Not a routine Christmas

I must admit that over the last few years much of the Christmas holiday for me had become too predictable. We would mostly keep to a rigid schedule with Christmas Eve dinner at Grandma's, church at 7:30 p.m., dessert at a cousin's house, etc. etc. It's the same every year.

Our Christmas celebration had become somewhat routine. This routine is always a comfort and I look forward to it, and we are no doubt blessed with a great family and we have much to be thankful for in our lives, but still sometimes it felt like I was just going through the motions. Christmas, at least in my mind, had become too methodical too ordinary.

But not this year, there were a few surprises.

This year first of all marks the first Christmas that I have spent without my mom who passed away this summer. I found myself thinking about her a lot as this Christmas approached, but not in a sad way.

I found myself holding on to all of my wonderful childhood memories of Christmas and thinking about all the things my mom did to make sure her children had a great Christmas..

I remember one year I asked her how are we supposed to hang our stockings if we didn't have a fireplace.

She went out to Korvette's that night, bought one of those cardboard cutouts of a fireplace and promptly hung our stockings over it.

Mom would always make sure that we got an abundance of clothes on Christmas, mostly from the old Ronnie's department store on Greenwich Ave. Mom would take six months to pay off her Christmas purchases and they would let her.

I remember we always bought our Christmas tree and decorated it on Christmas Eve -- not because of some meaningful tradition but because of procrastination.

A flood of memories of Mom came over me this Christmas. Somehow I think it gave me closure in regards to her death. I wasn't expecting that.

My wife likes to collect Santas. She's got about a hundred of them. Every Christmas she parades them out and sets them up around the house.

I have seen Santa captured in every possible circumstance. She has Santa riding a motorcycle, Santa as a bagpiper, a blues singer, a beach bum, a cross-country skier, a fireman, etc.

I thought I had seen it all until my brother showed me a very different Santa. He showed me what looked like an ordinary nativity scene.

There was the baby Jesus laying in a manger surrounded by Mary and Joseph, the three wise men and some animals.

As I looked closer I could see Santa up front, kneeling down on both knees with his hat in his hand in front of the manger looking lovingly at the baby Jesus.

I had never before seen the two stars of Christmas, Jesus and Santa combined together in such a cool way. What a nice surprise. It made me smile.

Our son received a wooden train set on Christmas. It was fantastic. It came with all the bells and whistles. It also came unassembled.

After staring at it for much of Christmas morning my brother-in law and I decided to take the plunge.

Putting together a train set with another person will either strengthen your relationship with that person or rip it to shreds.

I am happy to report that my brother-in -law and I are still on speaking terms, and our son has a fully assembled beautiful train set in his room. The train set even came with extra screws! What a nice surprise.

Perhaps the most delightful surprise of this Christmas is the emergence of an official Christmas motto.

That's right; the 2009 McMurray Christmas and holiday season has an official motto: Good tidings to you.

This motto came about one day while driving around running some errands with my son in the days leading up to Christmas.

I had put on some Christmas music and we started to sing the song, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas."

I sang the lyrics "good tidings to you," and for some reason that was the only part of the song that my son remembered.

So, during the next few days whenever I or anyone else said "I wish you a Merry Christmas," he would counter immediately with "Good tidings to you."

This happened 25 times a day leading up to and including Christmas day. I found myself saying it aloud too. It feels good to say it.

So, looking back at this past Christmas, I can say without hesitation that it was definitely not a routine Christmas.

I was able to give closure to my mom's death, I saw Santa Claus and Jesus being combined in a new novel way and I bonded with my brother-in-law.

I have realized that I should never take Christmas for granted and just go "through the motions."

There is so much about Christmas that is remarkable. On behalf of our family I wish to recite to you and yours our official motto of the 2009 Christmas season and say: "Good tidings to you!"

Richard McMurray is a Cos Cob-based freelance writer. E-mail: richimacus@yahoo.com.