Finding a dad’s quiet presence in the sensory landscape of Christmas.

 

I was backing out of my parent’s driveway. It was 19 years ago, but the memory is so vivid I could convince myself that only a few years had passed. Dad was in the mid-stages of Alzheimer’s. He waved as he sent me on my way. He had been in the garage downsizing his and my mom’s life into boxes for the family. The box he had been working on for me was full of old Christmas ornaments. Not antiques, but the ones I made in first grade, with green and red string, slathered in glue, and glitter still intact.

Of course, close to two decades ago, my first thought was “I’ll find a place for it… someplace” when I knew full well that I’d never be putting those silly decorations on my tree again. What stays with me isn’t the ornaments themselves, but the rough, old hands that carefully packed that box of childhood crafts. The loving hands that waved goodbye.

The box is still with me. Same box, just as he packed it. I see his handwriting on the aged and yellowed packing tape. As I gently unwrap each piece of crumpled newspaper, I take comfort in knowing he was the last person whose hands carefully handled each peculiar bauble. A precious creation? Maybe to him, it was.

 

He might not have been thinking about the tragedy of his diagnosis; he was likely operating on pure, ingrained parental instinct. To him, packing that box was an important job that needed doing. In his mind, it didn’t matter that they were old macaroni trees or faded and slightly torn construction paper. His thought process was grounded in a timeless truth: a parent keeps their child's things safe.

 

Years have passed since that afternoon, and he is gone now. Yet, every December, the holidays return with their familiar, sensory demands. The world outside spins into a frenzy of bright lights, commercial cheer, and predictable playlists. But inside my own home, the arrival of Christmas has become a quieter, more observant ritual. It begins not with the grand gestures of the season, but with the small, domestic triggers that bridge the gap between the past and the present.

 

It usually starts with the music. The low, melancholic swell of "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" or the yearning promise of "I'll Be Home for Christmas" will drift through the room. These songs don't evoke a sharp, piercing grief anymore. Instead, they create a low-key, ambient space where his memory can comfortably sit.

 

Then comes the annual viewing of A Christmas Story. Every time the movie plays and Ralphie finally decodes the Little Orphan Annie secret message, only to realize it's a mundane commercial for Ovaltine, I can almost hear my dad laughing. He absolutely loved that scene. It was a sensory trigger for him, too, unlocking a flood of his own boyhood memories from a time when the world was entirely different. Watching him watch that movie was like watching a man briefly step back into his own youth, long before his mind became crowded and hazy.

 

I pull the old box from the closet, setting it beside my current decorations. My main tree is decorated with coordinated glass spheres, symmetrical lights, and elegant ribbons—the kind of aesthetic choices an adult makes to feel organized and mature. For a long time, I thought those lumpy childhood creations had no place among them. I used to think I would never use them.

 

But adulthood has a way of shifting your perspective on what is truly valuable.

 

As I sit on the floor and smooth out the stiff, decades-old newspaper he wrapped around a crooked felt star, the contrast becomes clear. The expensive glass ornaments are beautiful, but they are hollow. They are just things bought from a store shelf. This box, however, holds the physical evidence of a time when my world was small and his mind was perfectly clear. Under my thumb, the rough texture of dried glue and loose glitter feels like a hug across time.

 

I realize now that by packing this box, he left me a vocabulary for December. He was passing down the cycle of remembering. Just as Ovaltine and old movies brought him back to his boyhood, this box brings me back to him. When the music plays, when the television hums in the background, and when I look at his handwriting on that faded tape, I am not looking at a tragedy; I’m welcoming home a man I’ve dearly missed.

 

I take the curious little macaroni tree, find a small, hidden branch near the back, but where I’m sure to see it, and hang it up. It doesn't match, and that is exactly why it belongs. He kept these things safe for me, so that now, I can keep his memory safe for him.
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Kristine K Bienema