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My father loved Christmas like a little boy. I remember his being as excited about a visit from Santa as my brothers and I were. He had an infectious joy at Christmas that permeated our home. In a way I didn’t understand then, I can say now that his Christmas spirit was born of his love for us, made more special to him because of his having spent several years of his own childhood in an orphanage. I am sure a primary reason why family meant everything to him was because of what he had missed when he was growing up.

The Christmas of my childhood included certain rituals my father insisted we faithfully observe. One was that we always went to the old Shamrock Restaurant for Christmas Eve dinner. I never knew why it had that name since it was a traditional family restaurant of the day, but it was our place in the back dining room on Christmas Eve every year. A few neighbor families also came. On occasion it was the first introduction of a new girlfriend one of my brothers or I might have invited to join in this sacred time as family. How excruciating that must have been for them. But what mattered was all of us being there.  So having a date meant she had to be willing to join us.

Another ritual was that on Christmas morning we would have to wait until dad gave the okay to come into the living room to see what Santa had brought. In our family Santa never wrapped his gifts. That never changed. For as long as I can remember gifts from mom and dad were not wrapped, but put out for us to discover as we came into the room, as if Santa had left them, even when we were adults.

A third ritual was Christmas Day dinner. It always included turkey and ham, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce I never ate, candied yams, and a coconut cake Mother made every year for dessert along with her homemade custard (she rightfully gave up making the coconut cake years later after two straight years she caught the family dogs (one time mine, the other my brother’s) on the kitchen table gorging themselves on it).

Santa definitely played a major role in Christmas for our family. Living as we did where we did, we didn’t get much during the rest of the year, but Santa saw to it that we got the clothes we needed on top of our most desired toy from his bag. Believing in Santa didn’t make us think Christmas was about getting gifts. As I recall it felt good to get something we had wanted for a long time, but doubted we would ever have. Christmas toys and gifts reminded us to be grateful, not greedy. I also remember that sometimes at Christmas my father would make sure kids in our neighborhood whom he knew wouldn’t get anything for Christmas did. He couldn’t and didn’t allow any child to be left behind, especially at Christmas.

My father was not a religious man during those years. Only later in his life did attending church become important to him. But he sure embodied the true meaning of Christmas in his child like excitement about it. If someone had asked him what it meant to keep Christ in Christmas, I suspect he would have given them a strange look and wondered what the heck they were talking about. For him the Christ of Christmas was his family, was the giving and receiving of gifts as expressions of love, was the impulse to pay special attention to those in need, was the need just to be at home with the people who meant more to him than anything else.

What is striking as I look back on those formative years is the fact that we never went to church on Christmas, not Christmas Eve, not Christmas Day. My brothers and I got the message about its real meaning in our home around the Christmas tree my father couldn’t wait to decorate and hated to see taken down. What society said or did about Christmas didn’t matter. We learned about it the old fashion way…in our family. Perhaps that’s the way it should be. Churches can help with that, of course, but in the end it’s in family that we learn our most important lessons. I wonder if those who are fretting about the war on Christmas realize that, or are they so focused on fighting over it that they are missing the best chance they will ever have to teach their children the true meaning of Christmas.

As for me, I am simply grateful that what I learned about it growing up has lasted me a very long time. That’s why I love Christmas so much, and why this time of the year I sure miss my dad a lot.