THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, December 24, 1995 TAG: 9512240005
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ELIZABETH SIMPSON
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
The youngest daughter is pleading that she is afraid of the dark, that she wants to stay home, that wherever it is we're going, she doesn't want to go.
Her father and I are dragging her along anyway. ``You'll like this, just watch,'' we say.''
She doesn't seem to understand that we, her parents, are responsible this time of year for making her memories. That somewhere in this frenzied, free-fall time until Christmas we must plant some moments that will last forever.
Some small instant that will stay with her into adulthood, that will make her wax poetic some day.
Maybe it will be the hayride under an inky sky dotted with a million stars at the Triple R Ranch in Chesapeake. The jingle of the harness bells as the horses clop along in the black of night.
Or maybe the blinking snowflakes blazing away at The Garden of Lights show.
Or the steaming hot cider at Coleman's Nursery.
Instead, more than likely, she'll remember the gingerbread man whose arm I accidently cut off on the kitchen table and whose feet I burned in the oven. Or the question her big sister asked after seeing a live Nativity scene: ``So when does this Jesus story come out in the theater?''
Who knows what moments will take root. Memories are rarely what parents try to script, and more likely what God has in mind.
But my parents did the same thing with my sister and me - packed us up in the car for rides through neighborhoods of lights, dressed us in velvety splendor for midnight Mass, packed us off to see Santa.
Yet these are the things I remember best:
The year the Christmas tree fell down in the middle of the night. I can transport myself immediately to my childhood bed, listening to the tinkling sound of ornaments breaking.
I remember the year the electricity went out during a Christmas Eve blizzard and how we played board games by firelight.
And the year I temporarily blinded myself Christmas morning when I opened a bottle in my science kit and splashed chemicals in my eye.
I remember my first Christmas away from home and how that wild-and-crazy-trip to a South Texas beach turned out kind of sad-and-lonely, and how I made sure I went home the next year.
I remember my first year as a mother, and how, for the first time, I didn't care what I got for Christmas. I just wanted to see the look on my daughter's face.
I remember going into labor with my youngest daughter on Christmas Day two years later. She kicked inside me all day as the rest of us unwrapped gifts and gorged on holiday food.
And now she is crying, saying she doesn't want to go out in the dark, doesn't want to partake in whatever Christmas scheme her father and I have baked up for her.
And yet, she will go, and she'll enjoy herself and gaze at the stars from the prickly warmth of a mound of hay.
Maybe she won't remember this. Maybe she'll only remember how we ran out of molasses for the gingerbread men and had to use honey. (That'll work, right?) Or maybe she'll remember the crooked gingerbread house and eating all the candy before she could use it for decorations.
But that's OK. I will remember the stars for her. by CNB