MEMORIES OF CHRISTMASES PAST
                         By Robert Mauro
                   <c> 2000 by Robert A. Mauro


           The following story is mostly fiction based
           on some fact.  It's a kind of memory of
           Christmases past but not forgotten.  And
           although the events herein related did not
           happened exactly the way I tell them, after
           all these years it almost feels as if they
           happened exactly like this.  In other
           words, very happily.


     When I was a child growing up in the Fifties, every
Christmas seemed to be white.  There was more snow than there is
today.  And my parents would always make our Christmas tree hunt
a family outing.  Mom would bundle my little brother and me up in
our hats, earmuffs, scarves, boots, mittens, and snow suits.  We
could hardly move, let alone walk.  We had to wait until we were
teenagers to actually ambulate in winter.  But back then off the
Mauros would go to Mr. Antonio's Amazing Merry Christmas Tree Lot
And Auto Wreck Junkyard.
     Our neighborhood in Queens, New York City, back then was not
the crowded place it is today.  There was even room at the Inn,
the new Holiday Inn, to be exact.  There were fewer homes and
many more Amazing Merry Christmas Tree Lots And Auto Wreck
Junkyards then than there are now.
     When we'd go hunting for our Christmas tree, it would always
be snowing -- at least in my memories of those happy times.  And
the snow flakes would always be those big fluffy flakes.  They'd
be coming down everywhere.  My brother and I would try to catch
them on our tongues.  And it was always cold outside.  Very cold.
We were a lot closer to the last Ice Age back then.  But my
brother and I would always be like two pigs in a blanket, zipped
into our snug snow suits.
     Mr. Antonio usually kept a few auto wrecks, assorted car
parts and a lot of unidentifiable junk on the half-acre beside
his old, rambling Gothic house.  We kids thought it was a haunted
house.  It was unusual for our neighborhood.  It was big and
spooky.  It must have been built in the time of Nathaniel
Hawthorn, although it was a few gables short of seven.  It needed
a paint job, and the surrounding property needed some emergency
lawn work -- like grass!  The big maple trees hanging over it
were gnarled and long dead.  Even the squirrels didn't want to
live in them.  The birds stayed away, except for the ravens, of
course.
     Mr. Antonio had a son and a wife.  But we never saw them,
except at Christmas time.  Few Halloween trick or treaters ever
knocked on their dark door.  Yet every December that strange
family's muddy, junk-filled lot would be magically transformed
into a Christmas wonderland of brightly colored twinkling lights
and road flares.  There'd be a manger with live animals, mostly
mangy dogs and stray cats.  And you could hardly see the rusty
Fords and crumpled Chevies through the Christmas trees.  The
frosty air smelled not of oil or gasoline, but of pine and
spruce.
     As I said, for eleven months there'd be no sign of Mr.
Antonio or his mysterious family.  Yet their junk would keep
accumulating, as if brought there every night by elves.  Hubcaps,
fenders, doors, bumpers, engines, mufflers, steering wheels, even
a few old stoves and washing machines would pile up.  December
would come, the junk would thin out, and the Antonios would be
selling Christmas trees and small, less conspicuous auto parts.
We never quite knew from where they got either.
     I can still hear my dad haggling with Mr. Antonio, who
needed a shave, a hair cut and two bits (it appeared) over a
tree...or was that a carburetor?
     "Three bucks?!  For a pine with brown needles?  Is this rust
on this carb?"
     "And look," my mom would politely add, smiling, "Some
branches are missing.  It leaves a big hole.  And is that an oil
stain?  Oh, I guess it was that...dog."
     "Scram, you filthy mutt!  Pee somewhere else!" Mr. Antonio
would yell, smiling, showing his rotten teeth to the frightened
mongrel.
     "Just turn it around, lady.  Looks fine this way.  Yep.
Two-fifty?"
     Meanwhile, my brother and I would be wide-eyed, pointing out
the flea-bitten animals and a twelve-foot spruce or two.  We were
positive any of those gigantic evergreens would look absolutely
perfect in our tiny eight-by-ten-foot living room.  My little
brother would also be whining about numb fingers and "stupid
mittens."
     Eventually Dad would strike a bargain with Mr. Antonio.  And
by then, we'd all be dancing around, trying to keep warm, Dad
with a tree in one hand and a carburetor in the other.  Taking
off his gloves, my father would hand Mr. Antonio two or three
dollars for "THE TREE" and fifty cents for the carburetor.  And
each year, Dad would say the same thing, "These prices are
getting ridiculous!  Is that a...dog eating that dead cat??"
     Together, we'd carry our tree home, Mom and Dad at the ends,
my little brother and I occasionally in the middle as we left a
trail of pine needles and car parts behind.
     At home, before setting the THE TREE in its stand, Dad would
saw a little off the bottom.  We'd drink hot chocolate and unpack
what were even then very old tree ornaments, most from my
grandparents.  These fragile decorations were made of paper-thin,
hand-blown glass.  And even back in the early Fifties, they'd
begun to crack.  Dad and Mom would warn my little brother and me
to be careful as we unwrapped each fragile piece.  They had been
lovingly packed the previous January in the same yellowing sheets
of newspaper they had been wrapped in for years.  The Long Island
Press and the Daily News, announcing the end of World War Two or
maybe Pearl Harbor, surrounded those decorations as snugly as our
snow suits had surrounded my brother and me.
     Finally, one by one, we'd hang those antique ornaments on
our new tree, being careful not to drop any of them.  Soon the
house would be filled with the smell of Christmas.  Dad would be
trying to get all the colored lights to stay lit, trying
desperately not to curse, as Mom hung made more hot chocolate.
     But soon Christmas would pass.  And about a week after New
Year's, Mom would vow, "This is absolutely the last real tree
we're getting.  Next year it's artificial!"
     Mom would then vacuum up hundreds of pine needles, which lay
scattered and embedded in her first wall-to-wall carpeting.
     That was all nearly a half century ago.  Now my little
brother has three kids and is a grandfather.  My Mom does have
her artificial Christmas tree.  And although it's nothing like
all those evergreens we bought at Mr. Antonio's Amazing Merry
Christmas Tree Lot And Auto Wreck Junkyard, what still remains
are those fragile, antique ornaments I helped hang on our real
Christmas trees so many years ago.  My brother, my parents, and I
now share them.
     As I get older, I understand more and more what my mother
and father meant when they told us not to break any of those
delicate ornaments.  Today they're like so many precious memories
of so many Christmases past.

   Bob Mauro, [log in to unmask]        Amateur Radio Station KZ2G
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