As you read this, it’s Christmas Eve. I’m writing from a week before, isn’t that confusing?
I’ve got the tree up and the ornaments on, but no lights.
I just poured a glass of fat-free eggnog, and ate six Christmas cookies, while waiting for the power to return. The lights are even out at the Paul J. Schupf Art Center.
A week has gone by, and joy is still missing.
The promised 75 mph winds have just hit, and three 200-year-old trees are in my yard, having narrowly missed the house. Merry Christmas.
She and I are sitting in the power-free twilight, wondering what ever happened to reclaiming that good old Christmas feeling?
She, for years in Los Angeles, through smog and 80 degrees at Christmas, moaned out the stories of her childhood in Maine, while we sat watching Carol Burnett and ate fruitcake her parents had sent us from Maine.
Then one day She talked me into leaving the City of Angeles, which my agent called the “City of Angles,” and move to Maine.
Maine?
“Will there be snow for Christmas there?” I asked.
She failed to warn me about too many trees and ice storms.
But they don’t have earthquakes in Maine, so we packed up, and within two months, I left my job at the Los Angeles Times, and 40 years later here am I, staring at my neighbor’s tree on what used to be my deck. Where’s the snow?
What’s going on? Why can’t we get the Christmas cheer going?
Then, as I was pouring a bowl of colored Cheerios in the dark, I muttered to myself. “Chicken. I really miss orange chicken.”
Wait. Orange Chicken? THAT’S IT!
THE SOUTH PORTLAND MALL! THAT’S WHERE THE ACTION IS! Are the lights on at the mall?
All the memories of our first and the next 16 Christmases in Maine began at THE MALL!
Sbarro, the Disney Store for ornaments, hot dogs on a stick, Banana Republic for new sweaters, and LIGHTS.
“Let’s go to the mall and get in line at the Panda Express,” I shouted, “and order some orange chicken.” Yeah.
The girls, perpetually ready for Christmas, knew exactly what I meant when I shouted: “It ain’t Christmas without the mall and orange chicken!”
My youngest exclaimed, “It’s the one gift Santa can’t bring you, orange chicken.”
Every Christmas in those early Maine years, She and the girls would jump from one store to the next. An hour at Macy’s, followed by J.Jill and Banana Republic, J.Crew, Abercrombie & Fitch. The smiles never faded.
There was the Apple shop where we would handle all the newest models of iPhone and laptops. Next, it was to sample the free treats at Williams Sonoma and buy bottles of new olive oil.
For me, the sweetest treat was to watch all the fathers test the train set, lovers riding the carousel, and then I could just pause and watch the tiny kids stand in line and patiently wait for their turn to sit on Santa’s lap and whisper their dreams in his ear.
“What are you doing here?” She whispered from behind me, as she pinched my arm.
“Ouch,” I said, “watching the kids talking to Santa.”
“Jerry,” She hissed, “people are watching you watching their kids. You look creepy.”
So before my family dragged me away from real joy, we made one more stop at the food court — to rest our feet, and for hot chocolate and cookies and my final standing in line for my last order of orange chicken.
How does the song go? “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas …”
The wind is abating to a Marley’s Ghost growl.
My youngest asks, “Daddy, I think I got some orange chicken on Santa’s beard.”
J.P. Devine is a Waterville writer, except when he’s writing from an Augusta hotel when the power’s out.
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