Christmas in Brooklyn

 

When I remember the Christmas of my youth, I conjure up the aroma of pine trees stacked outside grocery stores. The store owners built a stand with wooden stakes and rope. The trees arrived after Thanksgiving and stayed up until Christmas Eve, when my parents usually bought a tree. Prices came down when the store owners wanted to get rid of all trees before he has to dispose of them himself.

On Christmas morning we attended Mass at St. Francis Xavier Church, a cathedral-like parish church big enough to rival St. Patrick’s in Manhattan. The massive organ stood at the back in the choir loft. As the choir master played, the Christmas hymns vibrated through the church. I felt the sensations surge through my body as I sang out “O, Holy Night” and my favorite “Angels, we have heard on high” I especially liked the part that strung out Glor-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-or-ia.

 

When I reached teen years, I attended midnight High Mass on Christmas Eve. The aroma of incense wafted on currents of air to settle on the congregants who sat with heads bowed, and knuckled their chests “mea cuppa”

Every year, my parents bought a big jigsaw puzzle and after our Christmas dinner, we cleared the dining room table and set up the puzzle for the whole family to work on. It stayed up all week and we worked on it bit by bit until finished. Then it stayed up a little while longer so we could admire our handiwork.

So when I remember Christmas of my youth, it’s not the presents I got that stands out; it’s the activities that brought the whole world closer.

 

New York Christmas

I watched the lighting of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree the other night on TV. It brought back memories of Christmas in New York where I lived the first 50 years of my life.

 

Every year I looked forward to our annual Christmas trip to Manhattan. As a teen I went with my school friends, then with my boyfriend and eventually with my husband. 

When my children got old enough to enjoy it, I took them every year. A week or two before Christmas, we took the train to 34^th St. From there we walked up 5^th Ave. and admired the displays in store windows. Some had animated toys, Santa and elves, electric trains passing through a miniature village with windows aglow. Tiny ice skaters twirled like ballerinas on a miniature mirrored lake. A Jack in the Box jumped out and sneered its clown face at the startled children peering through the glass. 

 

 

We made our way to Rockefeller Center to admire the giant tree festooned with thousands of lights. We strolled the Rockefeller Gardens and Promenade lined with pine trees and illuminated white angels blowing through long golden trumpets. Vendors, selling roasted chestnuts or big crusty pretzels sprinkled with crystals of kosher salt, kept their wares warm in portable ovens on pushcarts. We usually bought the pretzels and held them with paper napkins in our gloved hands. Easier to eat, they didn’t require peeling like the chestnuts. The steam from the warm pretzels mingled with our breath to smoke its way into the frigid New York air. We stopped to watch the ice skaters, on the rink below the bronze sculpture of Prometheus. They displayed their abilities for the blasé New Yorkers who showed their appreciation with hoots and hollers.  Applause by gloved hands would get lost into the muffled sounds of traffic.

 

We ended our tour with a visit to St. Patrick’s Cathedral.  Hundreds of poinsettia plants graced all the side altars as well as the main altar. We sat in a pew and drank in the peace and aromas of the church. A Nativity scene sat to the right of the main altar. Statues of the Holy Family along with shepherds, sheep, angels, camels and Wise Men spread out across the marble floor of the Cathedral.  When we warmed up enough to venture back out into the cold, we made our way to the train that took us home, full of Good Will toward all.