A Walker in the Suburbs

The Christmas music season is drawing to a close. My favorite classical station stopped the carols cold-turkey on December 26, though we’ll be singing holiday hymns at church for another couple of weeks. Time to give a nod to a song I’ve heard often this season, a relatively new entry to the Christmas canon, “I Wonder as I Wander.”

It’s a haunting melody in a minor key, more “We Three Kings” than “Joy to the World.” But it is lovely and soft, a light snowfall on a still night. And … it was written by a Kentuckian, John Jacob Niles, a noted balladeer who collected Appalachian tunes later popularized by folk singers in the 1950s and ’60s.

I met John Jacob Niles several times at a Christmas Eve gathering hosted annually by my kindergarten teacher, Grace Cramer Webber, who became a friend of my mother’s. Like Niles, Webber was both behind and ahead of her time.

It isn’t easy to have your carol enter the Christmas canon — but Niles’ song has done just that.  As I listen I wonder, too. Not just about the birth of the baby Jesus, but about the power of music to take us places we otherwise couldn’t go.

Let empty boxes collect at curbsides, let the men in brown dash from truck to stoop. But last-minute shoppers unwilling to pay for overnight shipping (or maybe just people like me, who enjoy a bit of the hustle bustle) were out full force yesterday at the mall.

It felt good to be jostling with other shoppers, to be part of the public square. I’ve been worrying about the public square lately, wondering if its day has passed. Many of the young folks I know shop solely online, and recent forays to the mall have only confirmed the threatened condition of old-time getting and spending.

But yesterday drew out the folks who only shop this time of year: dazed men wandering with shopping bags; the very young and the very old; working folk who seem more at home behind a desk than checking out spatulas in Williams and Sonoma; parents jostling toddlers in the line to see Santa.

All of this in a glorious cacophony of squeaking toys, shouting kids and the nth rendition of “I Saw Mama Kissing Santa Claus.”

I didn’t have to go to the mall yesterday; I was buying a few extra gifts that everyone could live without. But I’m glad I came.

Recent rushed mornings have meant no chance to do what I’m doing now — to sit in front of the Christmas tree, typing on this machine and taking in this colorful scene.

This year, a bonus: I’ve wrapped enough presents ahead of time to put them under the tree — rather than transporting them directly from the wrapping station to the car, on their way to Ellen’s house, where we’ve spent Christmas these last few years.

The goal now is to savor, not to rush or worry or strive for that one last gift. Gone are the days when someone begged for a retired beanie baby available only from eBay auction or a Playmobil dollhouse requiring hours of assembly.  People will be happy with what they receive.

I plan to do a lot more savoring in the next few days.

There will be this one, the last of November, and then three December ones. A countdown. Already I can see them fly, their days a blur of meetings and deadlines, of the buying and wrapping of gifts, the making and sending of cards. Envelopes, stamps, messages. Here we are at the beginning of it all and I can already see the end.

Back then the weeks were years, and to traverse them was pure joy. Santa came on TV at the end of the day, around the time mothers were cooking dinner. I found the container of nonpareils, the ones we sprinkled on sugar cookies, and poured them on a saucer, carefully, because they bounced. Round-and-round beads, I called them, and I lapped them up as I watched the show.

What would I ask for that year? A doll, a bicycle, an archaeology kit (which was an actual toy; I got one!). The gifts blur together. But not that saucer of round-and-round beads. It remains, along with all the giddy anticipation of the season, which I remember still and sometimes even feel.