Sometimes Xmas spirit sneaks up on you
Special offer on Kindle edition of `Last American Editor’
The Front Page
Morning Update
Wednesday, December 22, 2021
By Ken Tingley
The clock on the wall - at least the one on my wall - says 3 days, 10 hours and 27 minutes ‘til Christmas, but I don’t need the clock to tell me that Christmas is near.
As I’ve said before, Gillian is a force of nature when it comes to decorating for Christmas. Sometimes, I feel Scrooge-like because I cannot match her enthusiasm or stamina during the month of December.
If you saw my video earlier this week, you have an idea of the lengths she goes to make our home a magical fairyland filled with Christmas elves, life-sized stuffed reindeer and nutcrackers galore. And that’s just in the kitchen.
Occasionally, I have to hold a ladder for her or climb up high to fine tune a display, but she has the vision and the passion.
The Christmas tree came in the house Monday, but we are waiting for our son before we add the ornaments.
Joseph is coming in tonight on a midnight plane from Texas, and although we just left him three weeks ago, we are both looking forward to his visit. We like to get to the airport early and watch the plane land from the observation deck, except that one time when his plane aborted its landing and screamed away over the top of the terminal.
HIs visit is our only real Christmas wish. He completes us.
I’ve written several Christmas columns over the years, but be forewarned, holiday columns are usually place-fillers for writers like myself so we don’t have to do any research or come up with a fresh idea.
But sometimes, it opens us up to deeper investigation of our soul and psyche, and occasionally, not just the meaning of Christmas, but the importance of family and relationships, but that is often unintentional.
In 2001, I was covering the Olympic speed skating trials in Salt Lake City and wasn’t due home until Dec. 23. I told my mom and dad in Connecticut that we would come down the day after Christmas and celebrate then.
But from the Salt Lake City airport, I changed my mind. I told my parents to come up Christmas Eve so we could have Christmas together. It was a short but memorable Christmas with my father sharing quality time with his five-year-old grandson. We had lunch the day after Christmas and I gave him a long hug before saying goodbye. Three days after Christmas, my dad died of a heart attack.
I think that changed the way I celebrated Christmas and appreciated family.
A year later on on Christmas Eve 2002, I found myself in the living room of Ed and Cindy Feulner in Hudson Falls. I had met the couple a week earlier at a Christmas party and learned that Ed was departing for the Middle East the day after Christmas.
That night before Christmas a feeling of melancholy overwhelmed warm in the living room.
After 9/11, Ed wanted to his part and acted. He re-enlisted in the Naval reserves, and was being deployed the day after Christmas.
“There was such a sadness in Cindy Feulner’s eyes, you never, ever would have guessed it was Christmas Eve” was how I started that column. It was a reminder that Christmas is often a time where families come together, but in this case, it was the last day to be together.
I hope it made other families appreciate the holiday a little more. It was the first of three deployments over the next 15 years before Ed finally retired from the Navy in 2018.
Right before Christmas in 2014, I made a trip to Connecticut to say goodbye to an old high school friend. Sitting in that pew next to the casket as the choir sang “Silent Night” was heart-wrenching and another reminder of how important it is to hold your friends and family close, and appreciate every moment.
After my wife rolled her eyes at another of my silly jokes, I told her that no one ever laughed at my jokes like my friend Jackie.
As I’ve gotten older, those stories from my youth have taken on a new life. I closed “The Last American Editor” with a column I wrote in 2017 about an event from 1970. After returning from church that Christmas Eve, my father marched us all across the street to visit our new neighbors. Tony had just lost his job shortly after moving into their new house. They hadn’t put up any lights outside and there weren’t many gifts under the tree. The visit became part of our regular Christmas Eve routine where each year after a couple glasses of wine Tony would regale those assembled about how my my father had lifted them out of the doldrums that night and saved their Christmas.
If any of us could do that just once, we would have lived a great life.
We are advised to avoid family gatherings this year just to be safe. I’m sorry, but that is a chance most of us just have to take.
Special on Kindle book
Something or Other Publishing is running a special for the Kindle version of “The Last American Editor.” If you order on Amazon before Dec. 31, you can get it for $4.99.
Naturally, the print book is still available all around the region and on Amazon as well.
Greenwich event
I’m pleased to announce my first event of 2022. Renowned WAMC radio host Joe Donohue and I will sit down at the Greenwich Public Library on Thursday, Jan. 13 to discuss journalism, newspapers and my collection of columns.
Mark your calendars. We look forward to seeing you all there.
Glad Joseph is able to join you for Christmas. Agreed, family makes Christmas complete, not what's under the tree.