If ever there was a Christmas that actually surpassed one from my childhood, it was this year. For one thing, the house was full of people. My parents, of course, and my three of my siblings. My older sister's husband joined us, as well as my youngest sister's then-boyfriend. We awoke on Christmas morning to find the living room quite literally filled to overflowing with gifts. The piles and piles of packages stuck out in to the middle of the floor! Not even when we were kids had there been a Christmas where the room was so full!
If it seems that, at this stage, odd to mention presents, it is important to remember that, at 23, I was the youngest person in the house. Adults usually give and receive smaller gifts; that year, however, we all seemed to get more, and bigger, gifts than ever. This was the year I received my first guitar, a 12-string. Everyone was surprised, with a small chuckle, at the size and extent of the gifts that year.
Because we were older, there was no sense of this Christmas being "about" anything other then sitting around, unwrapping presents, and enjoying one another's company. We certainly did that. There was a tremendous amount of laughter that day. As morning slipped to afternoon slipped to evening, it seemed the gift-opening would never end. We broke for dinner later than usual - it was after eight o'clock, I think - and still had oodles of packages to unwrap. We finished just shy of midnight, making it easily the longest time spent together unwrapping gifts.
We snacked during the day, spent time talking about finding this or that gift, commented on whether a present was given in good taste or bad, as a joke or as something more serious. We reminisced about Christmases past, and other gifts of a similar quality or kind that meant something to us. Most of all, we just enjoyed sharing the time together.
Never again would I have a Christmas, at my parents' house or anywhere else, with such a crowd or such a sense of simple enjoyment. I, for one, cherished that whole season, from the arrival of my brother to the bemused smile on my brother-in-law's face when he realized my mother had determined he would collect rhinos as his particular family collectible (my mother had decided that everyone in the family would collect figurines of this or that animal; mine, with no irony at all, is elephants). It was a day with little or no rancor; rather, just a day with eight adults enjoying Christmas and one another's company. It recaptured, for one brief, shining, moment that sense of wonder and enjoyment I always had as a child, a part of a large, boisterous family that could revel, at least for that day and time, in one another's company.
