I suppose had I never rowed down a river I would not miss it, and having never done it I would, of course, not have an inkling of what I'd missed out on. Maybe I would visit a river and see the boats bobbing by, the oars slicing the water into sleek silver slabs and the rhythm of the swirls glinting behind each oar stroke. I might meet a guide and hear what a jolly life it is there on the river, the joy in their voice in telling me about doing what they truly loved to do, or maybe in the dentist's office waiting room catch a glimpse in a travel magazine of some fabulous glossy whitewater adventure spread of happy faces of a happy family being happily splashed. But I would have no inkling.When I was growing up Christmas was for me pretty much the euphoria and hope-filled balloon that now belongs to my son Finn. He spends hours drawing elaborate pictures of a Christmas tree and presents bedecking the neath side of it: there is the small red pickup truck ornament, the airplane, and big balls of various colors. And the star we made last year, finally, when he could stand it no longer that our tree was star-less. Christmas trees have stars, they just have to! he said and so it does. He believes in Santa, but you saw that coming. Having never not had a Christmas, of course he does, and you see too now where this is going. What I wish, because I still harbor my own Christmas-replete-with-Santa dreams, is that when he was old enough to notice more than his little beanie toes and first saw that there was this annual hoopla of gifts and cookies and secrets hidden and suddenly exposed on one particular bright day, was that we had done it differently. Now do not get me wrong: Mr. Claus I certainly do believe in and hanker for but Ms. Frugal is also and has always been my alter ego; at one point I was asked by another mom if we were Quakers or Seventh Day Adventists or for the name at least of whatever deprivation sect, The Cult of Not Too Many Toys to which we obviously belonged. No, I just thought if we gave him too much we would not be giving him anything. Having once had everything I know a thing or two about having nothing.
And so Finn is genuinely enthused (okay, gleeful, ecstatic, overcome with joy) because unlike the checkout line where there has never been the unexpected, unplanned something or other wheeling down to the sack, there on Christmas day he will and has, found toys. Just for him. Toys, and candy, and small unusual things only this mom would think to wrap and bestow. So of course the child loves Christmas. Last year the cross country skis he asked Santa for, this year Dear Santa, I have been pretty good he hopes hopes hopes it will be a real telescope.
And for me? well, Christmases fell short, far far short in my below middle income growing up home, but not in an awful Paris Hilton give me more! more! more! way. I have only the happiest memories of our tree, always real, even the years my mom did without something she needed so that it would be real, because that is what I asked for each year (plus a horse, even one year I swore I would settle for a mule). It was looped and entwined and plastered with the big strangely fat glittered antique balls someone had given my parents as a wedding gift, the felt Snoopy, the pinecone Santa, and the red plastic boot from my first grade teacher Mrs. Smith, all kept in tissue in a pear box. I was the family cookie baker and even in high school eschewed dates and parties with friends to plummet my interest into flour and sprinkles. We did not get fabulous gifts. Mom would get some small appliance, which I thought wholly unromantic and I am sure she did too, but she never let on. My grandparents would have wrapped a new flannel nightgown and hankies in white tissue and a ribbon for me and for my sister, who hid hers under her bed later in the day. I had a thing about wanting to read a Christmas story and play carols on the stereo and invite the neighbors for hot cider (we lived in Florida), all of which my older sister deplored and despised and refused to participate in. Still, I held onto those notions, probably due to too many readings of Little Women, and even years later on my own I dreamed of the perfect Christmas.
There would be snow. And skiing, early before breakfast even, and through the trees, gifts of seeds and nuts for the woodland creatures (I'm not kidding here, this is my dream after all), and then a breakfast of stollen and Swedish Christmas bread. And then presents. Thoughtful, meaningful, gifts, not too many, but tasteful. Cashmere, a Filson something-or-other for the menfolk, oh! a Barbour waxed cotton field coat, and that teensy perfect blue Tiffany box. Burberry in the stocking, just because! It's Christmas, darling! Then a lovely day, skiing and lunch at the Cook Shack (my Christmas has now migrated to Vail) and dinner at Silverheels.
And I had that Christmas once. It was not a Tiffany box, but an exquisitely expensive and at that time, remarkably chic and unusual, watch. An amazingly soft sweater from an amazingly haute couture ski shop in Vail Village. A delicate collection of hand-crafted bird calls, and a pair of Leitz 10x20 binoculars. Thoughtful, tasteful, expensive. Christmas eve we had reservations at Silverheels, with time for ice skating afterwards and a final walk through the snow. All after a lovely day of skiing in Vail, shopping in the village, the life we could lead as ex-ski bums-turned trustfunders. It was lovely, genteel, enchanting, privileged, and as all those things usually are, flawed. But you saw that coming, of course. What I did not see coming was the flu, or that my then-husband had reserved as a special treat for you (this from my mother-in-law) a pair of custom Volkl downhill skiis, for our custom downhill Christmas Day, but that the shop needed me to demo just in case they might be able to up-sell him on the Lange boots and Marker poles, too. And new goggles! It was Vail, none of this shopping extravaganza was unusual. The first year we lived there, as first year ski bums with no money but plenty of work, some man in a big Stetson stood at the gondola steps and handed out $100 bills to each person he saw, an entire day, Merry Christmas, ya'll! he crowed in his soft Texan oil-slinging drawl. I taught skiing that year to a 5 year-old child who showed up in a full-length "ki-toe-tee" fur coat and whose parents tipped me $500. So yes, uh, Vail. The Vail Christmas of my dreams, replete with an adoring if not manic-depressive then-husband, and gifts to which I would look in the morning
after he had decked me, literally, on Christmas Eve and made me cry and caused passerby to look the other way and my jaw to ache for several years afterward. All because (1) I had the nerve to come down with a fever of 102 and did not, could not, want to ski, and (2) lunch at the Cook Shack was a bust, because of my flu, because I could not stomach the gourmet burger or the altitude, perhaps it was the flu meds, maybe it was the realization I was getting exactly what I'd wanted and my legs were so weak my ski turns were off and he had his heart set on seeing me ski the bumps on Look Ma in those new skis, and (3) how dare I suggest we call it a day after all his plans? after all, this was Christmas Eve and it was what one did on Christmas, when one was in Vail and money was no object, nor were people's feelings and sanity; the looks of the people in their cars when we stopped on I-70 so he could drag me from the passenger side of the car to lecture me how I had ruined the Christmas, ruined the perfect Christmas!
And this is what I would do differently, now, for my sweet child Finn, and for my now-husband of the soft and kind spirit, of the empty wallet and maxed out credit from too many medical bills and expensive albeit useless healthcare, and wealthy clients screaming about the cup-holder rattling in their Mercedes-Benz on the way to the airport, because they have a plane to catch to Vail! I tell you, I'll have your job when I write your boss I paid $150,000 for this car do you hear me!
There would be snow. One can hope, always hope; maybe he is old enough for my old, well-used binoculars, the ones through which I have seen many fine birds and lovely, exquisite things: eagles skimming the water so closely they shimmer the surface, the phalarope that wandered into the canyon then spent a day floating and playing in a riffle of current by Saddle Canyon, and legions of swifts and violet-green swallows. A peregrine snatching a teal out of its here and now and gliding with it to the hereafter.
And there would be gifts; thoughtful, meaningful, gifts.
