The spirit of Christmas Past

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Funny how fast the years run away. And funny how this time of year brings that to mind. Maybe it's the short days that flash by, or the long, dark nights, that lend themselves to remembering.

I was at the dentist's office a few days ago, sitting in one of those high-tech chairs that remind me of an astronaut's seat on a shuttle. I was waiting for the work to start, locked in with a tray in front of me and a chain around my neck — attached to a bib.

As I waited, the sound system started playing the old Gene Autry recording of "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer."

I don't know how these things happen, but suddenly that dentist's chair became a time machine, and I was returned to "those thrilling days of yesteryear."

In a flash I was sitting on the living room floor in front of an old RCA Victor console model radio/phonograph at my home on Ninth Avenue. A stack of hard, black 78 RPM records sat in front of me, and though I was only half-aware of them, siblings were around me.

So naturally, we had all learned the words and were chirping along with the song as it crackled to a climax with the help of a well-worn phonograph needle ("… You'll go down in his-to-ry").

I could feel the short nap of the old living room carpet. I could see in the window the circular red cellophane wreath with its red cardboard candle and painted red bulb glowing through the Venetian blinds. The wreath was best seen from inside the house as it was partially obscured from the outside by a layer of frost on the storm window.

The worn green sofa sat in the living room just below the wreath and right next to the radio. A few steps toward the kitchen in the dining room sat a card table on the linoleum floor. On the table sat a half-completed jig-saw puzzle.

From the kitchen door the warm aroma of sugar cookies baking wafted out and overcame the smell of pipe smoke coming from somewhere else in the house. Those two scents mingled with a winter whiff of the coal furnace emanating from the hot-air registers with their shutters full open against the frigid air outside.

A palpable excitement stirred inside all of us — one that will never come just that way again.

Secrets were safe in that half-lit scene, and what was really there, and what might come in future years, was held at bay by little hearts secure in the knowledge that they were special, and all was wondrous, and holy, and magic.

Then the dentist said, "Open wide, Don."