The Program

"Hey, Rob. Gitcha some a that fruit cake up there. It's gooood." My parents made a fruit cake every year for the holidays, and for the weeks leading up to Christmas my father would soak it in so much shine it took a Hoyer lift to haul it down from its storage spot on top of the refrigerator. I never cared for the fruit cake, but I loved that there was a drunken baked good in my mother's otherwise strict Baptist home.

Our family Christmas celebrations were not remarkable until 1974. Sister #1 was expecting her first child, Sister #2 was married, Sister #3 left for college, my maternal grandmother died near Thanksgiving, my mother was scheduled for surgery in January. So by Christmas, people were a little shattered. The house didn't feel all that celebratory, even with the fruit cake with fumes rising to the ceiling.

On Christmas Eve, while my mother was napping, my sisters and I got together and hatched a plan. We called it The Program. It would be a holiday extravaganza featuring singing, trumpets, piano, magic tricks, readings, and more. After dinner, we quietly dressed in our best Sunday clothes, turned out the house lights, and entered the living room with candles--with my parents sitting on the couch--arms folded, foreheads crinkled, not knowing what to expect. We each took turns--a trumpet solo, then a piano solo, then a trumpet duet, then a singing trio, then a singing solo, then a reading of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, then a magic show put on by my brother-in-law who is a magician (he cut off my mother's finger with a carrot slicing guillotine--a show stopper), then a reading from Luke 2.

It had been a tradition that we opened presents from my grandmother on Christmas Eve. She was a woman of very few resources, but she put together hand-made things for each of us every year and shipped them from Alabama. I still have a little purse made from the bottom of a dish soap bottle with a pink crocheted top and a plastic baby doll inside, resting on a piece of cotton. On the night of the program, just a month after my grandmother had passed away, we opened every present under the tree.

So began the new tradition of The Program. It grew as the family grew--when I switched from trumpet to French horn, my solos changed; we added a dulcimer, a guitar or two, a recorder, different duets and trios and quartets, various readings. It started to dissolve just a few years ago when we ran out of steam, but we still have something similar to The Program every Christmas Eve, and I can still smell that fruitcake ruminating on top of the old refrigerator.