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I had difficulty sleeping last night. Christmas is coming and it’s unlikely that we will have any happy memories from this crazy corona year. While I was lying quietly in the darkness, suddenly the air turned cold and I heard eerie sounds. Was I being visited by an unearthly spirit? Could this be the ghost of Jacob Marley, who wore the chains he forged in life?

With my heart racing, I peeked out from under the blankets and, gasping, I saw a ghost! After my initial shock, I realized that it was Casper the Friendly Ghost! What a relief! He is, after all, the friendliest ghost you know. But, what the dickens was he doing here?

Casper circled my bed three times. Then he stopped in front of me and spoke.

“You are right. The year 2020 has been like a bad drought and it will be difficult to harvest fond memories. But, you are a very lucky man. Many people in this world have not been so lucky. There are happy memories in the past, not any past, but your past. I have come to remind you of some of them. Watch and listen now as I show you and tell you about some of your truly Merry Christmases.”

Then he touched my shoulder and, as visions of acrophobia danced in my head, we magically soared away through time and space.

“You are so very lucky to have met and married Kathy Leuker. Your first Christmas together was special. To decorate your tree you got several old boxes of ornaments from your father. Then you cut out a cardboard star, covered it with aluminum foil, and put it on top of the tree. I know you remember, because after all these years you still use that star.”

“You didn’t have a Christmas tree the year that you lived in a tent and traveled around the West. You were camped in Joshua Tree National Monument at Christmas time. On a very windy night you had to abandon your tent, cover it with rocks to keep it from blowing away, and sleep in your car. The next morning, a couple in a trailer in another campsite saw your plight and invited you in for breakfast. That was a wonderful gift.”

“Then you were blessed with children. Anyone can celebrate Christmas, but children make this holiday a magical time. First Eric and then Matthew joined your lives and your celebrations. Through them you found yourself reliving your own childhood and feeling a soaring sense of happiness. You also remembered that it’s fun to chew on toys before you play with them.”

(Mouse over photo to see year taken. Click on photo to enlarge, then use arrows to scroll through the images.)

Casper then reminded me that Christmas memories encompass more than my own family of four.

“Your father would invite family and neighbors to celebrate Christmas with him. The tree was in the basement, where the grandchildren’s heights would be marked on the wall every year. He never bought presents, but no one was upset because he gave out money! You remembered hearing him play a harmonica when you were very young. One Christmas you gave him one; he immediately started to play ‘Red River Valley.'”

Casper also told me to think about the good times with the Leuker family.

“They had a special Lord’s Supper on Christmas Eve and later Santa would knock on the door and leave presents on the porch. Grandma Duratny and others would join in as presents were eagerly unwrapped. And, even if it was cold outside, your father-in-law, Al Leuker, could be convinced to fire up the grill and cook hot dogs and burgers for lunch.”

I told Casper that it was difficult moving to Portland, Oregon, when I went back to grad school. It was hard to be 2000 miles away from family and friends.

“Yes, but you found new ways to celebrate Christmas. You started to cut down your own Christmas tree. You drove up to Mt. Hood to play in the snow and go tubing. One year you drove out to the Columbia River Gorge to see frozen waterfalls. After a freezing rain hit the city, you took the boys out to ice skate on the sidewalk. And don’t forget, singing Christmas carols and watching the lighting of the tree in Pioneer Courthouse Square was always a special holiday treat.”

“After grad school, a job kept you in Portland. Family and friends would come to visit. They usually came in the summer but there were a couple Christmas visits. Remember when Kathy’s sister Jan wanted to pay her a surprise visit? When you secretly picked Jan up at the airport, she asked you to stop somewhere so she could buy some sparkling wine. You stopped at Safeway, a few blocks from home, and when you and Jan went in, you ran into Kathy in the store! So, it ended up being a surprise for everybody! One year Kathy’s parents came to visit and it was a white Christmas in Portland. Eric got out the sled and your mother-in-law, Elsie, always ready for fun, went for a ride.”

I mentioned to Casper that I don’t know what life is like for a ghost, but humans get older and everything continues to change.

“Yes, your life continued to change. Soon your sons went off to college and started their own adult lives. Some Christmases were rather quiet. But the boys came to visit occasionally to help cut down a tree and play on the piano. You must remember those huge boxes of gifts that your friends in Germany would send every year. And, you were able to make a trip back to Wisconsin as well, so Christmas was still a special time of the year.

“When you retired, you packed up and moved back to Wisconsin. It was an easy decision to make. Your memories of these more recent years are probably pretty clear, so I will only show you a few. After all, this year will be the seventy-third Christmas since your birth and the fiftieth Christmas since your marriage. Even ghosts only have so much time. Then I must be on my way.”

Suddenly I realized that I was back in my bed. I wondered if I would also be visited by the Ghost of Christmas Present and the Ghost of Christmas Yet-to-Come. Casper then said:

“In times like these you should always remember the words of that great British philosopher. ‘You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need.'”

He then circled my bed three times and, before I could thank him, he flew out the bedroom window. As he disappeared into the night, I thought that I could hear some beautiful holiday music.

Then I remembered some words from a story I heard long ago:

“God bless us, every one!”