skinny,” someone would say. “Who’s that tree?” “It looks like Bigelow (a colleague of my father’s at work). Or, “No way. That tree is too short and squat, like Reggie!” (a neighborhood dog). The hunt for the perfect tree went on.

Since we shopped for our tree when the store opened, early Sunday morning, there were usually very few other shoppers around. It was quiet, still, the frosty December air surrounding us like an icy embrace, breath smoking in front of us. And the excitement was palpable. It was an honor to be the one to discover the perfect tree.

And eventually, of course, someone did. It was one of those things, hard to define, difficult to establish a template or a set of exact parameters. Our trees from year to year did have some similar characteristics, but they were also different, unique, individualized. You just knew it when you saw it.

When we did, we’d check out–old Mr. Wambach making small talk with my parents at the register–and then we’d drive the tree home, my father tying it down in the trunk of the car. It would take hours to decorate. We’d spend the rest of Sunday morning on it. And when it was done, the Christmas season in our house would officially begin.

Every year in the 1980s, we repeated this Christmas ritual. And yes, at the time, it felt eternal. Every year would be the same. It would never change. Ever. The mind of a child, a kid growing up, lucky to be secure in his family and surroundings, living in the moment of his youth.

The thing is, those days are eternal. They endure. In my mind, and in my heart. They will never grow old.