Smelling Christmas

More than a dozen Christmas carolers were gathered in the lobby of the Cumberland County Jail as I was leaving last week after conducting a Bible study. No one may go beyond the lobby without first passing through a metal detector and the Reverend Jeff McIlwain, the jail’s chaplain, was shepherding them through. All appeared to be about my age and were emptying their pockets of keys, coins, cell phones, and taking off belts with metal buckles. All were in good spirits.

Christmas carolers used to be a common this time of year and I have fond memories of joining with them and singing around my neighborhood every year. I don’t remember who organized it but we had little booklets with lyrics and notes for all the traditional, faith-based carols like “The First Noel”; “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” and many others. We’d stand in the snow outside each house and sing two or three before moving on to the next house where owners would appear in the window, smiling. We did the same thing in Lovell when the local UCC Church organized it. Houses are much scattered in Lovell and we were carted around on a hay-filled trailer pulled along slowly by a pickup truck.

I would be a good singer if it weren’t for my voice, and I mercifully allowed others to drown me out as we trekked around the neighborhood. It put me in the Christmas spirit and I was reminded at the jail how much I missed it. These days, however, it's mostly smells that bring Christmas memories back to me and balsam is one of them. My wife has been snipping branches from fir trees near our home, after which our grandchildren have been cutting the needles off with scissors and sewing them into little pillows. 

The smell of oil-based paint also reminds me of Christmas. That is probably unique to me but possibly shared by my surviving siblings because one year my mother and father decided to put the Christmas tree in our basement. Their idea was to watch us come down the stairs and look at our faces when we first saw our presents under the tree. That way they wouldn’t have to get up before dawn the way we kids always did. They put the basement off limits to all eight of us on Christmas morning until we had gone to Christmas mass and eaten breakfast. For weeks before the big day, my father spruced it up down there by painting the concrete walls and floor. The smell of oil-based paint is getting about as scarce as Christmas caroling these days, but when I occasionally get a whiff of it that Christmas memory still comes flooding back.

The smell of melting plastic does the same thing and here’s why: My mother disappointed us all one year when she brought home a box containing a reusable Christmas tree. It wasn’t even green; it was silvery. It had a central pole into which holes had been drilled and it was propped up on a stand. Into the holes, we inserted “branches” of graduated lengths — long ones around the bottom and progressively shorter ones going around up to the top. Branches were painted silver and adorned with tinsel. Beneath the tree and shining upward was an electric light focused through a rotating, four-colored wheel so the tree would change from red to green to blue to I-forget-what-color. After someone inserted a bulb with a higher wattage, the rotating plastic lenses slowly melted, hence the smell.

I never thought it would happen but I gradually came to like that tree. I even preferred it to the real, balsam-fir trees most people had. On my paper route, I’d see traditional Christmas trees in every picture window of every house on Boisvert and Euclid Roads in our town of Tewksbury, Massachusetts. Returning home in the dark of late afternoon in time for supper, I admired the changing colors on the silver-tinseled branches of that fake tree in our picture window. And, it was easier to take down after New Year’s Day when everyone in the neighborhood took down their trees.

Many dragged their old trees down to the sand pit at the end of Euclid Road where we kids often played. During winters when there wasn’t enough snow on the nearby sledding hill we sometimes played hide-and-seek down there. My favorite hiding place was under a pile of those dried-up and discarded Christmas trees. No one could ever find me as I lay there enjoying the sweet fragrance of dried balsam. The needles smell different when they’re dry and that distinct smell — still pleasant — continues to remind me of good times playing with friends in that old sand pit.

Paperboy

Maybe there’s no such thing as a paperboy anymore. I haven’t seen one in decades, have you? I gave up my paper route fifty years ago after delivering the Lowell Sun every single day for five years. It was my older brother’s before it was mine and my little brother took over from me. We kept it in the family because it was a coveted thing. I averaged 40-50 customers and it took about an hour if I hurried. Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays took longer because the papers were thicker and I couldn’t fit them all in my canvas bag with its wide, over-the-shoulder strap. I had to go back two, or sometimes three times to reload. Saturdays were easiest because the paper was always thin.

My bag said "THE SUN" on it

To learn the route I walked around with my brother shortly before he gave it up, then took it on myself when I was ten. The bag was heavy and my shoulder ached until I got stronger. Eventually I could ride a bike with it and things went quicker. I learned to deal with dogs and with people. Most were nice but some were a pain, sometimes literally in the case of a dog here and there. I’d try to make friends, but with some dogs it was impossible. If I turned my back on them they’d nip at my legs until I learned to turn around quickly and administer a swift kick. That usually took care of it, but sometimes it made things worse. Seldom did the owners come out and discipline those dogs, which is probably why they behaved that way.

Friday was collection day and I’d knock on every door. I’d hear “Who is it?” from inside. “Paperboy!” I’d yell back, “Collecting!” It was 42¢ for six days and 62¢ if they got the Sunday paper, which most did. Some thought they were good tippers if they gave me 65¢, but 75¢ was decent. Very rarely did anyone give me a dollar. Saturday mornings I’d meet the Lowell Sun’s district manager on the corner and pay him for the papers. 

The Lowell Sun building

Each week, I netted about five dollars, tips included. My father made me put three in the bank and let me keep two which I spent on comic books, chocolate bars, bicycle repairs, and an occasional movie. For those, I had to take a bus to Lowell and the bus stop was a mile away. He let me take money out for a new bike once in a while because it was a capital investment, but that’s all. The Friday collection just before Christmas was the biggest payday and some years I’d clear $100.

It was something I had to do every day and was most difficult when I had to leave an afternoon sandlot baseball or football game to deliver papers. Other players would beg me to stay longer — not because I was so good, but because the sides would be uneven when I left. Sometimes it rained, snowed, and there was heat and humidity. Sun truck drivers turned over often and sometimes threw my bundle in a puddle if I wasn’t right there to take it from them. Then I’d have to decide who to deliver the wet papers to. Sometimes they’d drop off the wrong bundle and I’d either be short or have too many.

My favorite time to deliver them was exactly this time of year. Not so much because of the big Friday collection day, but because it was cold and dark and I had the street to myself. I could see people inside their houses but they couldn’t see me outside walking along. I could see their Christmas trees lit up and all the other decorations. I could smell their balsam wreaths when I opened the storm door to put the paper inside. I liked to watch snow fall through the illuminated cone under a street light.

The obnoxious dogs were usually inside in winter but some of the good ones would be out making their rounds, going about their business as I was going about mine. They’d lift a leg here and there to mark their territory. They knew me and I knew them and sometimes we’d greet each other in passing.

When I finished, it was suppertime and the other nine people in my own family would be around the dinner table. My mother would open the door a crack and say, “Take off your boots on the porch!” I would, then walk past them all to hang my coat, my hat, and my empty canvas bag on a hook in the cellar hallway. Then my sister would slide over on the black-painted, pine bench my grandfather made to make room for me in my usual spot on the end.