Christmas Memories

Living in Tashkent is flooding me with memories of living in Phoenix. The weather is quite similar with the eternally blue skies. The sunsets are the same. Those precious few minutes when the clouds are peach colored just before they turn purple remind me of something I wrote shortly before I left Phoenix. I wrote that I’d miss the skies. Lately I am remembering Christmases. In particular I’m remembering favorite gifts.

One Christmas I received a stand-up chalkboard that had two sides and a chalk tray. To change sides I just had to loosen a couple of wing nuts and flip the board. When my best friend Carolyn saw it, we played school for the rest of Christmas break. I also remember racing home after school let out for the summer so we could play school. We’d do math problems, write sentences, spell – all the things we hated to do in school were fun t home on the chalkboard. Go figure.

Every Christmas Eve my sister and I got new pajamas. I also got a sleeping bag one year and Cindy let me sleep on her floor! That is until she told me that I breathed too loud and sent me back to my own room where I slept in my bed in the sleeping bag. I always heard sleigh bells laying in that bed on Christmas Eve. Always. For real.

Every Christmas my sister made candy – a yummy chocolate dipped cream candy. Every year mid December I got a mysterious illness and had to stay home from school. This was the day I feasted on her homemade candy. My sister got wise to me because she could tell that the candy had been disturbed. (We were once robbed and didn’t know it until my sister came home and demanded to know who had moved her perfume bottles. I’m serious.) So I started rearranging the candy so it looked the same. Always one step ahead of me, she started to count it before leaving for school and I was, again, busted. And, remember, all this happened incrementally year by year. One year I was left home “sick” with the instruction not to watch any television. Okay, I lied. I didn’t notice my sister unplugging the set before leaving for school. I had to plug it in to watch. Unfortunately, I was not smart enough to unplug it before she got home. I do believe my sister loved me; really I do. The one thing, to my knowledge, I was never busted for was peeking at gifts. I knew where my parents hid the secret stash of Christmas gifts. I was busy during those sick days.

We got a family gift of a tape recorder one Christmas. We took turns passing it around talking to my grandmother. When we filled a tape, we’d send it to her. My Uncle Carl, unbeknownst to anyone, got a hold of it and recorded this:

An accident really uncanny
Befell a respectable granny
She sat down in a chair
While her false teeth were there
And bit herself in the fanny.

Yes, my grandmother wore false teeth. She saved all the tapes that we made and I inherited them which was when I discovered his mischievousness.

I rarely liked the clothes I got for Christmas partly because they usually didn’t fit and partly because my sister often received the same thing, maybe in a different color. But, one year a got a nightgown from my Aunt Lynn that I adored. It was elegant and sexy. I was about 13 and felt like such a lady wearing it. That was the year Barbara Streisand made the movie “Funny Lady”. After watching that, I was Fanny Brice. The nightgown helped. I’d go into the kitchen before bed and rub lemons on my elbows (just like Barbra did in the movie). When my mother caught me putting on perfume before going to bed she searched my room.

I always wanted a Light Bright but never got one. All my friends had one. I think my parents never really loved me.

Tubsy was one of my favorite dolls that I got one Christmas. She sat in the tub and splashed her arms until she rusted.

I do remember more than just gifts and candy. I remember going to late Christmas Eve service and being quite concerned that we didn't get me home and in bed before midnight - when Santa came. I didn't want to get skipped because I was in church on Christmas Eve!

Now I'm in Tashkent where Christmas is not a big deal. I have seen a few decorations outside American's homes and the Embassy, but not many. That's okay; I don't miss it. It's all part of this great adventure. Tonight the Marine House is open for Happy Hour. Tomorrow night (Christmas Eve) the guards are hosting a masquerade dinner party at a local restaurant. Saturday we are having Christmas dinner at the Charge d'Affaire's house. He has a Russian style pool table. The difference between this and what we have in Ameria is the balls are larger so the corner pockets, for example, are only 4–5 mm wider than the diameter of the ball! The central pockets are 14–18 mm wider. In other words, it's harder. Can you tell I like pool? I'm getting off topic. Ah, Christmas -

I got spoiled in Minnesota with beautiful white Christmases. Tashkent is, like Phoenix, brown and blue. Douglas and I are not exchanging gifts this year. I told him not to try and get anything for me(although someone put something in my stocking). We haven't been here that long to know the good places to shop and, frankly, after the move and getting rid of things, neither of us really wants anything. I did tell him that this life he has given me is a gift that will cover him for many Christmases and birthdays yet to come. I want nothing. I have everything and more. That is the truth. I wish the same for you, dear readers.