Once a Year

This is my Christmas tree.  It is surprisingly blurry.

There are few things I hold sacred in this world, but one of them is my right to make as big and embarrassing a deal over the holidays as I wish, including putting up a big and lavishly decorated tree, a right that Brando has trampled on only once, to his mortification, as I dubbed him The Grinch for many years afterward.  That was the second year we lived in Brooklyn.  The first year we had a very dry live tree and a fourth-floor walkup.  The third year we bought an artificial and saved on the cost of marriage counseling.

At any rate, it is always at this time of year more than any other that I think of my second cousin, Saundra, who took Christmas as deadly serious as any kid scrambling to make sure she was on the Nice List.  Calling her my second cousin does not quite do our relationship justice; my father's first cousin and an only child who never married, she took an interest in my sisters and me that was closer to a best friend and a beloved aunt.  She was the maid of honor at my wedding, a position that I could have imagined giving to no one else.

She was always eager and lavish when it came to Christmas rituals.  There was tree decorating at her apartment in the suburbs, then the drive to her mother's farm for decorating her tree and stringing lights outside, then a furious weekend of cookie-making and a trip to my grandmother's to help with her tree.  By the time Christmas Eve rolled around we had usually decorated a minimum of five trees and made enough cookies to make ourselves sick for a month.

When I was about five, one of my cousins on the other side of the family, about two years older than I was, took peculiar delight in informing me there was no Santa.  Devastated, I declared my intent not to believe in him anymore.  Saundra was infuriated by this and set about planning my re-education.

Her father, my uncle Bill, was a gruff old farmer who often had a better way with horses than with people.  He had an actual live reindeer that he kept in the barn and that my sister and I had dubbed "Rudolph."  Oh-so-original.  Bill always had strange and exotic animals on his farm.  He once had a pair of breeding rheas, a bad-tempered South American bird related to the ostrich.  He also kept pygmy goats the size of Yorkies.

At one point on Christmas Eve, Saundra and my grandmother and aunt Jean called me to the window.  Sleigh bells were jingling outside.  There was Santa in his red suit!  He went into the barn and came back a moment later with Rudolph!  Our Rudolph was the Rudolph, just as we'd always suspected! 

How she ever got her old dad to wear that Santa suit, I'll never know.

Saundra died May 2005 of a sudden heart attack.  I miss her more and more every year.

Comments

[Cindy]

I'm sure that Saundra will live on through your Christmas traditions. What a beautiful tribute to her.

Merry Christmas. And may the new year bring joy and peace to us all.

[Churlita]

What a sweet post. Your tree looks so much better than mine. We go and cut ours down at a farm and this year, I don't think I sawed it very well. It's a total leaner.

[Adorable Girlfriend]

Did you ever ask how she managed to get Uncle Bill to wear the suit?

Merry Christmas to you and Brando! May the new year bring you much love and joy.

[Rachie]

I'll bet Uncle Bill took secret glee in surprising us...I was thinking about Saundra today while I was making truffles -- she would have liked some. And I would like some of her cornflake wreaths. In her corner of the cosmos, I'm sure she's got a tree decorated with unicorns, "Legend" playing on her VCR, and a hot elf rubbing her shoulders. (=

[babelbabe]

what a GREAT story! and i would bet she'd be proud of your very pretty tree.

[cheryll]

Merry Christmas. This is exactly the sort of story that Christmas is about for me.

Thanks!

[Brenda]

What a beautiful tribute. Merry Christmas.