The Ghosts of Christmas

 

By David Gibson

Yesterday I pulled into the parking lot at one of the stops on my pre-Christmas Saturday shopping outing. As it happens, a reading of Dickens Christmas Carol was playing on the NPR station, read by a selection WNYC and WQXR radio hosts. 

As the story transitioned from the Ghost of Christmas Present to the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, the warm familiar voices gripped my spirit and I started weeping. As the story progressed to the joyful end of the story, the tears poured out of me. For a moment, I wondered, why was I crying, what tears were these. Then I felt waves of feelings and memories, thoughts of my own Christmases past - memories of my father who's been dead for over 40 years; thoughts of my mother's delicious Christmas dinners, crisp roast turkey, candied yams, shortbread cookies, plum pudding with rich creamy hard sauce; images of our house decorated for the holidays, the Christmas tree, the wreathes, the holly my uncle sent each year, the Christmas cards taped to the door frames.  

And then it occurred to me that the remarkable book I am reading may have triggered some of these Christmas associations. It's a powerful story, Waves, by Sonali Deraniyagala, the story of a Christmas trip to her native Sri Lanka. On Boxing Day 2004 the tsunami swept away her husband, her children and her parents. Somehow she survived. The book chronicles her grief and her recovery in painful gripping detail. I think that my Christmas Carol tears were connected for me to her account of the way that objects and events and associations bring back memories, for her of the family that vanished on Dec 26, 2004. As it happens, I was not so far away that day, enjoying a beautiful cruise on the sunny placid South China Sea. A late change of plans diverted us to Vietnam from Phuket, the epicenter of Thailand's tsunami destruction where we had planned to spend Christmas. 

So this holiday season, I am looking back, connecting past and present. My memories are bitter sweet, there's sadness in the loss of youth and a parent, joy in my celebration of the abundance and love that I have. It's a rich life and these stories, the familiar and the new, inspire and nurture me. The holidays bring this all into a sharper relief. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

For more information on how we navigate the places and spaces of our lives, read David's book, 'The Wayfinding Handbook: Information Design for Public Places'.