Final column.

This is my final column which ran last Sunday. I wrote for the Times Free Press for over 8 years and while there were times I dreaded the deadline, I’m going to miss it. Perhaps I’ll find somewhere else to write… Anyway, enjoy. And Merry Christmas.
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Two weeks ago, in the midst of packing up the apartment for our move to Texas, I saw a commercial that made me pause. The voiceover began, “Remember when Christmas was magical? Let’s get back to that.”

Packing tape in hand, my brain immediately went back to Christmas 1986 when I got a Barbie moped for my dolls. We had just moved to West Germany, prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall, and were living in guest quarters, or a gasthaus, on the Army base. We were uprooted sometime in the fall, as I remember being introduced to my new third grade class mid-semester. It was a strange new world but one I immediately enjoyed for the winter snow was abundant and my classmates were kind.

Christmas morning had come and our tree had birthed a bounty of presents. My sister and I, in our matching pajamas, sat on the floor in the dining room where our tree stood next to the fireplace, across from the kitchen and adjacent to the living room. To my recall, we had never lived in such a large palace, though I knew it was temporary, and by the following Christmas we had settled into a cottage in the German town just a couple of miles from the base.

Our parents watched as we tore open one gift after another, and while I don’t remember everything Bugs Bunny or the family dog gave me (my mother had a sense of humor when it came to writing the gift tags), I have never forgotten the feeling of pure elation when I unwrapped my new Barbie moped. The wheels clicked when I scooted it along the floor, filling the room with a plastic motor sound that probably annoyed everyone over the age of eight. I played with that moped for the rest of the day.

Like most people, I have a rolodex of Christmas memories in my mind ranging from early childhood to newly married, most of them more meaningful than the one with the moped. However, I thought it was interesting that my brain selected the one Christmas that so closely followed a big transition in my childhood.

Now that sequence is being repeated in my own family. Never in a million years did I imagine our world would be turned upside down at Christmastime, that we would be moving across the country the week before my favorite holiday.

If this were any other year, our Christmas tree would be up, along with coordinating holiday décor throughout the house. The boys would have their own mini-tree in their room and every day would be filled with the sounds of Bing Crosby and Ella Fitzgerald. We would’ve have had a Christmas party with our friends and spent Christmas Eve with our extended family.

That isn’t he case this year. Naturally, it’s been hard to capture the Christmas spirit when I’m distracted by the stacks of moving boxes in the living room. This is wrong, I think to myself. There should be a fully decorated Christmas tree standing in the window frame, not a leaning tower of copy paper boxes filled with books, trinkets and under-used kitchen utensils.

It isn’t that my spirit it gone; rather, it’s on hold. We should arrive at our new house a full eight days prior to Christmas Eve. If I time it right, if I keep my momentum, if I coordinate the unpacking of every box, there’s a good chance I can have a fully decorated, fully unpacked and organized house by bedtime, December 24th.

My enthusiasm is one third excitement, one third obsessive-compulsive disorder, and one third the result long-term insomnia, which is why the plan sounds a little crazy to some and perfectly logical to me. The more I remember that magical Christmas morning over twenty years ago, the more I want this Christmas to be magical for my children. We, too, had just moved, and suddenly we were an ocean away from everything that was familiar. We were living a transitional life and my parents still managed to create the perfect holiday for their daughters filled with tradition and wonder. My little boys have been living in organized chaos for the last five months with their father nine hours away and their mother worn ragged from flying solo. Now that we’re back together and uprooting to Texas, I would be remiss if I didn’t christen our new life with a magical Christmas morning.

Whether it was a makeshift Christmas my mother threw together the night before or one she worked on diligently for months, I don’t want to know. Christmas 1986 was just how Christmas should always be, filled with happy moments, family tradition and laughter. Perhaps, in the midst of our move, my boys will capture a few moments in their hearts this week that will give them magical memories for years.

Merry Christmas, Chattanooga. And farewell.