Ghosts of Christmas past

Earlier I was in my basement looking for an unused Christmas card in which to include some cash for a smart young woman who took care of my cats while I was out of town when I encountered a couple of small boxes. The boxes were filled with photographs and Christmas cards belonging to my parents; you know, the stuff that ends up in your house after someone passes.

My grandparents, parents, and aunts and uncles were all from the Chicago area, so every Christmas our little Iowa family would make the journey to gather with them; consequently a number of the old photos, some dating back to the 1940s, show Christmas trees in the background.

This was not the Christmas I was looking for, but there it was, black and white studies of ghosts, ghosts laughing with drinks in hand, ghosts before they had children, ghosts seated next to their dogs, ghosts long gone to wherever it is they go and, later, ghosts with young children in tow, me being one of them.

The ghost I miss the most, of course, is my mother. In a number of the family photos, I’m the child standing closest to her, which likely wouldn’t surprise anyone who knew us. However, the photos of all of them are wonderful, partly because the taking of them was intentional and thought out, as this was back in the day when film (perhaps 36 shots per roll) from a camera had to be taken to a drugstore where it was sent away to be processed, not today’s digital “I’ll take 50 shots of the same scene, then pick the best one.”

And it wasn’t just Christmas I encountered in my basement: there were half a dozen sweet handwritten letters from U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Homer Ullrich written during the Second World War and its aftermath, letters dutifully written to his mother and signed “Your Loving Son, Junior.” Junior was part of an engineering team and, judging by the contents of the letters, he was not allowed to write about his unit’s work. After Dad died I stumbled upon some of his Army material and read that he was designing and manufacturing one of the nastiest fighting weapons man has ever devised; flame throwers. I understand now why he didn’t talk about his time in the service.

Members of my family stopped giving Christmas presents when each child became an adult (and got a job). Thus, I’m always surprised when I meet fully grown-up families still giving each other presents. I suppose such things are expressions of love, however, I tend to see it the way English Poet Laureate John Betjeman phrased it in his 1954 poem “Christmas,” calling such gifts “sweet and silly Christmas things.” Excuse my curmudgeon-ness.

Last week I attended a Christmas concert performed by an orchestra and chorus and the audience was invited to stand during a number of the songs and sing along. I’m a pretty good singer and I thoroughly enjoy it, but audience participation has always been an eye-roll for me, until that night.

Along with more than 2,000 others, I sang, in full voice, “Once in Royal David’s City,” “Away in a Manger,” “God Rest You Merry Gentleman,” and the one that finally got to me, “O Come All Ye Faithful.” For a few moments, I was in the church choir loft of my youth, “Sing choirs of angels; sing in exultation; sing, all ye citizens of heav’n above!” And I’m crying, tears rolling down my cheeks, crying not for me, but for those who have gone before, those who loved me once, those who now inhabit black-and-white images during a beautiful, colorful season. Happy Christmas, everyone.

Kurt Ullrich lives in rural Jackson County. His book “The Iowa State Fair” is available from the University of Iowa Press.