A
Christmas Carol (For Garl)
When I was in my late teens and
twenties I worked in a mall bookstore. One December I was working at my
charge desk in the art and paperback section with a new girl named Marie when a
woman came in looking for a coffee table book to give to a friend for Hanukkah.
I helped her pick out a nice book of Monet prints. As Marie was ringing
her up, the woman said, “You know, I don’t really even know when Hanukkah
starts. Do you?” Marie said, “No, I don’t.” I shook my head. Marie looked
over by the card section and saw a man picking out several Hanukkah cards.
She went over and asked, “Sir, do you know when Hanukah starts?” He
looked up and said, “It’s this Thursday at sunset.” She told the woman,
who thanked us, and then left. Marie turned to me and said, “It is lucky
someone Jewish was here.” I smiled and said, “That man is not Jewish. He is of
Anglo-Saxon descent, Protestant, Republican, and works in the corporate
world.” She screwed up her face. “What makes you think that?” I laughed.
“I’m just a master of observational detail, Marie, and besides that, he is my
father.” She laughed to and asked, “Why is he buying so many Hanukkah
cards?” I smiled and said, “Because he loves this time of year and he likes
spreading cheer to all of his friends.”
When my siblings and I were young
kids we didn’t see my dad a whole lot. He was trying to climb the corporate
ladder and therefore worked late hours and traveled a lot. One thing he always
did though was take two weeks off in the summer so we could have a long
vacation trip and stay home the week of Christmas and New Years. During
the Christmas break he would go to great lengths to spend time with us. He
wouldn’t get in the car to run an errand unless one or two of us were with him.
He took us to movies, he pretend cooked with my younger sister, Stacia,
and played in the snow with me and my older sister, Melissa. He would nap with
my younger brother lying on his chest.
The other thing he would do is go
absolutely mad in decorating the house. During Christmas most of our places
looked like a Hallmark store vomited. There were copious lights on the outside
of the house, Christmas knick-knacks everywhere, trains running around trees,
and snowflakes painted on all the windows. It would have been highly gaudy and
tacky but my mother, who was a talented artist, always followed him around and
made sure everything looked tasteful. Over time he learned some lessons
and got very good at it. Even when I was older, moved to Champaign and then later
got married and moved to Chicago, I loved visiting my parents’ house in
December because it said Christmas all over it.
My father also went to great lengths
to make sure we believed in Santa as long as possible. He would make shoe
prints in the snow and on the roof towards the chimney. If we were
traveling back to Florida where we once lived and did presents at my
grandparents in Indiana on the way, he would leave the front room in the dark,
stomp on the back kitchen steps yelling “Ho, ho, ho!” and ring bells, only to emerge
in the front room after we retrieved our presents from the landing.
Church was a big part of our
Christmas experience. Every year we would go to evening services on Christmas
Eve. When we were younger my father always held the role of a shepherd in
the Nativity play because he could not sing but was good at herding fake sheep.
When Melissa and I went off to college we started going to the late night
service and after that my father would host a big open house for the neighbors.
He always wore some decorative sweater or vest he had purchased for the
occasion. During the season we would also go to the annual Bryson
Christmas Party. The Brysons were like an extension of our family as they were
to many friends. At those affairs my Dad would stand beside the piano and try
to sing carols along with everyone else. He made a good choice of being a
shepherd.
One of Dad’s other Christmas obsessions
was watching every single version of “A Christmas Carol” ever made. And by that
I mean every version. I came home from work one time and he was in
his big chair in the family room watching Mr. Magoo’s version of the Dickens
classic. I said, “Dad, what the hell are you doing watching a cartoon? “ He did
not move his eyes from the TV. He said, “I really like this one. I think
people undervalue Magoo. This really shows his amazing range as an actor.” I
just rolled my eyes and went to my room.
Later on in life, after my mother
died, I made it a point to get tickets every year to “A Christmas Carol” at the
Goodman Theater, so my wife and I could give Dad a gift. He loved
it. One year I couldn’t get tickets so instead I took him to another
Christmas-themed show. He liked being taken out to dinner, and seemed to enjoy
the play. As I walked him out to his car, after a post-show drink, I said, “I’m
sorry, Pop, that I couldn’t get tickets at the Goodman this year.” He
patted me lovingly on the cheek and said, “That’s OK, Bud, but try harder next
year,” and he winked. I made sure I had tickets to “A Christmas Carol”
early every year after that., up until he got sick.
My father was also an amazing gift
giver. The first Christmas my future wife, Karen, spent with us he
bought her a fake poinsettia, because she loves them and he thought it would
something to spruce up her room at her parents' house. The next year, when it
was apparent that we were serious, and probably going to get married, he bought
her a beautiful dress that was just the right size. In subsequent years he
bought her other clothes and pajamas that all always fit. I was always
kind of shy about buying women clothes, but my father never was. He always
was good at shopping clothes for women. I asked him once how he did it. He
said, “If you get to get to know a woman well enough, you learn her tastes. If
you hug a woman enough, you learn her size." That was a lesson I really
liked learning. The next year I bought Karen a glen plaid suit that she
really liked, and it fit just right.
Dad’s birthday is December 19th.
There were times that it got overshadowed with the holidays but he never seemed
to mind. He was too wrapped in Christmas. Another movie he loved was “A
Christmas Story,” When he turned sixty I bought him a Red Ryder bb gun with a
compass in the stock. You would of thought I bought him a Mercedes-Benz. When
he opened it he exclaimed with glee, “Oh, boy! Will you look at that!” He had
never had one.
When he turned seventy I started
giving him money for his birthday equivalent to his age. He would always send
me a nice note that said, “Thank you and I love you, Bud” and he would tell me
what he spent it on. The last Christmas
with him sitting on my older sister's couch, holding his shaking hand, watching
football on TV, and, of course portions of "A Christmas Carol." That
year he gave me the last of his father’s pocket watches. I already had two and
this completed the set of three. I was very glad for his generosity but it also made me sad because
it felt some sort of harbinger.
He would have been 81 this year if he had lived, but sadly he didn’t. He left us five years ago.. He died of complications from Parkinson’s and dementia. It would be in the next year after he passed that I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. We don't know if there is a genetic link or it was just an amazing coincidence. I jokingly like to say that my father gave me one last gift, “The gift that keeps on giving.” Although that sounds snarky, the reality is that getting Parkinson’s really ended up truly being a gift in some ways. It forced me to turn my head away from blind ambition and other things, and to focus on what is most important to me: my faith, my friends and family, my art and writing, my community and the world. I think I’m a better man than I was four years ago.
He would have been 81 this year if he had lived, but sadly he didn’t. He left us five years ago.. He died of complications from Parkinson’s and dementia. It would be in the next year after he passed that I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. We don't know if there is a genetic link or it was just an amazing coincidence. I jokingly like to say that my father gave me one last gift, “The gift that keeps on giving.” Although that sounds snarky, the reality is that getting Parkinson’s really ended up truly being a gift in some ways. It forced me to turn my head away from blind ambition and other things, and to focus on what is most important to me: my faith, my friends and family, my art and writing, my community and the world. I think I’m a better man than I was four years ago.
I try to do my best to keep
Christmas like my Dad did. Every day as I work, and spend a little time
decorating my home, I try to take time either at lunch or just before bedtime
to watch some version of “A Christmas Carol.” I don’t have to shell out $81
this year, but I’ll you what. I would spend 1,000 times that if I could spend
another Christmas with that lovely man, Garl Murdock Sharpe…My dad who loved
Christmas.
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