| At work yesterday, the entertainment editor asked for 12 people to write about their favorite Christmas movies. Willy-nilly, people started claiming them: It was like watching a student who has been waiting all his life to answer one particular question, and finally it was asked. They knew exactly what they wanted to do. Some had difficulty choosing among all the ones they loved. And me? I thought, “Christmas movies, huh? Let's see – um – have I ever seen a Christmas movie? Oh, wait, there's 'It's a Wonderful Life,' but is that really a favorite? As in, if if were playing, would you sit down and watch it? Hmmm. Anything else? Wow, this is sad.”
And then, suddenly, I thought of a Christmas movie I would watch. Two of them, actually. They star me. The first is a short – a short short, if you will. Christmas morning at Grandma's house. Lindsey is sitting on the floor in all her innocent blonde babyness, showing her dimples and radiating happy complacency. The camera zooms in on her as a large adult hand deposits a toothsome present in front of her. She smiles beatifically at it. Pats it, ecstatically but impotently, as babies do. Smiles again – And, with ruthless efficiency, I reach in and take it from her. Tear it open. Pull out the gift. Inspect it. I am too busy stealing her present to smile but, as I remember it, when the camera finally cut away [adult laughing helplessly?] she was still sitting there beaming like the sun. Perhaps I should have said they star Lindsey and me. By rights, the second one should have starred Mike, who at that age was better known as the Precious Moments Child, or Greg, who toddled about charismatically herding invisible sheep. But we, being spotlight-hungry, relegated them to the minor roles. It was quite possibly the world's only Roller Skate Nativity. Lindsey wore skates and my grandmother's discarded pinkle dress to perform Mary's duties of kneeling on the concrete in a corner of the basement and compulsively “washing” a freezer box. I wore skates, white sweatpants and turtleneck, then draped a pilly yellow blanket over my shoulders to signal that I was The Angel as I visited first Lindsey and then Mike – who, naturally, wore skates as he, as Joseph, pounded invisible nails. The part about Mary and Joseph making the trip to Bethlehem and being sent by the innkeeper (Greg, on skates) to the stable was brief: I wasn't in it, and Lindsey was saving her energies for our most rewarding roles. As it happened, they were also the most demanding roles. For the mass angel scene, she too had to don a shoulder blanket. Then we held hands and began circling the room, executing our most elaborate switch-corner-corner movement and singing “Angels We Have Heard On High” until the block walls echoed. The shepherds, standing meekly in a safe corner, were almost as much of an afterthought as Mike was in our next number, We Two Girls Playing Kings of Orient as the Real Boy Trudges Quietly Along Behind Carrying All the “Gifts.” If being kings meant whirling and twirling and mugging for the camera and singing our lungs out – well, we did it. And Mike was the faithful follower, carrying the Messiah's presents (one the ever-adaptable freezer box) until our little entourage reached the stable, at which point he and Lindsey transformed into Mary and Joseph and I ostentatiously presented all the gifts. Such memories.
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