Christmas Lost

We missed Christmas this year.

Well, we didn’t miss all of it. Just the part that involved travelling to Forest City (North Carolina) on Christmas afternoon.

Our holiday tradition is somewhat fixed after more than a decade. Christmas eve is at our house and may include whomever we find along the road. Although it’s primarily us, the kids, their mom, grandmother and uncle, there are transients that pop in from time to time.

When I first moved to North Carolina, I tried to go back to Oklahoma at Christmas. That got more difficult when my family unit expanded, and frankly, the weather in Oklahoma sucks in December. After getting iced in for an extra 3 days last time I was there, we agreed that holiday visits aren’t practical, and it’s better to plan the trip when it was likely to be able to do something besides sit huddled in the house, trying to trick mom into looking away so we can push the thermostat up beyond 60.

Part of the North Carolina ritual has changed since the kids were little. Then, it involved a karoke machine at times (and I truly hope that the video of those events have been lost to the ages). Presents from Oklahoma are opened, and the kids get one thing from the parents. Meals have ranged from a Norman Rockwell recreation with enough china, crystal and silver to make Martha Stewart roll her eyes at the excess to pizza delivered and eaten off of paper plates.

This year the group was small, so we were all able to eat around the kitchen table. We opted to cook in with fairly simple fare – chicken pie, some veggies, and deserts cut way back from the diabetic coma-inducing extravaganza it’s been in the past.

Christmas morning we travel to the kids and their mom’s house for breakfast and Santa. Some things you don’t grow out of, although the nature changes. Presents include more clothes and less toys now, and college favorites come into play – Taylor is NC State, Jordan is UNC and Caleb prefers Duke.

Christmas morning now comes later than it used, to, as well. Mom told me once that she knew we were all grown up when we preferred to sleep in on Christmas morning as opposed to get up and open presents. Instead of a 5 a.m. trek across town, we now can venture over about 8 and still be greeted by sleepy faces and bedhead.

This year, the weather came into play. It started spitting snowflakes about 10:00 Christmas morning but, unlike most snows in the south, this one didn’t disappear. It got worse, and the forecasts were pretty gloomy as to what was going to happen, calling for 4 to 6 inches of snow by the time it ended.

Now, to those from the north this doesn’t seem like much. The weather channel said someplace in Idaho as going to get 6 to 12 FEET of snow in the next 24 hours. To places where snowplows are unknown and a medium jacket will suffice for most of the winter, 6 inches of snow is a catastrophe.

To be exact, it was the first time in 47 years that measurable snow fell on Christmas day. About 7 ½ inches worth of it.

There wasn't a gallon of milk or loaf of bread to be found anywhere in Western North Carolina or most of Virginia.

This affected us because the last third of the Christmas ritual takes place at the in-laws, in Forest City, NC. Although this is kind of south of Hickory, very close to the South Carolina border, it’s further into the mountains and tends to get more snow than Hickory. Given the forecast, and the fact that it takes a minimum of two cars (usually 3) to transport us all, a decision was made not to drive down.

The return trip, over potentially icy roads through the mountains and in the dark, was simply too risky.

Of course, it’s disappointing. Last year we went to his grandmother’s funeral a mere two days before Christmas. The last of that entire generation disappeared during the subsequent year with three subsequent funerals of her last sisters, meaning there would already be empty spaces at the table. To take away half of the two younger generations was a drastic change to everyone’s expectations.

There’s something about celebrating Christmas on the actual holiday that is important to families. In my own, we abandoned much of the practice for several years. Both brothers are in law enforcement – their junior status on the force meant they would likely draw Christmas day duty. As a result, we frequently slid a holiday celebration one way or the other, or adjusted it during the day to make time together. The ability to celebrate on the actual Christmas Day has come back to them now, but I’m not there to participate. The next generation down are early in their careers, so they sometimes have to miss things as well.

It’s disappointing to miss Christmas with his family, though. Those who were local to Forest City went ahead and met; after all, enough food for an army was already prepared and half the troops weren’t going to show up.

We’ll make it a point to meet sometime in the next couple of weeks, but it won’t be the same since the decorations will have been put away and the once-a-year Christmas treats will be gone.

It will, however, be a chance to get together, to visit, and to once again enjoy being a family.