A Not So Brief Continuation of my Brief Autobiography

THE BEST YEARS OF MY CHILDHOOD


Ages 5, 6, & 7 were no doubt my favorite ages of my formative years. I have very clear and concise memories from these ages on. Being a child is by far the best time in life. My days were divided up between school (I started kindergarten at age 4 so I was in elementary school by the age of 5) playing with my toys, playing outside, playing inside, laying on the carpet in front of the T.V. drawing, playing with friends or watching Disney.

As a super imaginative child, playing was quite a production. If you were to play with me, you had to be able to keep up. I had about 5,322,514.2 “My Little Ponies” and I had a different voice for each one. There was also an ongoing storyline for each character that I kept up with on a daily basis. Think of it kind of like an on going soap opera…but with colorful plastic ponies in place of colorful plastic people. Some of this is documented on cassette…funny stuff. My family would love to spy on me as I played in my room – they got a tremendous kick out of how well I did so many different voices, as well as my intricate tapestry of stories I would continue to weave. Of course if I noticed them peeking in on me I would get terribly embarrassed and shout out “SHUT THAT!!!” in horror, and they would giggle and shut the door – I would then continue on my merry way.

If I happened to not be playing with my toys I was most likely pretending to be a horse. By this point it was well established that horses were my absolute favorite animal; if not my obsession. My grandfather owned many racehorses at Suffolk Downs and in Florida and I think his love for all animals but mainly horses was instilled in me. If you were playing horse with me you would, of course, have to be a horse too. Now…for me; pretending to be a horse did not involve merely walking around on hands and knees. I could move like friggin’ Secretariat. I would tear down the hallway in an uneven hands and feet full gallop. Reflecting back upon it now I can only imagine the sight I must have been. I also loved to “gallop” up the stairs. I loved the fact that it sounded like authentic hoofbeats.
The only time I did not pretend to be a horse was either when it was Christmas time – in which case I would pretend to be a reindeer…or when I was in the pool where naturally, I would pretend to be a dolphin (named “Rainbow” because of the rainbow-esque arc that I would make as a dolphin jumping into the pool.)

When I was not playing with horses or pretending to be a horse…I was drawing them of course! This usually occurred at night. Everyone would be in the living room watching T.V. and I would be laying on the floor along side the coffee table with my pad of drawing paper and my pen, drawing and writing out captions or short paragraphs to which my drawings would illustrate whatever story I was writing. A lot of the times it was actually unicorns and such so I could really use my imagination and delve into magical happenings within my tales. The only time I would not be drawing horses was (just like when I was playing them) when it was Christmas time. I would draw out 4 sets of reindeer and a sleigh and cut them out and paste them up on the wall. Which brings me to Christmas…


THE BEST TIME OF YEAR TO BE A KID


Hands down the most exciting time in a young (Christian) child’s life is Christmas time. When you still believe in Santa, when it’s magical and exciting and there is this wonderful buzz and glorious anxiety leading up to that final day. I think I still try every year in vain to recapture that magical feeling that I remember. I still try to get that excitement back – but it is never the same. Christmas remains my favorite holiday, and I think it is solely for that elusive feeling I want so much but can never quite attain.

I remember that the Christmas buzz would start to hit me when the lights started going up on the houses. That was one of my favorite parts of the festive season. My neighbors down at the end of the street had a specific decoration that just awed me and that I still love to this day; it was one of those plastic reindeer and sleigh decorations., but with three reindeer – and the lead one was wired with a red Christmas light bulb nose so that he looked like Rudolph – my favorite of all the reindeer. I loved it so much. They set it up on the top of their roof and I loved to imagine it was the real deal. At this point my family only had the big old fashioned Christmas lights and the plastic Santa that lit up. I loved that Santa; he would stand right outside our front door (the upstairs front door, as we had an entrance downstairs and up, he would stand at the top of the stairs that led to the front door) his cheery red glow would filter through the dappled oblong glass next to the doorway and give a beautiful ambiance to the living room.

At least a couple times during the season we would drive around as a family and look at the Christmas lights. This is another favorite tradition of mine and I feel that Saugus has some of the best houses to look at…even if they might be taken a little bit to the extreme in some cases – I actually like them all the better because of that. The Fellsway of course was one of the main destinations for light looking in the Saugus and surrounding areas, and I remember the lines of cars and onlookers that would gather as you neared "the" house – the one with more lights then any house you had ever seen. The one with more decorations than you had ever seen. The one with the decorations that twirled and moved and rotated. That sparkled and twinkled and blinked. There was even music. Every nook and cranny of the house and yard was covered – it went on and on. Even the back yard was decorated. It was a must-see for all Yuletide participants. The line would start a couple blocks away, and it would come to a slow crawl, then just about a stand still by the time you actually turned onto the street where this house stood. Either you would have got out of your car to walk around and look at this spectacle or just gawked at its grandeur from the comfort of your car. We would usually opt for the latter.

Decorating the house for Christmas was magic in itself. The transition was amazing. It started by going downstairs and into the garage to get the decorations. You would always feel that crisp winter time chill from the outside – I always associate going into my garage when it’s cold out to Christmas time to this day. The boxes containing the decorations were festive in and of themselves; with pictures of ginger bread men and red and green swirls all over them.
Once we had lugged the boxes upstairs, one by one we unpacked and unloaded dozens upon dozens of Yuletide knick knacks. Some of which have been in my family for generations, in particular these little reindeer ornaments that were my Mother’s that had to have been from the 50’s. Also a “Rudolph” decoration to hang on the wall from the 60’s that I still use to this day. My mother loved little decorations…ceramics…ornaments….decorative dishes, you name it – the love of all things novelty was definitely passed down to me through her. When we were finished there really wasn’t anywhere you could turn without seeing something Christmas related. I loved that. Nothing was better then that holiday feel.

Another tradition that I still love and that also gave the holidays a special feel for me, was the making of Christmas treats – especially sugar cookies. Any of you who have been around me during Christmas time have no doubt had my “famous” Christmas cookies. They are something I know I can brag about with confidence – as they are always a hit and just seem to have a special something to them nobody else’s sugar cookies do. As a child this would usually be done by my Sister, my Brother and I. I would, at those younger ages be the one who got to stamp out the many different shapes with the cookie cutters…and we certainly had many; there was a Santa, an angel, a star, a bell, a stocking, a wreath, a tree,a reindeer, a snowman and a couple others I know I’m forgetting. Decorating them was always quite fun, and was done with many different colored sugars and frosting – they almost looked to pretty to eat…almost.

Now, I love Christmas movies so much it’s ridiculous, and back then we would tape all the Christmas specials off of T.V. There there was one super awesome Christmas movie VHS we had made that had pretty much everything you’d ever want to watch on it. It started with Rudolph, I can’t quite remember the order after that but it included Frosty, Charlie Brown Christmas, Year Without a Santa Claus, The Small One (a little known Disney short that I LOVE) Mickey’s Christmas carol, my all time FAVORITE which is Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, Christmas on Sesame St…I mean the hits just kept on going. As far as music, there was always Bing Crosby’s White Christmas to be played. I remember that I would sit in my room with a red Popsicle (because Rudolph’s nose was red) and listen to Gene Autry’s record that had “Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer” on it, and just revel in the Christmas time spirit of it all. THE BEST Christmas compilation ever that I listened to and still listen to now however; was “A Very Special Christmas” it came out in 1987 and it was AWESOME – here is the list of songs and performers; The Pointer Sisters - Santa Claus Is Coming to Town Eurythmics - Winter Wonderland Whitney Houston - Do You Hear What I Hear? Bruce Springsteen - Merry Christmas, Baby The Pretenders - Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas John Mellencamp - I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus Sting - Gabriel's Message Run-D.M.C. - Christmas in Hollis U2 - Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) Madonna - Santa Baby Bob Seger - The Little Drummer Boy Bryan Adams - Run Rudolph Run Bon Jovi – Back Door Santa Alison Moyet - The Coventry Carol Stevie Nicks - Silent Night
I mean..COME ON! What a list! I especially enjoyed Run DMC. Still do.

So the anticipation of Christmas is almost unbearable to a kid; and it all comes to a point on Christmas Eve. I like that day better then Christmas itself. First of all; it was usually a half day of school. And nothing was more fun than getting to watch movies and pass candies and cookies around for a Christmas party at school…it definitely added to the magic of Christmas. Then you would get ready for Christmas Eve Mass. I haven’t willingly gone to Church in probably about 14 years…but I would still love to go to Christmas Eve Mass just for the feeling it gives. Going to Mass at night was weird and cool to me as a child and it added to the excitement of the holiday.The Church was decorated so beautifully with poinsettias and garlands everywhere. It would get so full that they would usually hold two Masses at the same time – One upstairs and one down, and that was kinda cool cause it was in the basement! I love holiday songs and around the age of 5-7 I LOVED Gloria (I think that’s what it’s called. NO not the Van Morrison song!)So it was always fun to be singing carols in Church.

After Mass (or maybe before I can’t remember) We would have dinner – since we were/are a very Italian/Sicilian family it usually consisted of shrimp and Lobster or some kind of fish.

The wonderful town of Saugus would have a parade with Fire Engines etc going through town and one could find out when it was coming near you by turning on channel 3. My family and I would walk down to the end of my street and await the parade. You could hear it coming a mile away, there were fire engine’s honking, sirens and Christmas music blaring, people cheering. When it finally would pass by..at least a dozen kids and some adults would be whipping candy to the crowd. It was awesome.

Myself and my family all share in the tradition of opening ONE gift on Christmas Eve, I loved that and still practice it! So, after opening our one present we would sit around and talk or watch a movie or something…leave the cookies by the fireplace and…this was my favorite of all…My Sister, Brother and I would all sleep in her (my sister’s) room. THAT was cool. It only happened once a year. I would listen for Santa and they would indulge my beliefs. I don’t know how I slept. I would wake up at around 4am and of course wake my siblings up. We would sneak out to the living room…only to see if Santa had filled the Stockings and ate the cookies….HE DID! Then I would wait in agony until a decent time to get up and open the contents of the stocking.
When my parents got up we could do the real presents. I was quite spoiled at Christmas. My Grandfather “Ho-Ho” would see to that. My Mom was great at knowing what I wanted in addition to whatever I put on my list, and I always had a mountain of presents.
However, it seems that all of the presents that I waited for were not nearly as enjoyable as the whole experience of the season. I still feel that way. I get much more excited about the traditions and the spirit of it all than the actual gifts. I love to give gifts more than anything – but find that the actual Christmas day is rather anti-climactic. Christmas Eve is still the favorite. Maybe one day..if/when I have children, I will be able to recapture that old feeling again. Or at least enjoy watching my child get to experience it. That would be wonderful