Editor's note: 'Tis the season to be joyful. Patrick has revived this 2005 holiday essay for your reading pleasure. Stay tuned for updates on his upcoming NYC trip in the weeks to come.
My first Christmas with the McGrath family, 1987, was merrier than the last one I had with my foster mother. It is more fun spending Christmas with a real family than with a foster family as you will live with them forever. Every Christmas season we would sing Christmas carols, listen to Christmas carols, decorate the tree, watch movies like A Christmas Story, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, The Santa Clause, Elf, Santa Claus: The Movie, and Muppet favorites like The Muppet Christmas Carol and Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree, get out the Christmas lights, go for nighttime drives to see other houses’ lights, lighted snowmen, lighted Santa Clauses, “Merry Christmas” signs, and lighted reindeer, read stories like The Night Before Christmas and Dr. Seuss’ How The Grinch Stole Christmas every Christmas Eve, have French toast every Christmas morning, open our stockings, and then open the big presents, and then call everyone we know who sends us the presents from far off places and thanking them for the Christmas gifts. Every Christmas night we would open crackers, wear the crowns that came in the crackers, read the jokes and trivia questions which also came in the crackers, and then we would have our traditional: Turkey with dressing and cranberry “sarce,” potatoes, turnip, carrots, and for the final touch, we would have our dessert. Some would have plum pudding while others had Mom’s Special Apple Pie with ice cream. My top 4 Christmases were 2004, 2003, 2002 and 2001. 2001: This Christmas saw me get a grand total of 10 CDs from Stephanie, a Border Collie calendar, the movie Cats and Dogs with Jeff Goldblum and the voices of Tobey McGuire and Michael Clarke Duncan, and a couple of gift certificates. 2002: I was working at Community College that year, plus we had just gotten a new Land Rover Discovery and on Christmas Eve on the way between church and Jennifer’s we listened to Cowboy Christmas on 96.9 and I recognized one of the songs because it had played in my office at Community College.
Jennifer gave me a present that said “To Patrick from Tessa.” Tessa was the name of Jennifer’s Collie whom she had gotten two springs ago. The present was a framed picture of the lovely Collie by our back door with the others looking in. Stephanie got me a gift certificate. Christmas of 2003 saw me get a Toshiba 19” TV/VCR Combo as my second TV as I was living both on Alexander Avenue with my family and with a younger couple on Twin Oaks Drive and I didn’t want to take my little one back and forth each weekend and I wanted to watch my own at home while Dad would watch golf or Mom and Dad would watch 24. We had cinnamon French toast with syrup as a special breakfast. Jennifer gave me a picture of Dillon, her Border Collie, having fun on the marshlands near her house. Stephanie gave me the movie Finding Nemo. Mom and Dad got me a MuchDance CD. Erin got me a hockey team claw and the people I lived with gave me a shirt with the hockey team logo. Christmas of 2004 saw me get a karaoke machine and two karaoke CDs from Stephanie, Erin and Kyle, a ghetto blaster from Mom, a hockey team horn to blow whenever the team scored a goal, and a hockey team poster with the game schedule. Once again, it began with Erin’s cinnamon French Toast. My best gift in 1995 was my first Timex digital watch. My best gift in 1996 was my keyboard. My best gift in 1997 was my NOW! 2 CD. My best gift in 1998 was a book called Floss, a story about a Border Collie who has to sacrifice play with children to start working on a farm. My best gifts in 1999 was a Timex Ironman watch and the soundtrack to the musical Mame. My best gift in 2000 was my first TV. I did not even try sticking my tongue to a metal flagpole like in A Christmas Story, asking for “a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-Shot Range Model Air Rifle”, or making a lightning-fast slide down the hill like in Christmas Vacation. I didn’t even try “putting a light of candle in anybody’s hair,” like in Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree. Like the song says, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!”