There are certain pictures in your head, or moments that are not fluid memories – just snapshots stored in your brain. Then there are fluid memories – your first date, your first episode with beer, high school sports moments, when you actually remember saying things, doing things, laughing……moving. But nothing beats the memories of sheer innocence, bewilderment and the overwhelmingly giddy feeling of Christmas morning as a child. Sure, eventually everything changes – the meaning, the purpose, the things you need to get done, but Christmas as a child is a memory – both fluid and still – that is forever stamped into my brain. From the mundane and ridiculous – like a relative showing up one recent year in a “half-sweater,” mid-riff fully out there for everyone to see, including a truly embarassing orange tan from the Tan-O-Rama or whatever; to the magical – always looking to my left at the Christmas dinner table to see my grandfather raise a glass to toast. Or when I woke up and walked out of bedroom to see the magnificent train-set sitting on the dinner table, undoubtedly assembled and made fully operational by my dad in the wee hours of the morning. And yeah, the one time when I was maybe 10 or 11, in the basement a few weeks before Christmas and I was looking for something and I found a few of what would be my Christmas presents…….sitting on top was a green Nerf football….and it registered. That’s a snapshot memory – that green Nerf. All great memories, for one reason or another. Merry Christmas!
