Christmas Comedown

Diverse Shades of Gray

By Lois Mittino Gray

Another Christmas has come and gone and like anything long anticipated and awaited, there’s always a post-Christmas letdown when it’s all over. I put away the decorations, eat the last decorated cookie, and make plans for goals in the New Year, which will not include any cookies. The living room looks like a vast arena when all the trees and decorations are out of it, including my little light up Tucker, a mischievous West Highland Terrier impulse buy.

Mostly, I can put away my many Christmas music CD’s (God, I’m ancient) and sing my last rum-pah-pah-pums and stop walking in a winter wonderland. I love Christmas music, but the day after Christmas, I don’t want to hear another Silver Bell or fa-la-la. I’m finished with all of it for another year.

Best of all, I can have my morning radio show back again. Since before Thanksgiving, WIKY 104 FM hijacked the morning show by playing “All Christmas music all the time.” I was okay with it, as I can rock around the Christmas tree with the best of the bunch. Luckily, the station knew on December 26, it’s time for Christmas quietude. My show is baaaaaack and I’m lovin’ the end of year countdowns, culture quiz, and new music for ’26.

Let’s face it, how many times could I listen to Johnny Mathis sincerely promise me he would be home for Christmas, only to break my heart when it’s only in his dreams? How many times could that poor little boy buy a pair of shoes for his dying mom? Could the night wind really talk to a little lamb and ask him if he heard anything?

And since I’m a grandmother, do I face the possibility of being run over by a reindeer?

Seriously though, music is an integral part of the holiday and all my memories. My Evansville Italian-American Social Club members and my family love to sing Dominic, the Italian Donkey together at every Christmas dinner. Hee-Haw Chingety-ching. The little animal fills in for the reindeer since he can climb “the hills of Italy.” One year, in a tribute to our Christmas dinner without my mom, we reminisced memories of her at our holiday table. My daughter-in-law said her favorite memory ever was mom singing loudly about Dominic, the Italian Monkey. While the little ones giggled, no one had the heart to tell her he was a donkey, as monkeys don’t live in her beloved Italy.

I think of Allison Norfleet, a teacher at New Harmony School, who always required singing about wanting a hippopotamus for Christmas as part of her first semester final exam. One year the students bought her a wonderful light up one. When I hear the song Feliz Navidad, I think of the year my Biology II students came in my classroom singing that song carrying a big box and wearing broad smiles. They pooled their money to buy me a new guinea pig they wanted to name Feliz. I needed another guinea pig for class like I needed a hole in my head, but she was sweet and sooo cute and I was so honored.

My favorite Christmas songs ask the questions, “Mary, Did You Know?” and “Where Are You Christmas?” I love all the traditional holy ones and really get into singing them at church in the glowing candlelight with the smell of the greenery all around me.

But it’s all over for another year. I would consider having to listen to Christmas music at any other time of year equal to one of Dante’s levels of hell. It’s the level right next to the one where you have to wrap presents and try to find the start of the Scotch Tape over and over.

All over for another year. Now after Christmas is the time of half off wrapping paper sales, empty calendars to write all over with my box of 72 new Christmas-present Sharpies (a girl can never have too many of those babies!) and trying to make all kinds of new flavors on my coffee machine. Maple orange, anyone?