No Bats, No Bikes

The lights are blinking on the streets, the downtown Santa Clauses nod and “Ho-Ho-Ho,” the streets are clogged with holiday traffic--but Christmas somehow isn’t the same this year.

I couldn’t put my finger on it--some vague, ill-defined malaise of the soul.

Then, suddenly, I drove by a station wagon gleaming with brand new gifts of tricycles and doll carriages and, abruptly, I knew.

It has finally come to this: Under our Christmas tree this year, no football proudly sits awaiting the grip of one of our young Bob Waterfields.

There is no baseball bat. No doll carriages with real dolls that wet and whisper and have to have their hair combed with loving care. The stockings are hung by the fireplace with care--but there are no cookies and glass of milk for Santa any more.

It used to be--can it be five years ago, 10 years ago?--that Christmas Eve was a time to dart down to the landing platform to pick up the imported bicycle with the complicated directions (“Fasten the grommet onto the leak valve--remove washer with a crescent wrench and staple cotter pin to the crammis--attach gusset to the picton”) and I would toil, cursing, far into the night to assemble it so it could be a magic bicycle on a Christmas morn.

A nuisance? Surely. But, oh, what I would give to put up with that nuisance just once more!

What would I give to be hurrying in for a bicycle, a baseball, a Rams’ uniform (size 10)? What’s Christmas if you’re not buying a sled, a wagon, a catcher’s mitt, a backboard and net, boxing gloves?

What are in those boxes underneath the tree--all so antiseptically wrapped and ribboned? A new sweater? A pair of slacks? Toiletries? Shirts? Pajamas?

Bah! Where are the roller skates of yesteryear? The skip ropes? The toy fire engines? The toy soldiers?

Shouldn’t there be a toy airplane under there someplace? A tank?

Was it I who got angry trying to put together electric railroad trains and tracks? Impossible! If there’s one thing I would want for Christmas, it would be to have to do it once again.

Oh, why isn’t there a trout pole, a tackle box underneath that tree? A tether ball? A volleyball?

Why can’t we open the door and see four tousled heads pretending to be asleep? Why don’t we have to sneak up in the trapdoor of the attic at 1 a.m. any more and bring down things with wheels on them, or runners, or fish hooks? Can those sinister, grown-up boots be for the little girl who only yesterday wore little Mary Janes in patent leather with the pearl buttons on the side?

Why don’t we have checkerboards and electric baseball games? Whatever became of bows-and-arrows, pop-guns, water pistols? Watches and rings are no fun. Is it any fun to bring home a new coat or a new scarf in the back seat instead of something made of chrome and spokes or leather--something that will make a boy’s eyes shine?

Is it any fun to be old at Christmas--with a boy in the Army, a boy in college--and you have no excuse at all to go in the toy department with a tiny scared hand clutched in yours and say “Santa, this is Pammy”?

Is it any fun to get to a Christmas where you get the one thing you don’t need--a calendar? Or a clock guaranteed for 20 years?