Pondering the wonder of Christmas Eve past and present

BRADENTON – Maybe it was the wrong time of day, but it was hard to find any shopping madness as I walked around on Thursday.

At Dick's Sporting Goods on 14th Street West, a manager who said he couldn't give his name told me that the season had been pretty good, though sales of golf equipment were down.

As at virtually all retailers nowadays, talking to someone on the record involves long-distance phone calls to centralized call centers and, maybe a callback from a public relations specialist to repeat that hackneyed phrase: ”No comment.“

Walking from Dick's I espied a woman with bags from Best Buy, and I asked if I could talk to her, and she said ”no“ and kept walking.

Best Buy, next to Dick's Sporting Goods, wasn't all that busy, with lots of TVs in boxes on the shelves and DVDs in the racks. At hhgregg, store employees seemed to outnumber customers. Again, lots of nice TVs and appliances, and just a few customers being helped.

Perhaps 9:45 a.m. on Christmas Eve is the wrong time to look for a story about the last shopping day before Christmas.

So at around 2 p.m. I was in the Wal-Mart in Ellenton, and I saw a couple of rare things.

First, parking was a major challenge. You’ve seen those outlying parking spaces that never get taken because they’re nearly in a different time zone from the store. Well, at Christmas, things are different. The other rarity was that every checkout lane was staffed, and the lines were actually no more than two or three customers deep. Some of those checkout lanes are used about as rarely as the distant parking spaces.

The store was full of people, and some lanes were impassible. Maybe the cynical would say it's consumerism run amok, but I say let's let people enjoy the season and the shopping.

The time of anticipation

For me, Christmas Eve was always a special time of hope and waiting. One year, I must have been 12 or so, we rode into Manhattan to see the lights and the tree in Rockefeller Center and my favorite sight was that of the well-lighted Twin Towers looming over Manhattan. It was always a joy to count down the days until the winter break began from school, and to see the final buildup to Christmas Day.

Maybe that was part of the problem, because by around 1 p.m. on Christmas Day the sense of anticipation was gone. Everything that you were going to get had been opened, and there were no more surprises. Living in New York City, it got dark early and there was a ”late-day“ look around the house by 6 p.m., when it seemed like all the fun had gone out of the holiday.

I would awaken on Dec. 26 and come downstairs to a darkened tree and opened gifts and try to reignite the magic, but it never worked. The buildup to New Year's offered some consolation, though, but while New Year's Eve was magical and fun, New Year's Day was another letdown.

My parents would take advantage of the day off – and the presence of me and my two brothers -- to start taking down the tree, unwinding the lights and packing away the ornaments. Soon, all was back in the boxes, and the tree and its accouterments would be stored in the space under the stairs until early December of the following year.

Then we'd attack the outside light display, carefully disconnecting the lights from the railings, folding them up and storing them in their boxes for placement in the crawl space next to the tree.

Soon, we'd be back in school, my father would be back at work, and life would return to normal until the following late November, when the fun and anticipation would start again.

A very, very special Christmas Eve

Before I landed this position with The Bradenton Times, I was out of work and spent a lot of time at libraries when I wasn't job hunting. One day, I attended a presentation by National Public Radio's NASA correspondent, Pat Duggins, at the main library in Sarasota.

In addition to sharing stories about covering the Challenger accident and the Columbia tragedy (which I worked as a copy editor at the Vero Beach Press-Journal), Duggins posed a question: What was the first manned NASA mission you remember?

I raised my hand, and answered, ”Apollo 8.“

Duggins said that he had an interesting story about Apollo 8. He had asked NASA retirees and others old enough to remember the Apollo moon program what was the most exciting mission they'd worked on or remembered, and most said Apollo 8.

That was a surprise, because most people would say the Apollo 11 landing – the first humans to ever land on and walk on the moon – and the later Apollo missions were even more spectacular.

With Apollo 8, humans were literally stepping into the unknown, breaking free of the grasp of Earth. At around 4:30 a.m. or so on the morning of Christmas Eve, the three astronauts aboard Apollo 8 – Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders – fired the Service Module engine behind the moon, out of contact with Earth, and went into orbit around the moon.

I dimly remember that night, Christmas Eve, watching on the TV in the living room of the house the live pictures of the cratered, ancient, lifeless but also amazing moon, wondering what my wonderful parents had bought me for Christmas but even more amazed that from 240,000 miles away, we were getting pictures of a body I'd only glimpsed through a telescope before.

The three astronauts read from the book of Genesis, and even if I know it's just a story, the combination of those views of the moon and those words still puts a lump in my throat and goosebumps.

On Christmas Day, the astronauts fired the Service Module engine again and headed home while my brothers and I opened our presents, thanked our parents and awaited the arrival of relatives for dinner.

A few days later, the astronauts landed safely and were back with their families.

Apollo 8 ignited my interest in space, astronomy and lunar exploration, an interest that has stayed with me as the years have progressed. In a way, what I like about the season is that anticipation, even if I don't have a Christmas tree and lights and excited children. It's just nice to see others feeling that anticipation.

To me, that's what Christmas is: anticipation.

Today, I'm up in Spring Hill with my brother, his wife and one of his daughters. I hope that you all are having a wonderful holiday wherever you are, and that the glow of Christmas lasts long after New Year's Day in 2010.