Christmas traditions bring joy, but sometimes you have to try something new

My mother fitted the handle in place and lifted the heavy iron stove lid. She threw my carefully written letter to Santa into the flames of the kitchen wood stove. I smiled happily. I knew that Santa would read my wishes in the smoke as it rose past the North Pole. He would then be sure to bring me the doll on the cover of the 1940 Sears Christmas Catalog on Christmas morning.

What? You were thinking I could have sent the Jolly Old Elf a letter? We were without electricity and running water, and the trains didn’t stop in Warland, Montana. The flames were much more reliable.

The catalog was already in the outhouse but I had saved the cover. It had a picture of the doll in a pretty pink coat. “Our best value,” it read. “Worth every bit of $2.00 and available for only $1.00.” Even a dollar was an unreachable fortune for my folks but of course, Santa wouldn’t have to pay the elves to create “her cotton-filled body which allows her to sit alone like costly dolls.”

The doll I wanted had real hair and eyes that opened and closed. There were two tiny white teeth peeking through her parted lips, showing a miniature plush tongue that would get very dusty over the years. Now, that I think of it, she was a very strange little creature.

Christmas morning the snow was up to our roof, the house was cold and smelled of pine, and the doll I’d begged for was under the tree. It wasn’t until many years later that I began to wonder how my parents had managed it. Christmas is perfect, I thought. It will always be this way.

That was our last Christmas in Montana. By the next year, we were living in a shabby upstairs apartment in Spokane where the landlady and her yappy dog Sandy raced up the stairs several times a day to save electricity by turning off all of our lights. World War II had started and rationing was in effect.

Time to start over.

I was married the day after Christmas. My father was so against the match that he refused to walk down the aisle and give me away. “Shavetail!” he said, scornfully using the slang for my brand new second lieutenant husband to be.

“Soldiers! You know what they want?” Dad would say meaningfully. In fact, I wasn’t sure, but since the wedding was scheduled, it seemed to me to be all settled anyway.

“Mr. Conway,” the new groom said, seeking to ease the tension by calling my father by his first name, “Mr.” “I hope you didn’t really mind that I married Dorothy.”

“Well it doesn’t matter now, does it?” my father snarled and didn’t speak to him for two years. That went well.

We began to make new memories, spending Christmases all around the world, as we moved 22 times in 20 years.

By the time Christmas came in 1980, our large family had built a wonderful celebration full of traditions and songs. My favorite time came the night before Christmas each year when we put on “church clothes” and made our traditional procession up the stairs. While Dad played the organ, the youngest child placed the Christ Child in the manger.

Each family member carried one of the figures of the Christmas story. There always was a big fight over who had to carry the donkey. One year, the discussion culminated in a battle. Quite a bit of furniture was broken and we never used the donkey again. It was perfect. I thought Christmas would always be like this.

But in the summer of 1981 there were a rush of hospital stays and goodbyes and we were alone. Sir, as I had called him, teasing, was gone.

Those beautiful traditions hurt too much to ever be used again. Time to start over.

Some people just seem to know how to make any ordinary day a holiday. A 14-year-old girl I know felt so sad that kids couldn’t visit Santa at the mall this year that she created a new character for herself and, as Bronwyn the Elf, makes Zoom visits to take children’s messages to Santa. Her visits have become so popular that her mother has now joined her as Snickerdoodle the Elf.

This year, as usual, Santa will begin his journey in the Republic of Kiribati in the South Pacific, then to New Zealand and Australia. Maybe he’ll find Christmas wishes in smoke from a little girl in Montana. No matter what you read, the world is full of kind people doing wonderful things. Just like you. Time to start over.

Where to find Dorothy in December

• 9 a.m. Dec. 14: Zoom Coffee, Chat (and change the world) Resource people, activities, Christmas stories and fun.
• 7 p.m. Dec. 17: Zoom Christmas Party with Christmas music, puppets, and fun.
• Questions? Contact Dorothy at Dorothy@mygenerationgap.com. To register, go to mygenerationgap.com.
• Find her Swimming Upstream radio show at www.https://itsnevertoolate.com or anywhere you get podcasts.