Holiday memories: the gifts you can't take
back
The unexpected gift
Dec.
25, 2002, is almost here, so I'm driving to the Central Children's
Home of North Carolina to drop off toys collected during PlayMakers'
annual toy drive. I'm part of an administrative staff, and I'm
making a delivery to an administration building that happens
to be on the campus of an orphanage.
|
The
"Gazette" staff asked for your most enduring holiday memories,
and you were happy to oblige. We received funny stories,
poignant ones and even a haunting poem -- and we've printed
them all.
In
addition, The Carolina Inn donated two gift certificates
for dinner for two -- valued at $80 each -- to be selected
from a drawing of the names of those submitting entries.
The winners are Sue Riggsbee, a social research associate
in the School of Dentistry, and Nancy Brookshire, a corporate
relations associate with WUNC Radio.
|
As expected, I sign papers
while office assistants unload the gifts. Back in my car and
about to shift into reverse, I hear knocking and see a girl
with a teddy bear, one that a co-worker and I had put with the
toys for ages 3 - 6. The girl is closer to 16 than 6. I press
a button; the glass separating us disappears. A big child clutching
a small bear asks me, "Are you the lady who gave us the toys?"
Concerned about getting more credit than I deserve, I tell her,
"I only delivered them. I work for the company that collected
them."
Foolish words. She needs
to thank somebody. Never mind that I'm Jewish -- for the moment,
I'm Santa. "They're sorting the gifts," she says, "but I already
know this bear is mine. I love this bear!"
She got the bear -- something
she could put her arms around -- just what she wanted. I got
the moment -- one I couldn't get my arms around -- just what
I discovered I wanted.
Risa Botvinick
is company manager for
PlayMakers Repertory Company.
The pressure cooker
In
1989, during my first Christmas season in Miami working as a
photographer for United Press International, I spent six long
days at the Kennedy Space Center waiting around for a shuttle
launch that had been delayed. At the same time, I was working
on the frenzied planning that took place prior to the arrest
of Manuel Noriega. And war in Panama was looming.
Exhausted, I finally headed
back to my apartment and unknown to me, my wife Marisa had set
up a Christmas tree while I was gone. The moment I opened the
door, I heard a click, and totally by coincidence the timer
went off and the lights on the tree came on.
It was a bright point
in what was shaping up to be a rather dismal Christmas.
Dan Sears is
the photographer for UNC News Services, and his wife Marisa
is an accounting technician in the School of Dentistry.
Living memories
Christmas
will always be one of the most important times of the year for
my family. When I think of Christmas, I am transported back
to my childhood and the holidays spent with my Aunt Doodle.
I remember the excitement
of hauling all the decorations out of her shed, which she called
the "little house." After the branches of the artificial tree
were out of the box, I would grab the stuffed Santa doll, jump
in and pretend the tattered box was a sled.
I loved to play with the
color wheel. Everything looked better bathed in red, yellow,
blue and green! And those tiny silver bells we strung over the
windows: I can still hear them!
Her potato cake, made
especially for the holiday, was a special treat. (My grandmother
still makes this for us today.) Doodle passed on in 1998, but
she always was, and still is, a big part of my family's Christmas
celebration.
Tammy Lambert
is an office manager with Carolina Union.
Better
to give than to receive
Here is a memory my sister and I have of our mother. Dad died
a few years before and while Mom was a nurse, money was tight.
One Christmas, Mom purchased an electronic keyboard. This was
an
extravagant purchase for
the family. Going home, she suddenly stopped and pulled into
the driveway of a very run-down house we often passed. Its windows
had cardboard and the roof had bare patches.
Mom got out of the car
with her keyboard, knocked on the door and spoke to the women
who answered. We couldn't hear the conversation but saw the
women's surprise and uncertainty. One shook her head and took
the keyboard.
Once Mom was back we asked
her, why? Mom said we were fortunate to have what we did and
giving that family a present they would never be able to afford
would give them more joy than her playing it. We think of that
every time we drive past that house.
Catherine Nichols
is director of the Annual Fund with the Kenan-Flagler Business
School.
A
sick sense of humor
Last Christmas was by far the most interesting holiday I had
experienced in years. My husband and I took our family and went
to visit my grandparents in southern Florida. My mother also
drove down to spend the holiday with us. My grandparents have
a one-floor condo, which means no matter where you are in the
home, you can hear everything.
On Christmas day, my husband
woke up with the stomach flu. Three hours later, my mother came
down with a migraine headache. As my grandparents, my children
and I sat down to eat a feast made for the family, all we could
hear was my husband in the bathroom getting sick and my mother
in the other bathroom doing the same but also moaning "mommy."
She is the only adult
I know who still wants her mommy when she gets sick. All we
could do was laugh!
Jennifer Patrick
is program manager at the Kenan-Flagler Business School.
All
I want for Christmas
We gathered at my grandparents' house each Christmas Eve to
exchange presents. The only present I wanted this Christmas
was to have my father home. He was a truck driver and often
gone for weeks at a time. My little girl's heart kept alive
the hope that he would make it home in time.
Snow began falling, and
I looked out of the window hoping to see his big diesel cab
pull into my grandparents' driveway. It was time to open the
presents.
Suddenly, there was a
knock at the door followed by "Ho, ho, ho" and jingle bells.
The dog began barking. The door swung open. It was Santa!
As Santa scooped me up
in his arms, I yanked on his beard to the delight of all, revealing
my father's beaming smile. "I knew you'd make it home for Christmas!"
It was the best Christmas
present I ever got.
Suzanne LaMee
Bodeen is a human subjects coordinator in the School of Nursing.
The
Christmas train
Do you remember an ice storm last December? It certainly gave
my family and me a memorable holiday.
The plan was to get up
bright and early, board the Amtrak "Christmas Train" (complete
with Santa) and visit Discovery Place museum in Charlotte. After
lunch, IMAX and exhibits, we would head home with the kids having
visions of sugarplums in their heads.
Well, the ice and Amtrak
are not a match made in heaven. We left Cary three hours late
and were limited to 25 mph for most of the trip. We arrived
in Charlotte at 4 p.m., one hour before our return train was
leaving. Plan B was in effect. We ran to Bojangles, feasted
on wings and dirty rice, jumped aboard and returned to Cary
at the stroke of midnight.
All for naught? Not. Amtrak
gave us vouchers for another try the next week!
Tom Goodwin provides
technical computer support in the School of Public Health's
Department of Epidemiology.
The
pleasure of being appreciated
Being a daughter, mother, mother-in-law and nanny and one who
tries to take care of everyone but myself, it has become a very
welcome tradition to be pampered by my daughter-in-law with
a breakfast on Christmas morning.
She is the mother of two
of my three grandsons and is up early on Christmas morning,
busy with seeing what Santa has left, and making breakfast for
not only her precious mother and father but for her mother-in-law
and father-in-law. What wonderful Christmas memories she has
made for me to cherish.
Carol Payne is
a human resources manager for University Advancement.
It's
the thought that counts
More than 30 years ago, I remember, it was time to go through
our stockings. Each year we all bought several items for each
others' stockings in the family. My Dad, Mom, brother (10 years
older than me) and I were all going through the goodies, and
we started noticing things like little bottles of shampoo and
lotions were low and some things looked a bit dated.
I was a pre-teen and asked,
"Hey, how come this is half-empty?"
My brother admitted that
he had lost his stocking stuffers from the year before and had
bought new ones for the previous Christmas, but he had recently
found these old ones and thought he would use them up.
We all paused in amazement
(he was, and is, a very disorganized person) and started laughing
hysterically. Then as we laughed we all started asking, "This
looks old, is this from you, Dave?"
It is the most fun I have
ever had with Christmas stockings ever!
Nancy Brookshire
is a corporate relations associate with WUNC Radio.
Roadside
assistance
When our children were 6 and 3 years of age, we traveled to
my husband's parents' house in Winston-Salem for Christmas Eve.
We went to Love Feast at the Moravian Church and enjoyed a noisy
and joyful dinner with family.
Our children were so excited
about Santa coming, so we put them into pajamas and tucked them
into their car seats to return to our home in Chapel Hill.
When we tried to start
the car, it was completely dead. I began to panic. We had to
get back to Chapel Hill so that Santa could come to see our
children. What should we do? Borrow someone else's car? Try
to find a garage open at 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve? Oh dear!
I was on the verge of
tears when my husband decided to call one of his old buddies
who still lived in Winston-Salem. This person was a mechanic!
He came out and looked at the car, figured out what was wrong
and fixed it!
How grateful we were for
his help. We got back to Chapel Hill a little late, looking
for Santa all along the way. Our children slept through most
of it and never knew how close we came to missing Santa that
Christmas morning.
Anne Fishel is
a professor in the School of Nursing.
The
last Christmas
We thought the Christmas of 1998 would be my mother's last Christmas.
She had been ill for some time. Her hospital bed and other equipment
filled the living room, so I painted the windows with holiday
scenes like I had done when I was a child and bought the skinniest
"live" tree on the lot to squeeze into a corner of the kitchen.
A little artificial tree with miniature ornaments lighted the
front hall.
My mother did not die
that year or the next.
She rallied, and I washed
the paint off the windows so she could see the pansies blooming
and the birds at the feeders. I recycled the kitchen tree and
changed the decorations on the tree in the hall for Valentine's
Day and then for Easter and again for the Fourth of July. She
lived to see the world usher in a new millennium, though she
never quite believed anyone who told her that it was the year
2000.
Lucille Fidler
is an associate editor in the School of Government.
Make
a joyful noise
My most vivid memory of the holidays was from elementary school
in West Seneca, N.Y. Our music teacher, Miss Kochli (pronounced
Coke-Lee) would roll a piano into the lobby of our school. The
entire school -- roughly 400 children -- would gather in the
lobby and on all of the stairways and sing Christmas carols
to Miss Kochli's piano.
These were the days before
political correctness eliminated any reference to the religious
nature of Christmas. I learned every Christmas song I know at
the piano of Ms. Kochli. She would play, and we would sing every
holiday song a child would call out to her.
Not only did I learn the
melodies and all of the verses (though I need help remembering
them now), but I learned to sing harmony -- both alto and the
higher descants.
I was so tickled when
the "Durham Herald" included a booklet of holiday songs with
piano accompaniment and all the verses. The piano parts have
the melody in the alto or even tenor lines and high harmonies
as the soprano part. It reminded me of Miss Kochli and our holiday
sings. We would always go back to our classrooms singing "We
Wish You a Merry Christmas."
Harlene Gogan
is a research instructor in the School of Social Work.
Judging
a box by its heft
Christmas in Hawaii was a little different, if only because
the weather was always perfect. One Christmas in the late 60s
we received a package from our cousins in North Carolina. The
5" x 6" x 8" box was rather heavy and, perhaps because the present
was for the whole family, we were sure it must be candy.
(From left, Phil White, Brian
White, and theirfriends at a birthday party in Hawaii.) |
During our previous stay
in Hawaii, an experience with ants in an unopened box of chocolates
taught us that one does not leave food out in the tropics, especially
anything containing sugar, unless it is surrounded by a moat.
Therefore, since it was over two weeks until Christmas, into
the refrigerator went the box.
When we opened the present
on Christmas day, we were quite surprised to find a boxed set
of the "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Of course we devoured
it.
Phil White is
a computer systems administrator in Health Policy and Administration
in the School of Public Health, and his brother, Brian, is computer
services director in the Department of Computer Science.
Thankful
I am from a very large family -- 15 siblings -- and grew up
in the Adirondack region of northern New York. One Christmas
was totally unlike any other.
My Dad was scheduled for
prostate surgery the weekend before Christmas. Dad's older brother
had died of prostate cancer. The weather was horrible, lots
of blowing snow. My mother stayed at the hospital to be with
my Dad. With an afternoon phone call, I learned my sister, Nora,
had been in an automobile accident on Route 104 heading east
from Rochester. A brother, Phil, and a brother-in-law successfully
risked the weather to be with her. Because of her condition
she was transported to Rochester by ambulance amidst winter
weather advisories. Another brother, Bruce, asked a friend in
Rochester to stay with Nora through that night.
What I remember about
that Christmas are all the phone calls back and forth among
my family members -- we had never been so in touch; the feelings
of concern and anxiety instead of the usual cheerfulness and
good will; the horrible snow -- not soft, white and fluffy;
neighbors dropping off food and asking for updates; and being
thankful that we still had my Dad and Nora.
Helen Nulty is
a computer systems administrator in the School of Public Health.
The
longest night
Christmas season, 1995. My wife Val is eight months pregnant
with our second child and terribly sick with bronchitis. She
coughs her ribs out of socket, can't sleep for days.
Christmas Eve, Val is
a wreck, laid out. I get the little one, Lizzy, into bed. Val
tells me where the presents are and tells me what paper to wrap
them in. Finally start on the tricycle for Lizzy: some assembly
required.
Four hours later, 2 a.m.,
as I tighten the last bolt on the new tricycle, my daughter
wakes up with an upset stomach. Calm her down. Change all the
bedclothes. Put her back to bed. Finish the stockings.
That one night seemed
long enough for Santa to deliver presents all over the world.
One present was three
days late though: the new baby, born at home on the 28th, healthy
and wonderful. (That's a story for another time!)
Stephen Orton
is an adjunct assistant professor of health policy and administration
and project manager with the N.C. Institute for Public Health
in the School of Public Health.
The
goose is cooked
It was our first Christmas as newlyweds and my husband wanted
to cook a goose. He had gotten increasingly sentimental with
the approach of the holidays and insisted on having an "old
fashioned Christmas dinner." It didn't matter to him that neither
of our families had ever served goose for Christmas. So, without
any advice from his mother and refusing all suggestions from
me, he set about cooking "our goose."
He rubbed it with a special
blend of spices and basted it every thirty minutes.
About two hours after
the goose went into the oven, it started to smoke. He started
to baste it more often.
The goose wasn't turning
brown, the juices were still running pink, and the house was
filling up with smoke. It took more than six hours for the goose
to cook, and it was a small goose.
By the time we were able
to serve Christmas dinner the goose -- finally cooked through
-- had created enough smoke to set off not only the alarm in
the lower level of the house but also the alarm upstairs and
away from the kitchen. We haven't served goose at Christmas
since.
Diane Yorke is
a doctoral student in the School of Nursing.
Be
careful what you wish for
The evening before the Christmas ice storm we watched out the
window anxiously awaiting our son-in-law, Jim, who was the last
family member to arrive for our weekend gathering. The headlights
of his "beater" car coming down the driveway through the pine
trees were a welcome sight.
We relayed the weather
forecast and cautioned him to move his car where ours were in
an open field away from the tall pines. "Oh! If only a tree
would fall on my beater, my Christmas wish would be answered,"
he said. "I'd get a lot more for it if it was totaled." I was
the first one up in the morning checking out the storm's minimal
effects. Then, I couldn't believe my eyes. The largest limbs
had fallen right on top of Jim's beater, which was now demolished.
I called up to the bedroom, "Jim, wake up! You got your Christmas
wish! "
Sue Riggsbee
is a social research associate in the School of Dentistry.
Entertaining
the American way
In 1971, my husband Tom invited a visiting Romanian scholar
to our house for a real American Christmas dinner. Early that
morning, my three-year-old son, Joseph, trying to get at a lollipop
on top of a dresser, pulled the whole thing over on himself
and broke his leg. He and I spent most of the day at the emergency
room.
Meanwhile, when Tom picked
up the scholar for church, he was invited to down two generous
slugs of slivovitz [Hungarian plum brandy] to celebrate the
season. This on an empty stomach, but he could hardly refuse.
When I got home at last
from the hospital, I threw together a quickly defrosted pot
of chili, and we gathered around the festive board -- the girls
(8 and 7) bickering about who got more presents, Joseph whining
because his leg hurt, and Tom with a splitting headache.
What must our Romanian
visitor have thought of the American celebration of Christmas?
Margaret Stumpf
is an academic adviser in the Division of Continuing Education.
Spontaneous
generation
The Christmas spirit (or that of other cultural traditions)
can be generated spontaneously! From nothing!
One year, my mother called
me up to say that she couldn't get out Christmas shopping and
didn't know what the grandkids wanted anyway, so she had sent
a check for $50. That was fine -- only the week before I had
mailed her a check for $50 to get what she wanted for her own
Christmas present.
As a scientist I have
to conclude that the net effect was zero, but I have also to
observe that spirit arose out of that nothingness. A friend
told me we could generate more spirit if we decided to exchange
$1,000 one year instead of $50.
Peter White is
a professor and the director of the N.C. Botanical Garden.
The
arms race
One year, my family and a family of cousins decided to spend
Christmas at the Bear Mountain Inn near our beloved Maine summer
cabins. Because of the expense of renting the inn, the rule
was that you could only spend up to $5 on any present.
Everyone got very imaginative
and creative about those presents, and the holiday was more
memorable than all the ones without spending limits. We didn't
eliminate presents, just reduced the scale.
I feel the same way about
highway signs. In states where they are reduced to logos on
standard highway signs (parts of Virginia), they serve the purpose
(advertising what is available at an exit), whereas where the
limit is removed, both the business (by paying more for bigger
higher, better-lit signs) and the driver (through reduction
of scenic beauty) are negatively affected. Beware the arms race!
Also contributed
by Peter White.
Making a beeline
My most vivid memory of Christmas was going to my grandmother's
house along with my parents and two older sisters on Christmas
day and heading to the pantry to get the most delicious peanut
and coconut candy made by my aunt! It was so good! I cannot
remember my aunt ever telling us to stop eating it!
Vergie Taylor
is the assistant director and career planning counselor with
University Career Services.
Making
do
Years ago when I was a boy, one of my favorite things about
Christmas was the soft, thick, sweet and chewy sugar cookies
that my Grandmother Boyd made.
She and my grandfather
had moved from Tennessee to our home town in Florida because
of his medical disability, and they were on a limited income.
There wasn't much money for presents at Christmas, so my grandmother
would spend days making her moist and delectable sugar cookies
that were at the same time appealingly plain.
She packed them in Tetley
Tea tins, wrapped them with holiday paper and gave a tin to
each family member.
Even though I've tried,
I've never been able to find ones with the same flavor and texture,
and more important, ones with the same loving memories attached.
Ed Phillips is
the director for business operations in Facilities.
War knows no holidays
"A Christmas in Saigon"
Yes, it was Christmas,
but a Christmas from hell.
The sounds that were ringing were not those of a bell.
But of mortars whizzing through humid night air
With each rapid whiz bringing a bone-chilling scare.
Why am I complaining?
I thought. I'm "safe" in Saigon.
In a refurbished hotel with hot water and lights on.
An officer with an office job, not fighting in paddies.
Surely, I am luckier than most of my buddies.
I was luckier than most
other officers I knew
Or the young soldier-kids that they had to lie to
About winning a war they knew could not be won
To save them from fear or from making a run.
While waiting for sounds
of more dangerous whizzes,
Of a bullet or shrapnel that maims, or worse, kills.
Could I write yet another letter to a wife or a kin
Praising a beloved boy they'd see never again?
Yes it was Christmas,
but a Christmas from hell.
The sounds that were ringing were not those of a bell.
But of a uniformed trumpeter sounding out taps
For a young soldier-kid now dead in white wraps
To be sent home in a box
with a flag decoration
And a letter from me as his kin's sole consolation
That he served his time with dignity and courage
Only to be met now by this terrible scourge.
Yes, it was Christmas,
but a Christmas from hell.
And the sounds that were ringing were not those of a bell
But of prayers and pleadings filling the night sky
From desolate kin asking: Why, oh God, why?
Dennis Rondinelli wrote
this poem in response to the "Gazette's" request for holiday
memories. The Glaxo Distinguished International Professor of
Management with Kenan-Flagler Business School served in Vietnam
from October 1970, to July 1971, as a captain in the U.S. Army.
