Chopping carrots at 1.m. on Christmas Day seems a logical place to find solace. It’s a tradition I seem to have forgotten – until very recently.
Like many children, my sister and I left cookies and a glass of lukewarm milk out for Santa as we headed to bed on Christmas Eve. And as extra insurance, there was a push to include carrots for his reindeer.
I now realize, of course, that all of those magical years, my parents must have dutifully ground up (or eaten?) those carrots and cookies, leaving obvious crumbs behind, along with a note. The barely concealed handwriting, which I can still see, was either my mother’s careful script of half cursive or my father’s no-nonsense all capitalization.
I’m alone for Christmas this year, part of the unfortunate circumstances of a newspaper job and illnesses that have kept my small family apart. Slicing carrots for a stew, made for one, was all it took to bring back happy memories.
I hope there are children out there this morning who will get that same note from Santa. Forgotten amid the excitement of presents, it might still be there – years later – when they need it most.
I will never forget our early childhood Christmases when Grandma would stay overnight and we watched “It’s a Wonderful Life” and we would try to stay awake to see Santa. Twenty plus years have past but the good memories remain…like when we jumped up and down and pretended we had won Publisher’s Clearinghouse when we got the Super Nintendo in 1992. We had some rough years after that but I hope future Christmases will be as magical for you as those early Christmases were. Merry Christmas Sis.