A Bittersweet Christmas Story

Snow was predicted for Lincoln, and there was every reason to think it would be a really fine Christmas.
Having recently received the remarkable gift of puberty with its attendant wonders, I had my hopes up for another great present, not exactly comparable: a longed-for piece of magical apparatus I had reason to believe would be under the tree on Christmas Eve.
We always opened packages then instead of on Christmas Day, and in a sort of Norman Rockwellian tableau: nice warm house, a Nebraska snowfall settling outside and relatives of varying ages and beloved Sandy, my big, manly spaniel, all semi-circled around the gifts arrayed under the tree.
It’s sad to think how cozy such Midwestern family Christmases were when you were that age, and how odiously I now view the allegedly jolly season, with its trampling crowds and extorted gifts. But let that pass.
Back then, in that far-off happier time, Christmas was magical when it finally arrived with excruciating slowness.
Nobody, when you’re that age, could ever convince you that there would come a day when all those chatty, friendly uncles, aunts, parents and grandparents in that comfy circle, contentedly digesting dinner around the tree, would be . . . gone. That you yourself would someday be the sole surviving link in that warm family circle. Unthinkable.

Without even shutting my eyes I can summon an aural montage of the pleasant chatter and those unvarying phrases used every year: The “Oh, how beautifuls” and “Oh, you shouldn’t haves” and “Where on earth did you find it?” The sometimes mendacious “How did you know I wanted one?” and the well-worn “It’s a shame to spoil the wrapping.” (I could never see why.)
Every one of those Christmas Eves is interchangeable and identical in memory, and they usually ended with, “Well, we’d better be getting home before the snow gets any deeper” and the hugs and kisses goodnight and confessions of having eaten too much.
All interchangeable, that is, except for one.
My step-grandparents lived next door. The father of my college-professor, former-Marine-captain stepmother was known by his first initials, T. R., and was a book salesman for Scott, Foresman, the publisher who gave us Dick and Jane. He sired six offspring; three of each.
He was a huge and imposing man and I always thought he looked just like a local statue of William Jennings Bryan. He had a voice so deep it made Orson Welles sound like Truman Capote. When booming “You big bum!” at referees at Nebraska football games, it caused everybody in the stadium who wasn’t deaf to jump, turn around and look.