Theater Notes: Stretching Christmas (A grampa and granddaughter phone call)
Grampa: I want something different this year. I want to stretch Christmas out.
Sophia: You mean, like Chanukah?
Grampa: No, I don’t mean like Chanukah. I’m going for more than eight days. And I don’t mean a present for every day. I just want to stretch Christmas out.
Sophia: No presents? What kind of Christmas would that be, stretched or un-stretched?
Grampa: Well, I didn’t mean there wouldn’t be presents, I just meant there wouldn’t be present-presents. Just that few would be store-boughten things.
Sophia: Your grand kids all know your lecture, Grampa, about the “Buy me, gimme, get me” kinds of kids we were trained not to be. But, on the other hand?
Grampa: You’re right, there is going to be the other hand in this stretched out Christmas idea.
Sophia: Ok, wise old patriarch. I’m sitting down. Teach me something, Grampa.
Grampa: Well, in simplest terms, we’re going to stretch Christmas out by focusing on little things that feel like Christmas moments, and doing it for a whole two weeks before Christmas day and maybe three whole weeks afterwards.
Sophia: Have you got any examples?
Grampa: It’s easy. You do one of those Christmas stretcher moments for me every time you call. And when you call, every time you start with asking me if I have any sweet memories to tell you about.
Sophia: Well, you taught me that, and I love asking it, not just of you, Grampa, but almost everyone who calls me, or I call. And you’re right. It does feel like Christmas to tell my sweet memories or to listen to theirs.
Grampa: Yep , that’s the idea. Pretty simple, isn’t it? And this year I want us to say in our heads, “Now, this is Christmas.” Here’s another one. I know you’ve heard me do it. But, during this stretching season, every time we get on a grocery check-out line, we try in some way to connect to the check-out person, and make a little stretch of Christmas for them. No big deal. Maybe asking what they look forward to on Christmas day, or Christmas Eve? Maybe, what’s the best “not bought” Christmas present they are wishing for? Get it?
Sophia: Yep, and if they’re a parent, maybe ask them, what they might put in a kid’s stocking that wasn’t something that had to be bought at a store? Is that in the category?
Grampa: My darling as usual, you nailed it. That is the category for stretching Christmas out beyond Christmas day. Did your mom ever tell you how on Christmas, when she was little, as a family, we went up to the commuter railroad station, and sang Christmas carols to the people getting off the train at that hour on a day after Christmas Day?
Sophia: She talks about it every Christmas, but, as you know, in our part of Vermont there isn’t even a bus station, let alone a railroad station. But, she hasn’t forgotten it, Grampa.
Grampa: It would be fun to think of what the singing represents, and then think about something that could duplicate it in spirit.
Sophia: You know at our house, we bake and bake and bake cookies for what seems like the whole month, and give them away. I’m the bag lady. I mean I put them in little bags, and I do a lot of the delivery on my bike. If the folks aren’t home, I put them in their mailbox, but if they are, their faces, their thanks, tells me what stretching Christmas out is all about.
Grampa: It really is the little things. I love to type out a few “Validations” on a card telling people what they have brought to my life. Sometimes I read them to them over the phone. I can hear Christmas stretching out in their warm, warm thanks. No one I know has ever had enough validations. We need more of that kind of stretching.
Sophia: Grampa, I always see it in the crazy boxes you send us, not just at Christmas. There are always articles on wild life in the ones you send to me. I read them, because I know they’re always going to be filled with great information. And then you send DVD’s of nature programs you’ve taped from PBS. Not having TV, we’d miss those without old faithful Grampa video taper. I love when you include a bag of acorns you’ve collected, stuff the young squirrels we’re rahabbing just love.
Grampa:What about the seven little gummy bears I send, reminding you, one a day for a week?
Sophia: Always building character, Grampa. And, as you know, that sure is one way of stretching out any week. But, Gramps, now that I’m fourteen, could you maybe put in the package 16 of them, so I might just have two a day for a stretched week?
Grampa: Yes, but only if you keep thinking of, the little things, and mouthing silently or out loud, “Now, this is Christmas.”
Sophia: You mean, something that is just like this phone call. Because, this call is just what all of Christmas should be like.
Grampa: Thanks, sweetheart. And not just to get in the last word, but what you just said, “Now, this is Christmas.” Thanks for the sweet memories. I love you. Forever.