Christmas Eve is my favorite time of the Christmas season. Finally, the peace and quiet that is supposed to be associated with this time of year has settled, all is calm, all is bright.
If you haven’t bought all the gifts you planned to, you’re pretty much out of luck unless they still sell it at 7-Eleven.
Most of the stores close early as the shoppers rush home with their presents and if you forgot the scotch tape or wrapping paper, it’s time to get creative.
I once wrapped a Christmas gift in Happy Birthday paper, trying to convince the recipient that it was a very important birthday after all, but they didn’t buy it.
The traffic is almost non-existent. Everyone has made it home because Christmas Eve is all about being home, being with family and only a few people are out and about doing some last minute visiting or maybe heading to a church service.
There are no long lineups at the intersections but strings of street lights, even stop lights, still blink a bright red and green.
I recall the quiet of our house when I was a boy. After dinner, we maybe went to our rooms to do the final gift wrapping and then sneak them down under the tree so brothers and sisters couldn’t guess what we had bought.
The TV was off and Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra Christmas records were dug out from their hiding place in the old hassock and spun out carols from the record player.
Usually a board game or a deck of cards appeared and we sat around the kitchen table until it was time to wake up Dad if we had decided to go to the Christmas Eve church service.
People laughing, people passing, dressed in holiday style.
Some years, my older brothers and sisters would go to midnight mass with some of their Catholic friends and I was jealous that they got to stay up so late but we usually had a party of our own.
Mom would make some hot cocoa, but not with hot water and mix out of a can. Milk would be heated to boiling in a pan on the stove and then cocoa added and stirred to a froth.
No other hot chocolate has ever tasted like that.
Popcorn was the preferred snack and again, no hot air machines or microwave envelopes.
The stove was still hot so a little cooking oil was poured in the pan then the popcorn kernels were added.
Shaking the pan over the stove was an older brother job and soon the popcorn was pinging against the lid and when the lid was removed, popcorn cascaded over the edge of the pan.
Children laughing, in the air there’s a feeling of Christmas.
At bedtime there were still no presents from Santa but the rule was, if you stopped believing in Santa, there was no gift from him for you under the tree.
So carefully the cookies and milk were set out and we were sent to bed. Our day was over.
This was Santa’s big scene, soon it would be Christmas day.
The magic is in the silence.
Later, as a father and after Santa had laid out his gifts, eaten the cookies and drank the milk, that silence reminded me what all this noisy celebration was about.
And above all this bustle you’ll hear, silver bells.
At least that’s what McGregor says