The twenty-third day before Christmas

"Christmas Eve at Mr. Wardle's" by Robert Seymour from The Pickwick Papers, Vol. 1, in The Works of Charles Dickens in 34 Volumes, New York: Scribner, 1898

Everyone is familiar with Dicken's Christmas Carol, but here is the Christmas from Pickwick:

We write these words now, many miles distant from the spot at which, year after year, we met on that day, a merry and joyous circle. Many of the hearts that throbbed so gaily then, have ceased to beat; many of the looks that shone so brightly then, have ceased to glow; the hands we grasped, have grown cold; the eyes we sought, have hid their lustre in the grave; and yet the old house, the room, the merry voices and smiling faces, the jest, the laugh, the most minute and trivial circumstances connected with those happy meetings, crowd upon our mind at each recurrence of the season, as if the last assemblage had been but yesterday!

Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fireside and his quiet home!

As a child, I lived near most of my relatives from both Mom and Dad's families, so we saw everyone at Christmas.  Christmas Eve was at our house after the candlelight service, with Dad's family: usually Grandma and Grandpa, an aunt, two uncles, six cousins, and four cousins-once-removed, plus various other cousins, in-laws, and guests from year to year. 

Not a Christmas photo, but this is paternal Grandpa with Twin Sister and me

 Christmas morning was for our presents at home.  Poor Mom and Dad got to clean up the family party late into the night, only to have Twin Sister and I leap into their bed with an armful of jingle-belled Christmas stockings at 7 a.m.  

This is what Christmas morning looks like in the modern era.

Christmas dinner was with Mom's parents in the next town over, and if everyone came, we would have Grandma and Grandpa, two aunts, two uncles, six cousins, homemade ice cream and a whole lotta peanuts-in-the-shell.  Also, the giant snow pile in the parking lot across the street.

Christmas at maternal Grandma and Grandpa's with three of the cousins

The traditional Christmas morning still happens about every other year—without the 7 a.m. part and with the addition of the three sons-in-law.

The other Christmas gatherings have not lasted.  Some of it is because, as Dickens says "the eyes we sought, have hid their lustre in the grave."  Some of it is just because of growing up, belonging to different families, and living far from home.  But the memories "crowd upon my mind" at this time of year, and I miss the days when we would put Mannheim Steamroller on the stereo and tear around the house with our hair in foam curlers, waiting for the moment when Uncle Bob, our beardless Santa Claus, would appear with three giant bags of toys for the family, while Mom tried to gather us into the kitchen to set the tables and finished the cheese-wrapped olives and the bacon-wrapped dates. 

This is a year in which my immediate family will be scattered to the four winds for the holiday, and I won't see a single one of the cousins. So in memory of "the delusions of our childish days" and just to mix my sources:

God bless us, every one!

Illustration by George T. Tobin, in A Christmas Carol, New York: Stokes, 1899