THE LAST CHRISTMAS

It's been over a quarter of a century since my last big family Christmas, the one with mother, father, sister and brother altogether. But I can flash back in my memory to those days with snow, beautiful tree, cookies, pot roast, card games . . . and love. 

Even though my sister and I lived in parts of the country separated from our Ohio home we always made sure we would get home for this important day in our lives. Getting ready for Christmas we spent the days making filled cookies with each family member having a specific job to do. It was quite an operation. It involved two sugar cookies, apricot jam in between, topped with lots of sugary icing. It was the holiday treat of all holiday treats. No one counted the calories or carbohydrates. At night we would play games, uncomplicated games such as Uno and rummy, while sampling fuzzy navels which mother had come to favor. The big beautiful, golden tree always had lots of presents beneath it. 

Our dear mother always seemed to overbuy. Since we lived so far away she always feared we might

not make it home for Christmas so when we visited at times earlier in the year she would send home presents with us so there would not be a Christmas without presents. Christmas dinner was also a total family activity. The family tradition was to have pot roast for Christmas dinner as only my mother could make it. Father was in charge of carving, of course, and sister did the mashed potatoes. I don't remember much that I did other than set the table and breath in the tantalizing kitchen aroma.

I remember especially the Christmas of 1988 which turned out to be our last holiday together as a family. My sister and I always had a problem as what to get our parents. This year, however, we got together and bought them a CD player. Father was a dedicated "music man" with his tools a large combination stereo originally with a record player and a radio. At another Christmas we bought father a cassette recorder and would find him at Christmas making tapes of all the best music played non-stop during the holiday season by a local radio station. My sister and I figured maybe the next step up for him would be to add a CD player to his system. He was drawn to it much like a younger person might be drawn to an iPod today. He started adding his favorite artists (think Lawrence Welk) on CD to his collection of LP phono albums. I know he and mother liked to sit together and listen to music daily. They got to do so for another half year, until father died in July. After that time mother said that the music was her constant source of pleasure until she died less than a year after father. We had a white Christmas in 1988 which made it a greeting card type of year. 

There was just enough snow to make it picturesque but not enough to keep us from getting to the Cleveland airport for the return flights of me and my sister. As I look back now I think I could sense maybe my father knew this might be his last Christmas with us. He held us tight, maybe a little afraid to let us go. I saw a little sadness it both their eyes. It's a Christmas I will never forget, one of a string of love-based events for more than five decades since my sister and I both set off in different directions to pursue our careers and lives.