The Writing of the List

Of my childhood Thanksgivings I can recall many things vaguely…the crunchy bits of stuffing I would sneak from the turkey pan, the brown paper lunch sacks of nuts and oranges we would receive from the NCO club on base, waking in the morning to the fragrance of roasting turkey and my Mom’s frazzled hair from her early, early morning of wrestling that same turkey into the oven. Many little pieces of Thanksgivings past come to me in little swirls of wispy thought, but the one memory I hold very clearly is “The Writing Of The List.”

Writing these words seems so humdrum compared to the drama and pageantry and immense significance of this event. Perhaps I should write it in all capitals to give it more weight and consequence… "THE WRITING OF THE LIST” … Yes, that feels much more appropriate.

Sometime after the turkey and the pumpkin pie, and the talk, talk, talking, and the carry, carry, carrying of dirtied dishes had stretched out into an eternity, my sisters and I would be allowed to start working on “THE WRITING OF THE LIST”.


My Mother would go and retrieve the important tools of this event; lined paper, freshly sharpened marigold-orange pencils and the thick world of dreams enclosed between the shiny covers of the JC Penney’s and Sears Christmas catalogues.

With a Non-Commissioned Officer in the Air Force for a Dad, and a stay-at-home Mom, we did not have much money growing up. Of course, we didn’t know that because all of the other little kids on base were exactly the same. New clothes were meant to be cherished, new shoes were a big back-to-school event and the one Barbie we each owned was so well taken care of that each high-heeled black shoe was accounted for. I won’t tell you that we had to walk uphill four miles in the snow to school (actually that was my parents story !) but I will tell you that anything brand-spanking new and in the box was an event ! I wonder if maybe that’s why “THE WRITING OF THE LIST” felt so important.

The three of us girls would lie on our stomachs. The shiny box-of-candy catalogue cover seemed to almost glow in the room light and then…. Oh the sweet suspense of opening the first catalog to page one. We looked at each page. The ladies clothes always seemed to be first and stretched on forever. Occasionally one of our fingers would linger on a fuzzy scarf or a sweater. The underwear pages were always a source of much eye rolling. I mean, really, who would ever wear a black bra with lace all over it? The pages with men’s clothes were quickly passed over, but we also paused briefly on the men’s underwear page. I can recall my face growing red and hot and glancing at my sisters to see if they were looking as closely as I was. They were.

And even though I was aware of what was coming all through the pages with clothes and underwear and tools and baby strollers, the first page of the toy section always felt like a surprise. One set of blue eyes and two sets of brown eyes always grew round and reverent at the treasures printed there. And when we were finally, finally at that destination the serious work of “THE WRITING OF THE LIST” could begin.

Every page was studied in an agony of decision until, suddenly, one of us started writing. We were very organized in the “THE WRITING OF THE LIST”. Each coveted item was carefully numbered. Our pencils grew dull with the flurry of wanting and wishing…so much information to include on our measly sheet of paper to ensure Santa would be certain of what we really, really wanted. And the choices seemed endless… this came in green and pink and black... Oh what color would be the best? That seemed wonderful but would it break? Would it be better to write just a few items, or to inundate Santa with so many things that we would for certain get one of them?

Items were crossed off, pages became dog-eared, pencils would be re-sharpened, papers would start looking damp and crumpled and the bickering would start. “I saw that first…. I get to write it on my list.” “Santa won’t bring that for you because you’re stupid.” .... and about then our Mom would give us a time warning and we would quickly, quickly go back through and write stars on what our hearts truly desired, double check a few page numbers (if Santa didn’t know what page it was on we might not get it after all) and try to be certain that we had included all the things we wanted the most in the world.

Solemnly we would give our smoothed out papers to our Mom. She would look each one over and stack them carefully together on top of the catalogs, and the mundane ritual of putting on pajamas and brushing teeth would bring us back to earth and out of the land of dreams.

The pillows of my childhood always smelled of fresh air and scratched my face a little from being dried in the wind or the sun. My sisters even breathing was always the metronome I fell asleep with. On Thanksgiving night I would lay awake feeling a small worry that I might have missed something really, really important during “THE WRITING OF THE LIST”.

In the memory of this story, I am astonished to realize I can’t recall ever actually receiving the items on the list. And if I did, I don’t recall what they were.

It is only now, so many years later that I finally recognize that it was never the “something new in the box” that made “THE WRITING OF THE LIST” so magical. It was the possibility of the list. I never truly understood things were never about the toys. It was always about the wishing and dreaming and the breathless ‘oh-what-if’s’ that made those vividly remembered moments so important.

Life has a way of making us feel there is no use in wishing sometimes. The weight of being an adult and every day worries can make us forget that every day is a catalogue of limitless possibilities. No matter how much sadness or sorrow or grief or pain we are going through, the only person that stops us from “THE WRITING OF THE LIST” is ourselves.

Really.

It isn’t the circumstances, or the people, or harsh words and criticisms, or chronic illness and sadness, or money worries that stop us from “THE WRITING OF THE LIST”. We stop ourselves.

No matter what is going on around us, it is still, and will always be, our choice if we want to write the list or not.


I hope you’ll excuse me now. Even though Thanksgiving was a few days ago, I need to find a marigold-orange pencil and some lined paper. Regardless of the fact that my eyes are older and sadder now, I plan to open them wide in surprise at the catalogue of possibilities that life offers me. I will write until my pencil is dull, and then I will sharpen it again and again until my list is so long I cannot possibly ignore the potential of hope and the dream of believing.