Samantha’s Christmas story

In mid-November* I invited you to send your Christmas vignettes by December 10 and promised I’d select one to publish here the week before Christmas.

Your responses were fun, and I send a big thanks to everyone who sent a story.

I’ve decided to publish four vignettes, not one, and today you get to read Samantha White’s story. It will give you a big smile. I wish I could have known her mother. You’ll see why when you read this story.

My family was Orthodox Jewish, but my mother, bless her, knew that Christmas was about more than the birth of Jesus, it was also about light breaking through the darkness, bringing peace and love and joy, and she was determined that her children would not be "passed over" when light, joy, and love were being dispensed to all the other children in our overwhelmingly Gentile neighborhood.

So, amidst the observance of Hanukkah and all the other business of December, every Christmas Eve Dad brought two wooden orange crates up from the cellar and nailed a plywood plank across the top, joining them into something resembling a fireplace.

My little brother and I watched while Mom covered it with crepe paper printed with a design of bricks, marveling as the boxes took on the realistic look of a fireplace. We tacked a couple of socks to the "mantel" and Dad carried the "fireplace" into the living room. Then my brother and I went to bed to await Santa Claus's visit to our house.

Now, we absolutely knew that the fireplace was made of orange crates and that we didn't have a chimney. But we also knew that this was Christmas Eve, and Santa did not discriminate among good little children on the basis of the religion their families practiced.

So on Christmas morning we bounded to the living room to find our proof that goodness was rewarded: gifts of toys and books, with tags reading, "From Santa Claus" were piled in front of the fireplace, and soon the living room was strewn with torn red and green gift wrapping paper and ribbons, and we were happily at play.

Since Christmas Day was also a secular holiday, Dad stayed home from work and my grandparents came to visit. Before they arrived, however, we all bustled to clear away the traces of Santa's visit—the tell-tale debris cleaned up, the "fireplace" dismantled, the crepe paper folded and put away, and the orange crates returned to the cellar, until the following year. When my grandparents arrived for dinner, no traces of our revelry remained.

My brother and I never left the faith of our ancestors, nor forgot our religion, because of Santa's visits to our house. If anything, it helped us understand how much it means to share joy at the darkest, coldest time of year, and to be with family, and to believe in rewards for being good. As we grew older, we learned that we could give as well as receive, and that in giving lay the even greater joy.

Now, don’t you, too, wish you could have known Samantha’s mother? What a spunky gal she must have been!

I recall my sweet grandmother making a makeshift fireplace with crepe paper printed to look like bricks—what a hoot!

Samantha, author of Someone To Talk To: Finding Peace, Purpose, and Joy After Tragedy and Loss, is a psychotherapist and Positive Aging Coach.* Click here to see her brand new blog, Peace, Purpose, and Joy.

Wednesday I’ll share another story with you. Will it be Diana’s? Or Kathy’s? Or Nancy’s? I’m not telling. You’ll have to come back!

*Links and references:

Send me your Christmas vignettes,

http://spiritualmemoirs101.blogspot.com/2011/11/send-me-your-christmas-vignettes.html

Samantha M. White, MSW, LICSW
http://www.someonetotalktothebook.com/
http://www.samanthawhite.com/

Samantha’s blog, Peace, Purpose, and Joy, http://www.peacepurposeandjoy.blogspot.com 

 

Do you hear them?

“Long before I wrote stories, I listened for stories,” said author Eudora Welty, and that’s good advice, especially this time of year.

At The Writing Well, Anne Wainscott-Sargent* reiterates that advice, encouraging memoir writers to master the art of listening.

She quotes memoirist Brian McDonald:

“I was lucky I had a family of storytellers—police officers and bartenders and such are natural storytellers. I was always a great listener. Those anecdotes I heard from when I was first a child stayed with me, and later on when I decided to do a book about my family, they came to life.”

This holiday season, master the art of listening.

Encourage storytelling at your Christmas or Hanukkah gatherings, and listen.

Why?

Because God used your ancestors, current family, and friends to play key roles, genetic and otherwise, to make you who you are today—

—because their attitudes, influences, and DNA will pulse through your memoir whether you name those people or not,

—because their words, jokes, and stories will echo through your memoir even if their identities hide in shadows in your final draft.

A PRNewswire article, Sharing Family History to Make Holidays More Meaningful,* recommends:

“Pre-plan to create a new storytelling tradition—Tell people in advance you would like them to share family stories during the holiday gathering. Set aside a particular time and place. Encourage them to bring photographs to help tell a story.”

That suggestion is followed by this good advice: “Set expectations—Reassure everyone they won’t miss out on watching the football game on TV or any other activities they enjoy.”

When you sit around the dinner table, listen to what people say.

Ask relatives and friends about those no longer alive.

Inspire them to re-tell stories you heard as a child but might have forgotten.

Raise questions: Where and when was Great-grandpa born? What did he do for a living?

Was Great-grandma a happy-go-lucky type, or a sourpuss? Why did she die so young? How did her death impact her young daughter (your grandmother)? How did Great-grandpa cope after her death?

What kinds of hardships did your ancestors suffer during The Great Depression? How did they celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah during those years?

Were they people of faith? Why or why not?

Listen for intangible legacies your ancestors left. Reflect on how that legacy impacts the youngest generation of your family.

This week Sheila Lagrand wrote about a conversation she had with her father. Because she asked, he answered and, as she listened, his answers surprised her:

“I turned and studied my father as if I’d never seen him before, puzzling to work this new information into my understanding of him… I wondered what else I had wrong.… Since that day … I’ve spent a lot of time sweeping the thick dust of assumptions from my memories of my dad. My understanding of him is a lot different.…” *   

So do what Sheila did: Ask questions and listen for answers.

Hold your stories and memories close, and make time to discover what God has been doing in, through, and for your family throughout the generations.

Listen to God’s still, small voice—within music, sermons, and conversations you overhear in long shopping lines.

Listen for stories while you wrap packages, shovel snow, or plan menus. Notice what comes to mind about holidays past.

A couple of days ago, Linda Joy Meyers* wrote:

“Think of yourself as a listener, a translator. Focus inward and hear the stories that whisper to you in a low key; tune into your desire to capture your grandmothers’ history, your mother’s face, or your father’s character.” *

This holiday season, ask yourself, “What stories would bless my kids, grandkids, family, and friends?”

Jot down a few notes.

Come back after the holidays, when your schedule calms down, and start your rough drafts.

Have you written a story about Christmas for your memoir?

If so, send me your vignette

between now and December 10

and I’ll select one to publish here

the week before Christmas.

See all the details in my November 12 post at this link:

http://spiritualmemoirs101.blogspot.com/2011/11/send-me-your-christmas-vignettes.html

*Resources and links:

Anne Wainscott-Sargent at The Writing Well,

http://thewritingwellus.blogspot.com/2011/05/advice-on-writing-family-memoir.html

Sharing Family History to Make Holidays More Meaningful ,

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/sharing-family-history-to-make-holidays-more-meaningful-134489618.html

Sheila Lagrand’s The Day I Met My Dad,

http://www.godspotting.net/2011/12/day-i-met-my-dad.html

Linda Joy Myers’ blog, Memories and Memoirs,

http://memoriesandmemoirs.com/2011/12/memoir-writing-a-passion-that-blows-by-the-inner-critic