Christmas Icons Part Two: "First Christmas"

Christmas Icons      Part Two:    "First Christmas"

It was December 24, Christmas Eve in the year 1986.  Dorothy and I had been married for sixty-one days.  It was the year the movie Top Gun came out, and American warplanes bombed Libya's Muammar al-Qaddafi's headquarters at Tripoli.  There was a space shuttle disaster, which killed seven astronauts.  There was a disaster at the Soviet Union's Chernobyl Nuclear facility which was serious enough to affect other countries.  The Bangles had the number one hit that December with "Walk Like an Egyptian."

We lived in the apartment she was already leasing, behind the mall they now call Centerpointe.  I was the only one working at the time, and Dorothy was pregnant.  My job was the one where I would mature professionally.  Recaro Seating was investing BMC with enough business to quadruple yearly sales, and I was able to take on a career's worth of hands-on education from my many visits to the Battle Creek American headquarters.  I was inexperienced, however, and so was the owners of my company, at least as far as the field of quality control was concerned.  They had never hired anyone before who didn't run machines; I was "the college kid," even though I was still only in my sophomore year at age twenty-seven.  I definitely had something to prove.  So, although I was to eventually make enough money in quality assurance that I raised three kids without Dorothy going to work, in the beginning back there in December, I was at my starting wage of $ 5.50 per hour.  After the rent and car payment, we had about a hundred dollars a week for utilities, food, and whatever else life was made up of.  Money was tight, to say the least.

I had only been at work for six months, so I was not eligible for either vacation time or year-end bonus.  When Christmas time actually rolled around, we did not have money to spend on presents.  We were at least happy that I was working.  On Christmas Eve, however, my boss walked up to me at the end of the day and handed me an envelope.  Opening it, I discovered a check for $ 250.00 marked "bonus."  The owners were good people, but they didn't hand out money carelessly.  Although my boss explained in brief that "everyone deserved some reward for a job well done that year," I knew that the owner's wife Jean had a soft spot in her heart for Dorothy and me, the newlyweds.  Earlier in the year, Jean had bought our place settings from the wedding registry, even though I had only been with the company four months.  She was a gem.

As it was the last part of the day, I rushed to my office phone to warn Dorothy we were going shopping, after all.  It was a little before four O'clock and the malls would close within a couple of hours.  I hurried home, and we got ourselves into the mall without delay.  We each took about thirty dollars and zipped off to "surf the crowd."  We split up in hopes of creating some level of surprise for Christmas morning.  I bought some perfumed powder for Dorothy.  It was vital I avoid anything made by Lanvin, as my mother had always worn My Sin.  Crossing mental images of my hot little wife with my mother could be disastrous, or at least confusing, so I chose something by Chanel.  Before I left the mall, I popped into a record store and bought an album by the Gaithers, the "Welcome Back Home" album, which was just out.  We had been able to attend a concert earlier that year.  Out of all the music I have ever heard live, the Gaithers had the most precise vocals of all.  They had absolutely astounded me at the time.      

On Christmas morning, we opened our presents.  Dorothy gave me wool cap, which was made in Scotland that I still have to this day.  Sometime later at work, my English boss told me that it was called a "rattin' cap," because that's what is worn in England for rat hunting.  (Yeah, I'm trying to picture it, too).  Evidently, it is a time honored activity to go out (somewhere where there are rats) and blast away at them with a shotgun, while wearing a Scottish cap.  Just last year I was walking around the college campus and someone good-naturedly accused me of trying to be "hip" with my rattin' cap; (the other one we bought later).  I hadn't realized that the wool cap is an "in" item. 

When I opened my other present from Dorothy, I saw there was a mistake; I had opened the present for her, or so I thought.  After a moment of confusion, and we opened the remaining present, I we saw what had happened.  In an hour and a half of individual shopping, Dorothy and I had both gone into the same record store and bought the exact same album for each other unknowingly!  We laughed and considered it a good sign for the future.  Now that I sit back and think about it, I miss the days when such Christian music was fresh, and I long for our old tunes.  It doesn't really work to play very many of them now, though.  There is something vital about listening to music when it's set in its own time, accompanied by the activities we were doing while listening to it.  I don't long for months of pregnancy or the toddler stages, or the old factory floor, but ever so often, when some key trigger stirs old memories, and brings me back for a few moments, I savor it until it dissipates, like some very fine spirits, and I am glad for the reminder of who we are and where we have come from.