Whenever the topic of who my favorite Beatle is comes up in conversation – a surprisingly common small-talk subject, I’ve come to find out – I always say it’s Ringo Starr.
I tell people it’s because he’s the underappreciated Beatle, which is true, but only partially. It’s because for two years, in 2003 and 2004, he was the celebrity host of “NORAD Tracks Santa.” I don’t remember what year we added watching North American Aerospace Defense Command tracking Santa’s sleigh to our Christmas Eve repertoire, but it must have been the late 1990s or the first few years of the millennium. It was back when computers were new and expensive enough that we only had one desktop for the house. We gathered around it like a television to watch the defense force escort Santa into North American airspace. Mom always made us go to bed when he hit the eastern Canadian seaboard.
For many years when us kids were young, we would go to the 5 p.m. Christmas Eve service at our family’s church, the Episcopal Cathedral of Saint Luke in Portland, the big one on State Street. It plays an outsized role in most of my childhood Christmas memories. We always had to try to get to the church at least 30 minutes before the time the service was scheduled to start in order to nab our usual Sunday pew, which was always right up front. I used to think it was because my mom was enthusiastic about the sermon, but it turns out it was mostly to keep us kids well behaved and quiet.
The highlight of the service was the manger procession. All the children were invited to come up front and sit down by the altar. The priest would pull up a chair and read the Christmas story out of the gospel, much like a parent reading a children’s book. Then the pieces of a manger diorama scene were passed out, one for each child – little figurine statuettes of all the main characters.
The big “gets” were, obviously, the Holy Family (Mary, Joseph, Jesus) and the three wise men, because they had the fanciest outfits (this was, less than piously, what young Victoria focused on). I always ended up with this old lady shepherdess doll. Then we would all proceed, as much as a gaggle of kids on Christmas Eve can proceed, over to the big manger-stable on the side of the church’s sanctuary. It had real straw in it every year and was built to resemble a first-century stable such as the one Christ was born in. It also might have been made out of a tiki hut.
Then we set up the manger scene, which stayed up for the full 12 days of the liturgical Christmas season, until the holiday of Epiphany. (We also left our home’s Christmas tree up until Epiphany. And sometimes Orthodox Christmas.) Over the years, as the congregation has grown, more figures have had to be added. There was apparently a whole industrial-sized flock of sheep in the stable at Christ’s birth.
Then when we got out it was a quick supper, the aforementioned tracking of Santa and off to bed, practically vibrating with the excitement of the oncoming storm of gifts. One delightful bonus of having a sibling who is eight years younger than you is that you extend your years of a child’s experience of Christmas. I still love Christmas as an adult, don’t get me wrong. But watching a little kid’s eyes go wide as they see the stockings, which had been entirely empty when they went to bed the night before, filled with presents from Santa? It’s magic. Hopefully in the next few years, my siblings and I will start reproducing and can experience that brand of Christmas time anticipation and chaos again.
For the past few years we have a new Christmas Eve routine. Now that everyone is old enough, we go to the “midnight Mass” on Christmas Eve. It actually starts at 10 p.m. (so we try to get there at 9:30 p.m.). Prior to that, we get some sort of takeout (the specific cuisine mostly has to do with what’s open) and watch “Die Hard.”
Another surprisingly common small-talk topic is whether or not “Die Hard” is a Christmas movie. My family is firmly in the camp of “it is.” This is a hill that I will die (hard) on. And while I certainly have anticipation for a pile of toys (mostly for my puppy, Karma) to unwrap, I’m mostly looking forward to being with my family under one roof again.
Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.
Victoria Hugo-Vidal is a Maine millennial. She can be contacted at:
themainemillennial@gmail.com
Twitter: @mainemillennial
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