In response to Jack London's writing tips challenge:

Stockings on the Fireplace

event

I am a poet.  That is my claim at least.  This poem started with a title.  You can see the title at the top of the page.  It is a good title.  The page remained blank for six days after the title appeared at its top center.  I could not find the right words.  I kicked over every stone in my mind. I shook every bush.  I climbed the trees. I went deeper in the murky recesses and looked in the dust bin, opened the doors to every room, checked the boxes in the attic, and rummaged in the dirty clothes hamper.  The right words were invisible. The stockings were empty.  I found nothing; nothing but memories.

The first rock I disturbed revealed a note asking, “What are you looking for Mike?” I answered to myself, “Memories of Christmases past.” The second rock had scribbles on the bottom.  It told me to keep looking.  I continued to turn over rocks. The clues were no clearer.  The images were vague.  When we are very young children we often have only foggy memories that require a trigger of some sort. The dust swirls when we stir it, but it is still dust.  It is not until we are much older that we can force memory to work for us I think. I followed the rocky path until I came to the more recent construction in my mind.  It must be the time when I began developing memories that I will recognize at some point.

 I grew frustrated as I opened and closed the doors, finding nothing but the shadows of people gone, people I loved very much, people who gave me love and gifts from both the physical and intellectual realm.  I went back to the tree I had not climbed. I am afraid of heights, thus I had not climbed it at first.  I shook the bushes first, in one more delaying tactic.  A note fell out of one bush growing in the roots of the tree.  It said, “You are warm.”  Remember the childhood game? Shaking the taller bush which hugged the tree’s bole, a paper fluttered to the ground. I read it.  “You are hot.” I realized I had to climb the tree.  I circled until I saw a limb that swooped low enough that I could jump and grasp it. Swinging my feet up, I began to walk up the tree to the point I could throw a leg over the welcoming limb. I hadn’t done anything like that since my kids were young, in a dream or otherwise.  My arms were beginning to shake, even in the mental quest. Chasing memories of Christmases past is not easy, albeit in one’s imagination.

After getting my breath, I began my ascent.  It seemed that I had climbed high enough that every branch was groaning beneath me when I spied a nest in a not too dangerous place. Inching toward it I hoped it contained something that would inspire me to remember, not to search somewhere else.  Standing on tiptoes I peered into the nest. In its bottom I saw two faces staring back at me.  At last! Two boys on riding toys in front of a Christmas tree! I knew them. One was five and the other two.  The smiling faces made clear the absolute delight of children on Christmas morning.  Wrapped gifts filled the floor beneath the tree in the background.  The tree was resplendent with garland and decorations, placed there by their hands with the loving guidance, no doubt, of two parents awaiting the same delight I was reliving in my mind.  I remembered then that I have seen the picture among the few treasures left after my mother’s death. My calves were cramping from standing on the limb as I strained my memory. It was time to climb out of the tree. There was a real chance I could continue on my journey and recall other things.

I went on through halls of my mind. Near the exit there was a laundry hamper. Why? I stopped, opened the lid, and found stockings, empty and too long unused. I pulled a few out, held them up and stared at them. Thoughts began to pour from my mind.  My heart swelled a bit. I sat down and spread the stockings around me on the floor…thinking.

We never had a fireplace or mantle for hanging stockings. Most of the time we lived in rentals that had coal fired furnaces or oil space heaters.  I do remember laying on the vents soaking up heat when we were kids.  Ooops…wrong memory. I sat with my back against the hamper and thought about our stocking experiences. We always had stockings.  Mom put them on a doorway, a window, or a piece of furniture. Failing that, they were leaned against the wrapped gifts under the tree. We didn’t care. Only the movies had fireplaces. They were for rich people. But we had stockings and when Christmas morning broke they would have candy and surprises in them. They would be filled with the kinds of dreams a kid has about Christmas stockings. I think Mom and Dad had each had one too on occasion, if there was enough money. It was about us, though. It was always about us.

I held a couple of those empty stockings up and stared at them. It was like holding an old style movie screen in front of my face. The images flashed by so fast of different Christmases that I had difficulty discerning one from another. I saw Lincoln Logs, erector sets, bags of toy soldiers, toy cars and trucks, model cars and paint, and electric trains. The trains were cool. One had stuff that you put around it that made it seem like there was a purpose besides going in an oval. There was more than one I think. I believe one time one of us got one that had military figures too. An image of me sprawled in the floor remained on one of the stockings for a few seconds. I got a long-Tom cannon that shot BIG rubber tipped bullets.  It had great range. Being the “adventurous” child I was, simply shooting at my soldiers was not enough. I moved away from the tree and discovered I could pick off the tree’s ornaments with some careful aiming. The cannon may have been in my possession only a short while that day.

As we got older we received games. I always had to win. I was older and bigger. I was a lot bigger.  I was often domineering. Christmas and Christmas stockings didn’t seem to affect that reality.  Stockings were as much a part of Christmas as the tree.  Candle light Service on Christmas Eve, church, food, and family were the other staples of Christmas. Family tied the whole package together.

Somehow we got together with Grandpa and Grandma Washam, Uncles Walter and Paul, if they resided close to us.  Grandma made chocolate-chip cookies by the dozens.  There was more food than that, but there was nothing like those on earth. The peanut butter fudge and the chocolate fudge weren’t too far behind though.  The older I grew the larger the circle of family and friends became, as did the ring of love and laughter.  I remember one year we drove to Joliet, IL to see them at Christmas and we finished the three and a half hours drive in heavy snow.  The street to their home was steep and snow-covered.  Dad loved our old Buick, but it was slipping backward. We were not near the top of the hill.  Mom was beginning to panic when we thudded against something that was not supposed to be behind us. Just as we had unexpectedly began sliding backwards, we began slowly moving forward!  Something pushed us to the top of the hill. When we crested the top of the hill Dad pulled to the side to thank whoever it was and a car passed us on our left. It didn’t stop, but honked as it flashed its lights and drove by.  It was an old Henry J. Dad was embarrassed, but thrilled to arrive at Grandma’s house without further assistance. His Buick was twice as big as that little car.  They didn’t even make them any more (it was the late fifties or perhaps 1960 I believe).

Stockings seemed to follow us even if we weren’t where our tree was.  And Santa always knew too. Life has always been full of miracles.  It still is.

My father was a factory laborer.  We never had much money.  Mom worked at home.  I didn’t know many mothers who did not.  The only one who didn’t was the mother of a childhood friend who stripped.  Yep. That is what I said.  Mom never knew that he showed me pictures of her.  I didn’t like him all that well, but I enjoyed the pictures. Ooops again.  It was years before I knew how much Mom and Dad sacrificed to assure my brother and me that we had Christmas stockings and a glorious visit from Santa Claus each and every year.  I began to have a better understanding by the time I was fifteen, but even then I didn’t comprehend as well as I should.  The resentment of having less than others still emerged.  My father seldom let me know how much it hurt him, but mother told me years later.  I can never tell him how sorry I am for that. 

Like most parents they did too much.  It was what they wanted.  It was the one time of year they indulged us as much as they could. The stockings bulged.  They smiled and had no regrets.  If we were disappointed that something on our list did not land under the tree there were two things there we didn’t expect that soon filled that void.  We grew up understanding the importance of surprises. They were the key to filling the gap.  Mom and Dad did not do the best they could.  They did better than they could.

My memory trip isn’t over but it is well along for now.  I returned a couple of those empty stockings back to the hamper and scampered out of my mind into reality again.  I brought a pair of stockings with me, emotionally speaking, however.  One is full of love.  The other is full of appreciation.  My wife and I carried on with that tradition with our sons.  Her experience was much the same as mine.  We never had a fireplace either, but those stockings were part of everything we did every Christmas.  We struggled financially, but we went in debt and did too much too, each and every year.  We even went further in many ways.  As we prospered and became more able to over-indulge our children, my brother and I joined our families together in an insanely, almost obscene ritual of giving. The circle of gifts grew to a size that resembles a Toys-R-Us in our homes. We love what we do too much.  Perhaps we are paying back our parents.  Perhaps we think we are buying memories.  Perhaps it is because we can. 

We independently realized that the stockings of love and appreciation are the most important part of Christmas, even empty.  But they will never be empty. We awoke to the fact that we are setting a bad precedent that may hurt our children.  They may not be able to do what we have done and it could breed disappointment, not joy.  We have to rein ourselves in and focus on what is important.  Love, sharing, sacrifice, understanding, family, Christ, the gifts of reason—not excess---and the stockings hung or unhung, with care.

In climbing around my mind I learned something.  When raising my kids I was not giving to earn bragging rights, or to compete with the Joneses.  I was addicted to the looks of joy and the glow of happiness on the faces of my sons and my wife.  I fed my addiction.  I will still give, but I won’t forget the lesson I learned.  I need to return to the simplicity of the stockings.  And the reason for the Season.  I have been blessed countless times.  My greatest gift will be, I hope, in leaving those stockings behind filled with blessings for those I love.  

If successful that will be the surprise that fills the void in a way that truly matters. There will never be an empty Christmas stocking in my house, fireplace or not.

Mike Mullins, 12/13/11