Brown Paper Packages.... (Part 3)

 PART THREE:

Now What?

I try to imagine what it must have been like for my Dad, knowing he was going to break everyone in his family’s heart.  He was going to have to take Santa magic away from his wife and children, just a couple months before “the most wonderful time of the year,” as the song says….  As a Dad, myself, I know that breaking your children’s hearts is the hardest thing to have to do.  But sometimes, we must.  I imagine my Dad spending a lot of sleepless nights trying to find a way to make it better…   He did.

Larry thought about all the things he loved most about Christmas.  Surely there was nothing wrong about spending time with family…  telling stories… singing songs… pies and cookies… decorations… and of course, giving and receiving presents.  “If only those good things didn’t have to happen on Christmas…” he thought.  “Wait! -- What about Thanksgiving!”  A wonderful idea came to Larry.  Thanksgiving was perfect!  Thanksgiving was already about spending time with family.  And about being grateful, and thankful to God for our blessings… for our abundance….  It was a harvest festival.  A time of plenty.  A great time to show our family members appreciation too…  And give them PRESENTS! 

Larry began to get excited with his new Holiday…  He talked it over with his wife, my mom… Your Lita.  I wasn’t there, but knowing my mother, I’m sure it was quite a dramatic conversation.  Sorrow, sadness, “crying,” anger, resistance, some self blaming,..  and then…  understanding… acceptance,..  And then…  Excitement!  Larry’s wife, my mother… Your Lita…  trusted my father.  She took the time to understand, and always supported my father in what needed to be done.  She joined him in developing a new version of Thanksgiving for our family that would bring the joys of Christmas out of the “wrong” holiday and make a new Holiday for their children…

And then they told us.

That conversation, I kind of remember.  I was six.  My sister was eight.  My two younger brothers were too young to care.  But I remember being a kid who did not like finding out that Santa Clause was not going to visit anymore.   It didn’t seem fair.  What about….  Well… Everything!!!

But we had good parents, who loved us everyday.  Santa Clause was important, but Santa Clause was not more important than our parents.  And very soon we realized that what we “lost” that day, wasn’t really that important.  Or even that hard to replace…  The closeness with our family, the delights of decorating, the thrills of opening presents never left our home.  It only got better!

Here’s how I remember that first Thanksgiving…  Once your Lita gets into an idea-- She becomes the “life of the Party!”  Mom immediately got started using her doll making skills to sew together a stuffed Cornucopia, full of stuffed fruits and veggies-- big and brightly colored.  It decorated a round table in our living room and pillow-soft stuffed vegetables spilled out all over the floor. They were perfect for throwing at each other and playing with…   This would be where we would place our gifts and presents to be opened on Thanksgiving morning before our thanksgiving feast.  Mom also began purchasing and collecting every silly Turkey doll, figurine, cookie jar, and decoration she could find.  The home got decorated in colorful fallen fall leaves, some happy scarecrows… and bowls of nuts to be cracked and eaten.  And we kids started to get excited.

That’s when Larry discovered a small problem with his plan…  Wrapping paper!  At that time of year, the only wrapping paper he could find was Christmas Paper!!   And some Birthday Paper….  But let’s face it…  No one was printing up Thanksgiving day paper.   What to do?…

Now, your Papa Larry was a Marine all of my childhood.   And of course, if you ask him, “Once a Marine… Always a Marine.”  And most people think that means a rough, tough, fighting man-- into guns and war, and killing things… “Ooo-RAH!!”   But… that’s not really your Papa Larry at all.  Your Grandfather loved to draw and paint pictures, study his bible, and… Musicals!  Yup, your grand-dad, the Marine, loved to watch musical movies… and sing along.

For some reason, I’ve never really figured out, the motion picture of “The Sound of Music” always seemed to play on T.V. right around Thanksgiving time.  It was one of Papa Larry’s favorites, and we never missed it.  Larry must have been puzzling over the wrapping paper dilemma when the song “Raindrops on Roses” came on.  As you well know-- there’s the line “brown paper packages, tied up with strings-- these are a few of my favorite things-”  

“That’s it!” my dad must have thought-- “problem solved!”

And an important element of our Thanksgiving tradition was born…  We would wrap our presents in “Brown paper, tied up with strings”   It really was perfect.  The line from the song expresses perfectly the excitement of a package with something unknown inside.  It's the way things used to arrive in the mail.  And the brown color works perfect with fall colors-- very Thanksgiving-y…   And “not for nuthin…”  my dad always was kind of “cheap…” and Brown packing paper is not very expensive at all-- Bonus!  In fact, back then brown paper shopping bags were free!

Thanksgiving morning we kids woke to find a pile of “brown paper packages” spilling out from the cornucopia all over the floor.  Somehow, overnight the number of packages had… “magically” increased from the ones we had seen placed before we went to bed.  Funny, I don’t remember most of my Thanksgiving presents, except pajamas, socks, and underwear--- there always seemed to be pajamas, socks, and underwear…  but Santa wasn’t missed at all, and we knew who to thank.  Our parents, and God.