Auld Lang Syne...

Aside from the fact that the song Auld Lang Syne is so well known in the world, there is something about the melody that sings within in my blood. Maybe it has to do with the origins of the song and some imprinted memory hidden deep in my blood, but whatever it is, I can not help but start thinking about things ‘…old long since.’

I am once again listening to Christmas songs via web radio, and this tune started playing. I found myself immediately thinking about various memories I have from around this time of the year:

I’m not sure how old I was, but I remember going out with Dad to cut down a Christmas tree one year. It was cold, and there was snow. We went out east and south of where my grandparents lived (on my mother’s side) and found a small cedar tree. I know both my grandparents were still alive at the time, so I had to be somewhere between 3-5 years old. Of course, this was also before we found out I had allergies, so there went real Christmas trees…

I remember another year when I accidentally set fire to a Christmas decoration in the east room of the old house. It was something Mom had put together with cotton to represent the snow. There were candles… I knocked one over… Poof! I remember Dad putting it all out with a bottle (still 16oz glass at the time) of Coke. I think I was 5 or 6 at the time.

I remember one year going out for a drive with Dad on Christmas Eve and when we got back home, I found out that Santa had come early that year!! Of course, later in life, I found out that Mom and Dad had done that because they knew a large snow storm was encroaching upon the area, and Dad worked for the Illinois Department of Transportation, so he knew he was going to have to leave later in the night and be working on Christmas…

…But that started a bit of a tradition for our family as we started having Christmas on Christmas Eve from then on out. Most of the time Aunt Zelda (my mother’s sister) and Uncle Marvin came in to celebrate with us. As my grandparents were all gone so early in my life, they ended up being more like my grandparents than just an Aunt and Uncle.

In 1977, about a couple of weeks before Christmas, I ended up just about taking off the middle finger on my left hand while out knocking wood loose on the wood pile. We had an ice storm, so the wood was all froze together. I had went out with mom and was tapping it loose with a sledge hammer, when I somehow managed to get my finger down over the edge of the wood and hit it with the hammer. I was OK until I got up on the porch and took my glove off and saw all the red. We tried soaking it in cold water for a little while, as I was watching "Frosty The Snowman" on T.V., but Dad realized very quickly that we were going to have to head over to the hospital… Which was almost a thirty mile drive… On icy roads… And I really didn’t like the idea of stitches. But, that is what had to happen. I remember the doctor saying how lucky I was that the damage hadn’t gone just a couple of mille-meters more or I’d be missing most of my middle finger.

Another year, I can remember walking around town with Dad looking at all of the flood water after heavy rains had hit the area. I had a short sleeve shirt on since it was in the low 70's!!! For the mid-west, that is just SO wrong on Christmas day!

I remember Christmas Eve of 1988. It hadn’t been a very good year… I really wasn’t looking forward to the holidays. That morning, I happened to stop by the local tavern and run into one of my cousins. Well… We started out having just a couple of beers, but ended up spending most of the rest of the day bar hopping. Needless to say, by the time the evening rolled around I was seeing the vapor trails off of Santa’s sleigh. I still hear about that one from time to time… Not something I’m exactly proud of either…

Christmas of 1989… I was living in Denver. I had an apartment by myself that was small, but decent. I couldn’t afford a trip back home that year, so I ended up having a simple dinner with an Uncle (on my Dad’s side) who lived there as well. I had a very small tree that came with lights set up on one of my stereo speakers and had set up some Christmas cards for my holiday decorations. All in all… It was one of the hardest Christmas times I’ve had.

Maybe the hardest Christmas was in 1995… I had gone through a divorce, and my ex had fallen off the face of the planet with our daughter. I didn’t have the money at the time to hire a lawyer to pursue legal options. I didn’t have enough money to come home to try to be with anyone. And even though I had some offer from friends to spend time with them during the holidays, I just couldn’t bring myself to go anywhere. And… It was also just three months after my Dad had passed away… I got up Christmas morning and listened to the "Christmas Story" on the Charlton Heston Presents the Bible CD. Later in the day, I’m sitting there flipping through T.V. and I come across "The Music Man" on one of the channels. That was just about my Dad’s favorite musical (and one that I like very well) and it was at that moment that pretty much all of the events of the year hit me like a ton of bricks…

Christmas of 2002 saw over 10” of snow of the ground from a storm that had passed through the night before. It was a good Christmas day, and just two days later, the best Christmas present ever came along… My son… And he has continued to make Christmas a joy.

And this year, I think Christmas will add additional great memories as well with a blending of the old and the new, forming a new Beginning of sorts full of wonder and excitement with all the possibilities of the future in place.