An Expat’s Christmas Letter to Mom

Many Ghosts from Many Christmases Past

For this holiday season, I invite you to take a peek inside my personal Christmas preparations. Some years ago, I wrote a letter to my mother back in America. This article will share that letter, slightly updated, with you. Yes, it is filled with references to people, places, vocabulary, times, movies, and foods that are probably unknown to most of you. But I hope the love and images and happy memories shine through the cultural, language, and generational differences.

Dear Mom,

Merry Christmas! I guess that is the most important thing I will say so I will say it first – although, in my entire life, this is probably the least Christmasy Christmas ever. No special reason for my grinchiness (after that 1960s classic by Dr. Seuss, How The Grinch Stole Christmas) but the whole Christmas season has been a non-event this year – for me, at least.

Where we live now, Christmas is just not a major holiday; it may be an opportunity for a sale or an excuse to have a party or performance but it simply doesn’t reach the levels of the seasonal madness seen in America. The stores and malls have decorations but never to the extent of their American counterparts. (I guess that I should qualify that statement. Since I haven’t lived in America for the past 20 Christmases, I have no way of knowing how things in America are done today.)

Your grandson, young Mr. Chester Sidney, would disagree, however. He seems to have a built-in Christmas radar. As we walk down the streets in our neighborhood, he is the first to point out every Christmas tree in the shops, the Santa Claus/reindeer/snow flake decorations on the doors and windows, and occasional Christmas music in the background.

That just inspired a blast from the past, complete with specifics. Going all the way back to the 1960s… My best friend, Mark, who lived at 27 Southbrook Drive, just a short block from the Hillcrest Shopping Center, used to dread Christmas. For Mark, it was the time when the stores at Hillcrest used to play their Christmas music loud enough that he could hear it all the way to his home. And, worst of all, in their 1960s simplicity, they played Silver Bells over and over, for – he claimed – 18 hours a day.

Where did that memory come from? I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. It is like I have a brain full of memories, so full that they force their way into consciousness at the least provocation. Of course, I kinda pushed my own button last week when CS and I sat down at my computer and watched Jean Shepherd’s movie A Christmas Story. Before the holiday is over, we hope to watch a few other Christmas classics from days past: A Charlie Brown Christmas and Scrooged and the best Christmas movie of them all, Bing Crosby’s White Christmas. (I’ve got them all on my computer.)

Whoops. We interrupt this letter for another Christmas flashback. I just had a memory pop up of Boone’s peanut brittle which he made and distributed every year. And that, in turn, brought up the peanut butter and chocolate bonbons you and Dad made by the dozen every year, which I loved so much but never had except at Christmas. And that brought up memories of the family Christmas dinners with all our favorite foods filling the tables and kitchen counters. Turkey and ham and green beans covered with those crunchy brown things (supposedly onions), and cranberry relish, mashed potatoes, pumpkin and pecan pies, hot rolls, and on and on and on. I am typing this letter in the middle of the night so I am guessing that some of all these food memories are because I am hungry.Thanks for all the wonderful meals you prepared over the years – still my stomach talking.

But I really am grateful for everything you and Dad gave us back in those days. That reminds me of all the years when you and Dad went out with Robert and Jewel to Zeno’s every weekend. Was it Friday or Saturday night? I can’t remember, but it seems like you did that every weekend for years. Maybe it just felt that way to me. We kids didn’t go with you but, on those rare occasions when I did get to Zeno’s, their steaks were regarded as the standard by which all other restaurants were judged. Of course, those were small-town experiences of youngsters who hadn’t been out into the world but I’ll bet that, even today, those steaks would compare favorably with my current favorite restaurants.

Our Christmas this year has been on a much smaller, much more modest scale. As I said, Chester has decorated his small (about five feet tall) Christmas tree and we have watched the Grinch movie and A Christmas Story and a couple of other classics on my computer.

Otherwise, it has been pretty quiet. On Friday of last week, my usual weekly meeting with the other foreigners, the “geezers”, took place. (Collectively, we have been kicked out of some of the best countries in Europe and North America, plus Scotland. We even allow Aussies and Kiwis.) As always, we met at Starbucks to regale each other with tales of past glories and epic failures – including my contribution of endless loops of “Silver Bells” from the Hillcrest Shopping Center. We have coffee and complain about the excess noise, the brainless and ungrateful young people, and how technology is making everything too easy – yet too complicated to understand. Then we go downstairs to another level of the mall and have Double Whoppers and fries at Burger King. (Yes, they are exactly the same as at the Burger King in Rolla but, because they are so rare in my expat life, they taste even better.)

As the Christmas galas hit their peak, here is my agenda for the final few days before Christmas Day: On Friday, as I said, I met with the geezers for burgers, flashbacks, and literary and movie reviews, alternated with complaints about local drivers and what passes for music these days. Last Saturday, I went to an English Corner at the local Library where we had Christmas-themed games and songs. My contribution was to read Twas the Night Before Christmas. Sunday, I was a judge at an English speech contest for a number of local schools. This particular contest was organized by one of Chester’s teachers so she was negotiating from a position of strength when she asked me to participate. One year, on the Monday evening before Christmas, CS and I went to a Christmas party organized by his drawing class teacher where we have been requested to sing Jingle Bells for his classmates. Simon and Garfunkel, we are not. Not even Flatt and Scruggs or Dolly and Buck. But, we did our best to introduce that Christmas standard to his classmates.

Best of all, next week, on Christmas Eve, we will go to the annual Geezer Christmas bash, the decadent but pricey buffet at the Hyatt Regency where they will offer turkey and dressing, ham, prime rib, mashed potatoes and a bottomless wine glass. For one evening, they offer all the traditional Western holiday fare, always very well done. This is matched by the seafood selection and the lovely desert tables, including Haagen-Dazs ice cream. This feast, along with the decorations and entertainment, will be the high point of our holiday. We always eat to a glorious state of discomfort. Sunny always complains about the ticket prices but she always enjoys stuffing herself with the other complaining geezer wives.

Our house decorations are quite simple and unchanging but somehow especially precious to us. Each year, Chester decorates the tree by himself. That has been his tradition for years. Sunny does the rest of the house decorations, usually pretty modest but attractive. My favorite tradition is a December snowman calendar hanging on the wall that has a pocket for each day up to Christmas Day and a star that goes into the appropriate pocket each morning. The snowman was a gift from one of my students long, long ago. So long ago, really, that I cannot remember the student or the year. I only remember that this has been one of the few constants in our life.

Then, for the actual Christmas Day… nothing is planned. Chester will get up and go to school. Sunny will get up and go out to spend the day with her mother. And me? I will get up and make coffee and go back to slaving over a hot keyboard. Christmas will be over for another year and I will begin counting the days until spring weather arrives.

Merry Christmas, Mom. I really am grateful for Christmas this year and all the past years. They say that Nature has rigged our memories so that we forget the bad parts – or, at least, we don’t cringe so much – and enhance the good parts from our past. Well, at my age, I have a lot of memories to forget and many to enhance – and a lot of gratitude.

Love from the 18^th Floor Homestead,

Randy and Sunny and Chester Sidney, the Christmas Elf

If you have read and enjoyed my letter, maybe you should write a letter to your mother or grandmother, expressing your feelings as we enjoy - each in our own fashion - the Christmas season and begin preparing for the new year. Merry Christmas!

And, if you are sufficiently moved by this peek into my family’s holiday season, come join me for a cup of coffee and some Christmas cheer. You can pay for the coffee at buymeacoffee.com/rgreenzzub