A Christmas Story

Typically, during Christmas, I sit and watch the A Christmas Story movie a number of times. That movie is very relatable to me. It was actually filmed in Cleveland, Ohio about 40 minutes from where I grew up. It was written by Jean Shepherd who is from Gary, Indiana. I bet I have watched it over 100 times. My grandson Preston is even a carbon copy of Ralphie, the star of the movie. The dad reminds me a LOT of my dad from cussing the furnace, expertly replacing the blown fuses, yelling at the neighbor’s dogs and getting car wax as a gift and pretending to like it. It always makes me laugh and takes me back to a more innocent and carefree time (for me anyway). Some people do not care for it but others, like me, can watch it over and over. I know many who do something similar for The Grinch or National Lampoon’s A Christmas Vacation. Everyone has their favorites that put them in the “Christmas Spirit.” When I was quite young, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Frosty the Snowman, A Charlie Brown Christmas and some others would get it done.

If memory serves, the J.C. Penney catalog would hit our doorstep right around Thanksgiving and mom would gather my brother and me into the living room and give us a few ink pens and then have us circle the gifts we wanted for Christmas (Santa apparently needed help narrowing down the list to something more manageable). We would circle about two hundred things each and none of them were socks and underwear. My brother and I were sure to not overlap so mom and the big fella would not get confused and get us two of the same gifts (the horror!).

As the calendar flipped into December, the countdown was on. The decorations started going up in our palatial estate on Stevenson Avenue. It looked like Christmas threw up in our house! Mom had several trees throughout the house, and she always tried some funky avant-garde decorations that people still talk about (Exhibit A: the year she put up a tree of just branches with lights. If you know, you know!).

Mom loved to shop so she took great delight in hitting up every store you could imagine, and we always had a LOT of packages to open. She was also a hall-of-fame wrapper, and everything always looked like something out of a magazine. Dad, on the other hand, was famous for getting pissed about the lights not working and the inability to get the way too big tree to be centered. You NEVER asked him to put anything together! If it came with “some assembly required,” the Rutledge boys weren’t getting it.

Both of my parents did not have similar experiences growing up. They had very humble stories about their family Christmas times. Both had alcoholic fathers and as I got older, I realized that they wanted to give us more than they had. They did.

I never knew I was a member of any social class (low, middle, upper) because most of the people I knew were the same as me. All the “rich” people lived on the other side of town. I knew that my parents loved me and my siblings as well as my cousins. Christmas time was a very magical time as well as a spiritual time. We would go to church, caroling, parties, window shopping, hayrides, etc. It seemed (to me) that December 25th would never get here.

Dad loved to put the lights on the house and make it look sharp. I wish I could have charged people to watch him put everything up. It was a show for sure. I could have paid for my college. Perhaps that is where I learned the words that people on the naughty list used.

He loved music too. He had a selection of records he would play that ranged from Elvis, Johnny Mathis, Burl Ives, Frank Sinatra, Andy Williams, Bing Crosby, and others. I have all of those records in my collection, and I love that he gave me a love of music, especially since he would always sing the wrong words in the wrong verse and act like he meant to do that.

We were an “open on Christmas Eve” family. My parents had a standing open house invitation for our family and friends. People would start coming over around 5:00 or so and usually stay until around 10:00 or 11:00. Mom made a TON of food and we literally would run out of room in the smallish kitchen to put it all out. So, there was stuff everywhere. The back porch was used as an additional refrigerator and beer cooler. Dad always had his goofy Santa hat on and always sat at the same end of the couch and would hold court with his jokes and stories. Man, it was really fun back then.

As everyone started to leave my brother and I would encourage them to go so we could get to the main event, opening presents. Strangely, the presents were never under the tree. Dad would get the high sign from mom, and he would take us out to look at the Christmas lights in the neighborhood while keeping an eye out for the big fella and his sleigh. Amazingly, every time we returned the presents were all under the tree. IT WAS TIME!!

Dad would get another ”coffee” and take his position on the end of the couch and be the Grand Marshall of Christmas. Mom would see her months of work destroyed in about 60 minutes. My brother and eventually my sister and I would tear it up. I never did get a Red Rider BB gun, but I made out like a bandit. We all did. It wasn’t until many years later that I learned that mom was still paying it off until summertime. I did my part and got mom some silly figurine and dad some more Hai Karate, so we were even, right?

Well, another Christmas has come and gone in 2023 and this one was much different which is what my story will be about today.

But First…A Joke:

A coach walks into the locker room before a game, looks over at his star plater, and says, “I’m not supposed to let you play since you failed math, but we need you in there. So, what I have to do is ask you a math question, and if you get it right, you can play.” The player agrees, and the coach looks into his eyes intently and asks, “Okay, now concentrate: What is two plus two?” The player thinks for a moment and then answers, Four?” “Did you say four?!” the coach exclaims. At that, all the other players on the team start yelling, “Come on, Coach, give him another chance!”

A Verse to Contemplate:

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Psalm 51:10

Have I Told You This One?

My brother is having some major health issues and I decided to spend time with him in Ohio this Christmas. I also got to spend Christmas with my sis and her wonderful family as well as my niece and nephew and their little families (Time flies!). It was the first Christmas I did not spend with my kids and their families. To be honest, I never got the “spirit” this year. I was blessed to be back in Akron with my original family and with those that all of these memories were experienced back in a different time, but I felt like I was mostly marking time. It was hard to be festive with a heavy heart. I will be really happy when 2023 is in the rear view. I hate to say that but unfortunately it is true.

As an old dude now at Christmas things are a little, no, a LOT different. I could not be more blessed than I am with my family and I wouldn't trade it for anything. We have great traditions, and we have a ball on Christmas Eve and Christmas.......but..........Christmas is getting "different" as a old geezer. I have graduated up to being the dad/uncle with the goofy Santa hat sitting in my place on the couch being the Grand Marshall of Christmas for my family.

How's that Rutmachine? Well, let me tell ya.

My dad, mom and wife are gone now, and I miss them a lot around this time of year. In fact, most of the people I made my memories with are gone now so all I have is memories of those days gone by. Thankfully, they are good ones, and I am happy about that. I have many friends that are battling cancer or some other health issue and weren't sure they would even make it to Christmas this year. Thankfully, most did. I now share my adult children with others, and I do not have the access I used to enjoy. The upside is I have grandkids now which brings Christmas back to a magical level and the excitement they enjoy is good for the soul.

I went to visit my brother at the hospital where he is in hospice care. I’m sorry but that place is so depressing. My brother is heavily sedated and mostly out of it. I just sat there and prayed for him and the others sharing Christmas with him. On Christmas my sis and I went to visit him and honestly, we had a hard cry and left there feeling like we just went 10 rounds with Tyson. On the way home I went by my childhood home. It had new owners and there were no lights up. No cars parked in the driveway and no kids trying out their new toys in the yard with their cousins. I continued to drive around and ran across a homeless gentleman who had layers of blankets and all that he owned in a sack walking alone on the main street. I felt sad for him and wondered what his story was. I got back to my sister’s house and decided to just call it a day. Hardest Christmas ever in the same city I had my best Christmases as a kid. It was easy to feel like I was having a Blue Blue Christmas as Elvis sang, but the truth is that I was missing the entire point of Christmas.

I know of many my age that this time of year is a difficult struggle and some even just wish it was over. I really feel bad for them when I see that, but I sure understand. Grieving and Christmas is really a bad combination. I don’t want it to be that way, but this year especially felt devoid of the Christmas Spirit. My kids tease me sometimes for being a Grinch because I hate the secularizing and commercializing of Christmas. I suspect that the events in the world over the past few years has dampened many people’s spirits but I’m sure Walmart still did okay.

But you know what changed the most for this old geezer at Christmas? My perspective. I like getting presents but I really don't care if I get any. The stuff money can buy doesn't fill the place in my heart that the people I love did. I wish I could put my arm around my wife and thank her for doing such a good job, smell my mom's cooking again, see my dad in his Santa hat sitting on the couch, laugh with my brother and sister, kiss my grandmothers and listen to them tell stories.

However, the biggest change for me is understanding how much God loved me/us through the greatest gift the world has ever known, the advent of Jesus Christ into the world.

God's love is a sacrificial love. His motivation was His love for all people. It is not a sentimental love but much more. It is a solution driven love and it cost Him. It is also a defiant love, and it is not predicated on reciprocity. He doesn't love us because we are lovely but because He IS love. It is also a merciful love with an objective of transforming His people and that those people are a trophy of the depth and breadth of His love for us.

That is what has changed for Christmas in this Old Dude. The greatest gift I could ever receive is the unconditional love of my Savior and His unmerited favor in my life. Believe me, you will never find that in a store.

Friends, "Fear not; for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For onto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord."

Merry Christmas (from the Old Dude) and don’t shoot your eye out.

Love others as God has loved you, Peace to all of You!

A Prayer:

Spirit of God, keep me in perfect peace when my emotions get out of control. Remind me that my Father knows every detail of my life and is in complete control.

Book Recommendation:

Three Weeks with My Brother by Nicholas Sparks and Micah Sparks (2004)

Music Recommendation:

Live at Mad Life 1.18.2023 by The Steven Brooks Band (2023)