Today I wanted to get in the spirit of the season with the Bug while he played with his toys so put on Raffi's Christmas album. We used to have this album on LP when I was growing up and it was a firm favourite until I was probably 6 or 7. I hadn't listened to it in years and was enjoying re-listening to it with our son. And the song Old Toy Trains comes on and I lose it and start to cry. I didn't even know I remembered it and all of a sudden it hits me in the gut and the heart and the solar plexus all at once; aching. Hard to describe feelings come flooding back to me. Not specific memories I can see in my minds eye, just vague impressions of warmth, snow, anticipation, low lighting, togetherness, and family. Dozens of different Christmases come into view all at once; like through a kaleidoscope.
Mom always made Christmas so special. She loved Christmas and you could really tell. Every year, the Christmas music would come on and we'd start decorating the house. Advent calendars, and an advent wreath. We'd bake cookies and make chocolate peanut butter balls (a family special). Sometimes we'd decorate a gingerbread house. We'd all go out as a family to cut down a Christmas tree from a tree farm, get a ride on the horse drawn sleigh and head home to decorate it. This always started with the testing of the Christmas tree lights. And if there was a bulb out you had to go through the entire chain checking each one. We went to church, sang carols, watched the Nativity play. Attended the Santa Claus parade, either in our town or sometimes we'd drive down to Toronto to see the big one with lots of floats. We drank eggnog and hot chocolates with marshmallows. We laid out cookies for Santa, and Dad would read Twas the night before Christmas to us, all sitting around him on Christmas Eve. Sounds like something out of a movie now. Dad loved being part of everything but I know it was mostly mom who brought things together. I was discussing this with my sister; she found decorating for Christmas reminded her of Mom too. She sent me a tweet that said: "As a grown-up, I've learned that all the Christmas magic I felt as a kid was really a mom who loved me so damn much". Nothing could be more true. Her presence was everywhere.
This summer, after she died, I wrote a note to myself and wondered, how can you describe an absence? How do you describe something that is no longer there? And now I wonder, can you really describe a presence? Something so abundant in the moment it doesn't exist in either the past or the future. It's just there. All around you.
This is how I felt listening to that Raffi song. That I could feel Mom there, present in those words and melody, and in all the wonderful Christmases we had as kids. Something that you can't describe. Something that is just a feeling, a presence, an impression. Something that is magic. Something that is Mom.
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