“I want to feel Christmas how it used to be with all of its wonder falling on me. The season has felt so empty, oh, for quite a while. I want to feel Christmas like a child.”
When I listen to those song lyrics from Third Day, they put a twinkle in my eyes and conjure up the purest of memories from my childhood — images of Mama warming her back by one of Daddy’s roaring fires, usually wearing one of her Christmas sweaters and tearing away at the tiny silver foil wrappings of Hershey’s Kisses, “silver bells” as she called them. I wish I could go back, not to change anything, but maybe just to feel some things for a second time.
Well, I can go back, figuratively speaking, every time I put out my Department 56 Christmas Villages. Mary Lou and Peggy, my mother and my second mother, join me in spirit. I fell into collecting a few years ago quite by accident, when Peggy gifted me with an extraordinary town filled with all the places I love in New York City, most prized being Radio City Music Hall complete with the Rockettes. I was in love from that moment, and I have played feverishly at my new hobby, acquiring cobblestone streets, carriages, frosted trees and many more lighted buildings. Imagine, if you will, my own miniature town!
Mama, Peggy and I laughed and smiled until our mouths hurt one year at the Christmas tour of homes hosted by my friends in the local collector’s group, the Magnolia 56ers. I have never witnessed a group of adults with more childlike innocence than that special night. Mama could not wait to put down her dessert, telephone her sister Avis, and tell her she was in the North Pole surrounded by all the little lighted houses as far as the eyes could see.
According to Pam Lorman, the club’s president, “Department 56 village collecting gives a person the opportunity to cast aside everyday rules and restrictions and create their own magical world.” I agree!
Just like the lyrics with which I began, my holiday season has felt so empty for quite a while. Loss does that, but I am expanding my inherited Dickens Village, my spectacular Christmas in the City Village, and introducing the North Pole Village this year. If the vibrant little elves don’t steal your heart, perhaps downtown will with the Real Artificial Tree Factory, the Yummy Gummy Gumdrop Factory, the Northern Lights Tinsel Mill, the Barbie Boutique or my favorite, the Twinkle Brite Glitter Factory that comes with two little elves on “glitter detail.”
It’s all about imagination and awakening that kid inside all of us. Play time should not end when school years begin. I will turn Bing Crosby up very loud in a couple weeks, stir myself a candy cane martini or two while unpacking my villages, and feel Christmas like a child.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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