19 Dec Time Falling (or Snow?)

By Hilary Farquhar

Whether this is time or snow, passing

Through the night, earthward,

Who can tell— White Darkness, Virginia Hamilton Adair

I miss my cat.

For as long as he lived with me, Tris would spend the first few hours after I brought my Christmas tree home sniffing every inch of it. I always wondered if he had a memory of pine tucked away somewhere. When Tris was young and still an outdoor cat, he would hang out under the blue spruce in front of my parents’ house in Virginia. Did he still remember those trees, during our cold Vermont winters? Once I started to decorate, carols playing, he would sit on the coffee table and watch me, occasionally rummaging around in the tissue paper as I unwrapped my ornaments. Setting up the tree this year was very quiet without him.

I miss my dad. 

When I was finished decorating, I sent a picture of my tree to my siblings. After the usual “It’s a beauty!,” my brother texted me, “Dad would be proud of that tree.” I put the phone down and cried. My dad loved Christmas, but he really loved Christmas trees. My mom did not, and every year there was a battle over whether we would have a real tree, guaranteed to drop needles and annoy my mom, or finally switch to an artificial one, sure to disappoint my dad. Dad always won and off we’d go to the tree lot, so near Christmas Day that the only trees left were a sad bunch. Somehow, no matter how scraggly, by the time we had lights and ornaments and gobs of tinsel on the tree, which stood in a bay window framed by stained glass, it was perfect. 

Sometimes it seems memories just drift down like snow this time of year. It can be the smell of pine sap on my hands, bringing me back to the woods behind our house. An old family newsletter is tucked away in the ornaments; I pull it out to see what we were doing in 1989. I put my gloves and hat on the radiator to dry out and there’s the mud room in Montague overflowing with soggy mittens and snow suits. The smell of gingerbread dough? I’m in the kitchen with Mom and my sisters, rolling out gingerbread men to bring to school the next day, our classmates’ names written in red gel above currant buttons. A cookie recipe summons Gama in her holiday apron, waiting for us at the door in Highland Lakes, Snickerdoodles already out of the oven. I hang Tear-Drop Santa on the tree, and can hear Tiggy batting him around my apartment on Chestnut Street.

An icy road shaded by pines reminds me of driving into New York City the year of my sister Gill’s accident, spending Christmas Day at Columbia-Presbyterian; we followed painted lines on the floor to the orthopedic ward. That whole year seemed so dark, even Christmas lights couldn’t brighten it. 

But then came years with siblings-in-law and babies, and jobs and adventures, new addresses  – things to celebrate. Now, as loss creeps in among the comfort and joy, my Christmas tree makes everything lighter, as it always has, even as memory blankets me with our familiar story, one fragment at a time. Thanks, Pop, for sharing your love of all things Yule. I’ll keep putting up real trees for as long as I can, read “A Night Before Christmas” for you before I hang my stocking, and put cookies out for Santa (and milk for the kitties). I miss you.~ Hilary Farquhar