My parents never put the Christmas tree up.  Santa brought it on Christmas eve.  

My mother loved Christmas and all its many traditions from time I can first remember until the day she died. When I was little, she’d expend enormous amounts of time and effort decorating our house every bit as gaily as Mr. Fezziwig’s office in the Christmas Carol. And as my siblings and I had children of our own, when she could have legitimately sat back and let us do the work, she would throw elaborate Santa parties complete with tables of full of food and drink, a roaring fire in fireplace and the big man making an appearance after dark – usually with several bags full of toys.

Back in the 1950’s, when I was little and we lived on 73^rd and Marshfield, the month of December would be spent deep in Christmas decorating and cooking.  LIghts went up outside and my dad would stuggle to arrange a life size manager in front of the bushes.  My mom would spent the month making fruitcakes. After cooking them, she would wrap each cake in a cloth soaked in whiskey and store them in dark corner the pantry for a few weeks. Why this important whiskey-soaking step I don’t know because I never asked. The fruitcakes were heavy and – in my mind – god-awful tasting things that would have been better used as doorstops.   But she loved them and apparently so did her friends and family – – or at least they told her they did. So I hope they meant it because each and every year they would get one delivered to their house by my dad on Christmas Eve. Whether they ate them or used them to stop the door from banging shut remains a mystery.

The month of December may have been busy with preparation . . but nothing compared to Christmas Eve in my house.  My mother would be up early and, after going to mass, come home and hit the kitchen.  We kids knew that this was not a day to try to sleep in (if there ever was such a day in her house).  We had to be up by the time my mother walked though the door or we’d hear the pots and pans banging in the kitchen as she pulled them out… a sure sign that we’d better be out by her side soon or risk hearing her screaming our name in her high-pitched voice — soon followed by her throwing open our bedroom doors and administrating what can only be described as a few well executed whacks to the side of our head.

By the time I’d reach the kitchen, she’d already be measuring flour and sugar and yelling at me to get out the eggs and yeast to make the cinnamon rolls that we’d have for breakfast on Christmas morning.  Jackie might be yelled at to vacuum the rugs and polish the furniture and Tommy to clean the bedrooms.  My dad was alway told to clean the bathroom and, because the dog stayed down there, wash the basement floor  My older brothers would have to shovel the sidewalk (it always snowed on Christmas when I was a kid…. at least in my memory it did), wash the floors, and sent on all sorts of errands.

My poor dad, it seemed, ran in circles trying to keep up. As the only girl still home, I’d spend the entire of day in the kitchen helping with the preparations for the big Christmas dinner. My grandma’s potato stuffing had to be made and ready to go in the bird early the next day. Pumpkin, chocolate and apple pies rotated in and out of the oven and vegtables were cut and washed. It all seems so straightforward but believe me, it wasn’t. Chaos doesn’t begin to describe the condition of the kitchen. My mother didn’t believe in cleaning up one mess before we started on another. So, the flour from the pie dough would be all over the counter (and floor) as I tried to cut the beans or mash the potatoes for the dressing, the pot needed to cook the pudding would still be full of potato-water scum, potato skins lay in the sink and usually two or three pie crusts would be forgotten in the oven and burned. The end of the day cleanup was a nightmare.

Finally, after the cooking was done (and I was bone tired) we’d moved to the living room to get ready for Santa.  When we were still little the stockings were hung by the chimney with care. . . Okay, so at our house they weren’t fancy stockings purchased at Marshall Field’s, they were my dad’s old black work sox’s hung by safety pins from a string across the fake fireplace. But to us, this was Christmas.  It meant Santa would be here soon.

After awhile we’d have taken our baths and come out in our pajamas and robes ready to join my parents by the piano and, as my mother played Christmas Carols, we’d sing on the top of our lungs.  Someone was always goofing off and my mom always yelling and/or smacking someone but we got through it.  Finally we’d have to go to bed and the long night would start for my parents.

You see the thing I remember the most about Christmas is that the tree never went up until Santa brought it on Christmas Eve.  It was magical.

We’d go to bed with living room bare and unremarkable and wake to a magic-filled room with a glistening, tinsel laden, light- blinking Christmas tree and a room full of brightly wrapped gifts; I especially remember the year there were three gleaming Schwann bikes with bows on them waiting for us. It was an amazing site to wake to as a kid. How my parents managed those bikes I don’t know   They didn’t have much in those days.   Not too many years before the bikes arrived, my big Christmas gift was a recycled doll.   I guess my mom thought I wouldn’t recognize it with a new wig and new clothes.  But I did. My dad was a street car driver at the time and I still remember wondering why I’d gotten my old doll in new cloths while clutching it in one hand and holding dad’s hand in the other while going with him to the CTA Car Barns at 69th and Ashland to pick up his check.

But I digress.   I don’t know how my parents did it but even after working hard all day they would keep going putting up the tree, wrapping gifts, putting together and arranging toys     . . . . and that was only the start. After a full day of work and a full night of playing Santa, they always made midnight mass, usually a two hour ordeal in those days. After mass, they’d come home and cook a full breakfast of bacon and eggs for the two of them and my older siblings (who had made a mandatory appearance at midnight mass with them).

When they were done with their breakfast Santa would come. My dad would go outside our bedroom window and ring sleigh bells while my mom would be inside yelling, “I think Santa Claus has come.” We, the three youngest  – –  Jack, Tom and I  – – would stumble out of our rooms rubbing our eyes and opening them in wonder to the fairytale spectacle that they had prepared for us.