Christmas was always a special time for our family. We always spent it together, almost always in Sioux City. We had a tradition of opening one present on Christmas Eve, and saving the rest for Christmas morning. The year Alan's Christmas Eve present was a sweater did NOT go well.
Alan and I ended up together on a hide-a-bed in the den or the basement. When he was little, he used to ask me questions about Santa. One year, he started to question whether Santa was real, and I convinced him to let it go. By the next year, he had it figured out.
This was the most consistent time we got to spend with Great-Grandma Bailey, and it was a big day for her because it was her birthday. When I was little, she was a stern and silent woman who seemed to spend more time harumphing than talking with us. But by the time Alan came along, she had mellowed. She started to joke around with us, and she and Alan definitely had a special relationship. Grandma used to have to separate them because they were poking each other under the dinner table too much.
Grandma had an organ, and would often start it up and play some hymns. As he got older, Alan would try to sight-read some of them, but then eventually ended up playing All Along the Watchtower instead. Alan was never really as into Christmas music as I was when I was little, but there was a special bond over Silent Night. This was Great-Grandma's favorite.
Still, Christmas makes me think of Great-Grandma, and the things she liked remind me of Christmas. She loved owls and cardinals. She loved ebleskiver. She and Alan were never big eaters, but they could both pack away those little pancake UFOs like nobody's business.
When she was dying at 99 years old, Alan was right there for her. He held her hand, rubbed her back. At the funeral, he fainted. Mary and I took him on a drive to find a bathroom and to have some time to recover.
Theirs was a beautiful relationship. Christmas felt so different after she was gone. And now, with Alan gone, too, it will surely change again. Maybe they're together again, poking each other under some table far away.
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