First Christmas by Scott Holleran

      Rich Carstensen CC




First Christmas


Christmastime was once enchanting. Gilded with bright, colored lights, melodic tunes and a sense of goodwill everywhere in the world, America was steeped in goodness at Christmastime. People were joyful. Strangers smiled at one another. Many greeted each stranger with a chuckle and a cheer. Christmas trees, fully decorated in garland, tinsel and ornaments—handcrafted in tin and glass and painted with thickness where the paintbrush had been lifted following the final stroke—stringed in colorful lights with a tall, grand, spired ornament, sometimes a star, topping the tree. Christmas was magical.

One child’s first Christmas merits explanation. He was a child born in turmoil, chaos and discontent. Born 15 years past the midpoint of a century at the beginning—the very beginning—of climaxing the end of America, he was lost and confused lacking love, guidance and protection. This boy was alone, cast into his own making.

Christmas in 1968 was not his actual first Christmas. There’d been others, three to be exact, in the east and the west, between cross country passenger rail journeys, motor vehicle trips and assassinations. The world was a blaze of war, terror and the rise of irrationalism—which would lead to random acts of evil, including mass slaughter of innocents—and that December marked the end of America’s wholesomeness. 

This boy made something of his Christmas which was different. Whatever monstrosity had come before, he awakened on a cold Christmas Eve. The night was still in black. Everything was frozen, except the fresh powder of snow that fell upon the child’s new home that night in the suburbs of Chicago. Chicagoland was once again quieted and bright with snow. Plowed expressways and bricklaid streets alike were bounded and surrounded by snowdrifts everywhere—on roofs of buildings, cars, buses, trains and houses, including chimneys. With school canceled, the boy slept in a crib beneath a window overlooking a backyard which was covered in white. The moon and stars cast a glow as the boy stood in the crib, looking out the window at his new domain, casting a glance upward at the moon. 

Within hours of that night, American astronauts had navigated the first spacecraft to that globe in the sky—one of them had captured the first photograph of the whole world—and the boy could not have known anything but anticipation and a sense of newness. There he stood until he fell into slumber, pulling the thick, blue, wool blanket over his body covered in a one-piece pajama with padding on the part that covered his feet. He slept.

A door creaked. Lying on the plastic mattress, facing the front of the room, the boy slowly opened his eyes and saw his older brother silhouetted against the light. He lifted his head. He heard his brother whisper: “I think Santa’s been here.” At that, his brother walked over, reached into the crib, and, with both hands, lifted him out. The boy groped for his blanky. Holding the boy against his shoulder, the brother reached into the crib, grabbed the blanket, and, on the way out, a red, checkered robe from a hook on the back of the door. He carried the child down the stairs. “Put your robe on, it’s cold,” his brother told him as they descended.

The Christmas tree, more than anything, cast a spell upon him. He stared in wonder at the twinkling lights and the tinsel dancing with colors in reflection as heated air blew from a nearby vent. At the base of the tree, he saw bundles of wrapped presents. He felt his robe enshrouding him as his brother told him to put his arms into the sleeves before turning to start a fire in the fireplace. Is this real? He asked himself. He realized that it was.

As other children entered the room, his oldest brother went into the kitchen to make hot chocolate for the younger children. The boy sat on the floor, staring at the presents—wrapped in colors of the rainbow and decorated with illustrations of Santa Claus, holly and reindeer—warming himself by the fire. His parents entered the room, expressing  surprise at the spectacle of their children’s first Christmas in Chicagoland in their new home, and there was boundless joy and elation. His father snapped a photograph, as a flash bulb popped and blinded him. When his eyes adjusted, his brother guided and cupped his hand around a cup of warm chocolate and told him to hold it tight.

His mother played Christmas music. Everyone started singing songs. He listened and looked in a blend of wonder, amazement and thrill—the prospect of playing with new metal Matchbox cars and soldiers had never occurred to him, and he wondered how Santa Claus knew what he wanted—and something stirred inside, simultaneously tensing and easing his body, which still wanted to sleep and was excited for this new life in a new home. At the age of three, he already had some sort of foreknowledge that tonight was different—that tonight was something blissful which came his way for the first and only time and would never be repeated. 

This sensibility was captured in the photograph, which was later printed and ended up in his possession, and would stay with him for a lifetime. The first Christmas, he knew, meant that everything which had started for the first time was rare, elusive and eternal. The older brother would turn as dark, cruel and bitter as the world which descended into a fog of loss, dumbness and mass delusion despite heroic efforts of everyone whose goodness remained pure. There were happy times, too. 

Nothing like this first, consciously held Christmas. He carried it with strength throughout his life. He held it tight but mostly he held it dear. The boy grew. He left. He never let go.

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Scott Holleran's writing has been published in media from the Advocate to the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Holleran interviewed the man who saved Salman Rushdie from an assassin, wrote the award-winning “Roberto Clemente in Retrospect” and his report on the Standard Oil Building was published in Classic Chicago. Scott Holleran’s short stories appear in various literary publications and anthologies. Listen to his story podcast at ShortStoriesByScottHolleran.substack.com and read his non-fiction at ScottHolleran.substack.com. Scott Holleran, who also dances and choreographs, lives in Southern California.

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