By David Fortier
The Fortier clan celebrated a socially distanced, outdoor gift exchange on Christmas Eve in lieu of our annual Christmas celebration. The youngest son set up tables on the porch, where gifts for the four different households were piled high.
The weather cooperated, it was prior to the big rains and heavy winds that took away any hope for a white Christmas with temperatures in the 50s, so the heaters got left in the garage.
We dressed in layers. We sat in our designated places. We took turns, beginning with the youngest, opening the presents. When I say youngest, I mean youngest—two new grandchildren who arrived just as the coronavirus struck and who will be turning a year old each shortly.
Mary and I did get to visit them just after they were born in their respective hospitals, but since then, our contact has been mostly via texts of photos and videos and phone conversations via FaceTime—I will forever be grateful for these.
On the porch, we chatted from behind masks, caught up, kidded, teased, and filled a 2x2x3 container with crumpled wrapping paper, some of which, if removed carefully was set aside for next year. A separate container held bows. I don’t think I have ever paid as much attention to wrapping paper as I did this year—it is an art form of its own.
Of course, the hope had been to meet indoors, where the tree, all dressed in its Christmas finery, waited and where we might have stayed warm. We did pretty well, though, regarding the latter, since we started about 2 p.m., when the weather was balmy, and only started to chill after 4 p.m., when things wound down, when babies were changed, when cars were packed, when tables were broken down, and after which when we retired for the evening.
Before the festivities ended, though, the youngest son pulled out a bag of items that he gathered while going through Grandpa’s things. Yes, Grandpa left us in February. The prior November took Grandma and Cousin Rose.
(Uncle Glenn, my youngest brother, passed in January 2019. He made a brief appearance in an anniversary photo that appeared on one of the kid’s Facebook feeds Christmas Eve morning.)
It has been a time of losses for all of us, but especially for Mary, and there is a lot of sorting to do. The kids have been helping out, with the sorting, which led to this homage to Grandpa on Christmas Eve.
The collection of items set aside by the youngest son included some of Grandpa’s favorite shirts: identical, except for their colors–red, blue, black, maroon; several favorite pairs of pants, in which Grandpa had written, in marker, the purchase date, place of purchase, and cost; and a note from Grandma to Grandpa, that was fitting finale to the homage.
In the note, what the youngest son called a “text before texts were texts,” Grandma had written that she was off to the beach, she needed to cool down, and that if they missed each other, she would meet him home. There was no date, but it was note that Grandpa decided was important enough to hold on to all these years.
He passed at 92, Grandma at 89. They spent 59 years together, something he often teased about. Age was a theme in some of the t-shirts that made a final appearance, too. One read, “I’m not 72 years old, I am 20 with 52 years of experience.”
It was a sweet afternoon. Not our typical celebration, of course, because what does typical mean these days? Typically, we would have settled in together around 9 p.m. to watch “It’s a Wonderful Life,” opened our secret Santa gifts—one each—and headed off to bed. Either Christmas Eve or Christmas Day we’d head to Mass—untypically, this day, after everyone left for their homes, Mary and I watched the recorded 4 p.m. Vigil Mass on Facebook.
Morning would have started early with breakfast prep, cooking Grandpa’s eggs—a slow process that might take over an hour or longer if properly attended to and a duty officially handed down to the oldest grandson just these past few years. This would be followed by breakfast together, our opening presents, and then heading to my mother’s for Christmas dinner.
As different as things were, they were, at their core, the same, a celebration—a time for sharing and stories, of laughter and remembrances.
On to the New Year!
David Fortier is an educator, author and journalist, in addition to TBE editor-and-chief. Mary, his wife, is a city councilor serving the Third District.
“Come Sunday morning” is intended to be a weekly review, a recounting of the past week and an anticipation of week to come. Among its features will be reviews of old and new books, sharing of favorite podcasts, some family news, Bristol events and happenings, and issues surrounding education, work and community journalism.