Spirit Matters: Christmas gets more complicated as life passes by

During my childhood, Christmas was magic.

Between school and church Christmas parties and concerts, holiday parties through my parents’ workplaces, festive light displays and Santa visits, Christmas-themed movies, having a dad who believed a high quantity of presents under the tree was critical (even if they weren’t high-ticket items), and snowy travels to my grandma’s house where our aunts closely monitored our pre-unwrapping curiosity, we were pretty fortunate.

The anticipation leading up to Christmas morning, and the feeling of seeing two living rooms filled with presents under the trees for me and my five siblings as well as my 16 cousins, made it a season to remember. Even now.

As I grew into an adult, I still held on to that magical feeling, making traditions of my own while decorating the Christmas tree as a single young adult woman in Bloomington-Normal. One of the first years I lived in Bloomington, I proudly bought my own tree from Walmart and made sachets to decorate it. It gave me a warm feeling inside to be able to use my creativity to express myself during the season.

Back then, I excitedly made lists of who I needed to buy for and went shopping at the mall, intent on buying something meaningful for each person as I checked their names off. I felt fulfilled in wrapping each gift and putting them under the tree, too, until I traveled back to Streator and dutifully put them under my parents’ tree for our Christmas Eve festivities.

Mom would go overboard with food – something she still has a tendency to do – and my cousins from Wisconsin often joined the fun, turning the evening into a very loud but laughter-filled event.

I can still see my dad pulling up a chair from the kitchen table and placing it in the corner of the living room, the family dog close to his side. Surrounded by presents, the king was on his throne.

Many of my fond memories of Christmases past are because of my dad. As the youngest child in his family, with memories of opening gifts from all of his older siblings when he was a child (he even got a puppy one year from his oldest sister), Dad wanted us to experience the same magical excitement he did.

Eleven years ago this weekend, our family was set to celebrate Christmas on Saturday evening, Dec. 21. My sister and her young family were here from their suburban home.

On Saturday morning, I went over to my parents’ home and found my mom and sister standing over my dad, who was on the living room couch. No longer able to speak, he clearly needed to go to the hospital, so I called 911, and the last view I have of my dad leaving his childhood home, and ours, was being taken down the front stairs on a gurney, his arms flailing in the air.

The rest of that day was eerie. I had a few more gifts to buy, so I remember going to Streator Drugs and picking them out. Other family members took turns going to visit Dad in the hospital, and that night, we made the best of the situation and proceeded with our plans to have dinner and unwrap presents.

But it clearly wasn’t the same. A dark hush had descended over this home whose walls and floors and ceilings held so many Christmas conversations from the previous 80 years.

The next morning, my mom called me from the hospital and told me Dad wasn’t going to make it and I should get there as soon as I could. My mom, siblings and I spent the day around Dad’s bed, as he drifted further from us and closer to God. Other family members also came to say goodbye. At 3:05 p.m., Dad exhaled for the last time, with my mom, me and two of my brothers present.

It was a moment I will never forget – simultaneously soul-crushing and beautiful.

And so, as we now observe the 11th anniversary of my dad’s passing this weekend, with a Mass in his name and our family Christmas on Saturday night, finding joy in the season has become a bit more complicated. It is a more subdued experience, with warm but bittersweet memories of the past, although the years since his death have softened the initial blow a bit.

We will gather, as we always have, at my dad’s – and our – childhood home. There will be noise. A lot of it. And there will be wrapping paper everywhere, with my mom, as she is known to do, passing a garbage bag around the room to put the paper in as the unwrapping unfolds.

And I think – I believe – my dad will be there too, with his chair from the kitchen table propped in the midst of all the madness and his feet surrounded by proverbial gifts.

I have to believe this.

Sometimes it is the only thing that still makes Christmas a moment of magic.

SPIRIT MATTERS is a weekly column by Jerrilyn Zavada Novak that examines experiences common to the human spirit. Contact her at jzblue33@yahoo.com.