The First Christmas I Remember

The first Christmas I can recall was when I was four. My mom, my dad and I were still living in East Boston in the little one bedroom. My Uncle Phoung was also living with us. It's strange to say he was living with us because he was us. At the time, he was attending high school and I don't think there was a day in those four years where I don't remember him being around. We lived on the first floor of that five unit, tan building. It was cozy and warm when the snow started to fall.

I remember Christmas Wreaths being sold at the local Stop N' Shop and a painting of a big red bow around the McDonald's sign. Everywhere we walked to, people rang bells and said "Happy Holidays." Coming back on the Blue line from my cousins house in Quincy, I would stare in awe of all the lights on all the warm homes.

In school, I learned about a man who wore a red suite and lives at the North Pole. My preschool teacher could play the piano and so we sang songs about a flying, red nosed reindeer, A snow man who wore a top hat and smoked a pipe and a silent night.

Like all people who have moved away from their families we had to start our own traditions. In my families case, they had escaped from Vietnam and so had to start from scratch, especially with a holiday they have only observed from a distance. My dad sat down with me and watched 'Charlie Brown's Christmas special. I turned to him and asked him, "Can we have a tree?" He said, "Why?" So I naturally explained to him about an old man who watched me sleep and makes sure I'm good, and how this reindeer flies with a glowing nose and who could forget about the snowman that smokes a pipe. I told him that Santa comes down the chimney and leaves presents for me. He said, "We don't have a chimney." I said, "use your imagination, dad." My dad looked at my mom with the same enthusiasm and said, "lets get a Christmas tree."

My mom, confused by this holiday, asked her co-workers and her friends in her night English class, "what do people do during Christmas?" Which prompted her professor to tell stories about her own Christmas while growing up. People exchanged presents, were nice to each other, decorated trees and celebrated the birth of a man named Jesus. She talked about spending time with family and how her mom cooked a big dinner on Christmas Eve and then they went to their grandparents house on Christmas Day. My dad's boss at McDonald's gave him an extra check and told him to have a Merry Christmas. And so my parents were set on making it one.

Getting the tree wasn't difficult. They sold them in the lot down by the Stop N' Shop. It was what to do with the tree once we got it. We had brought home one a little bit too big. After hacking it with a butcher knife, my dad was ready to pull out our Fig tree and stuff the tree in the Fig's pot when my mom came home with a red and green Christmas tree stand and a white tree apron. One day their four year came home from school and tied a piece of paper with colorful pieces of macaroni in the shape of a star to the tree with a piece of yellow yarn. We all went out to Woolworth's one night and picked up Christmas lights, like the ones we saw on the houses, red, blue and green ornaments, and a lighted star that had a picture of Jesus in the middle. We decorated that night too. My uncle came home from playing basketball and he had silver tinsel which we threw all over the tree.

Two days later a big brown box had arrived at our apartment. My mom was shocked, she hugged the post man and told me to come over and help her open it. It was a box full of toys! They were from Santa Claus and all for me and my cousins. My first real football was in that box, too big for my hands. We set aside things for my cousins and wrapped them. I didn't learn a long time later that my mom had written a letter to the post office addressed to Santa Clause. Someone had picked it out and they had put together this box for me. When my Dad came home I said, "since we didn't have a chimney, Santa delivered our presents by mail." I was 14 when I found a draft of that letter my mom had written, even at that age the magic was real.

Christmas Eve came, and all my aunts, uncles, cousins and our family friends crammed into our tiny place. They sat around and talked about Vietnam, their own experiences with this holiday, and this country's strange customs. My cousins and I played games of tag, hot hands and waited patiently (as patiently as a group of three and four year-olds could) to open our presents and play with those. The house smelled of fried rice, egg rolls and incense. There was the smell of charcoal was from the charcoal pot that kept the sea food soup warm. There was no dinning room table. We sat intimately on the living room floor, on a blanket, in a circle around the food. Each smiling red face was family and that was the first Christmas I remember.