12/3/21 - Friday Forget-Me-Nots by Jim Silcott

Photo Caption: Our own Father Dooley making pizzas at our annual sale day!

Dear Our Lady of Peace Family:

Let’s not think about school shootings or COVID or politics for a moment. In our church and hopefully in our souls and prayer life we are in the season of Advent, preparing for the coming of the Christ Child. But when you look at people’s houses and watch television and play the car radio (people still do play the car radio, don’t they?) we are in the Christmas season.

We can say, rightfully so, that Christmas has become too commercialized and the the true meaning of Christmas has been lost. As a Knight of Columbus we proclaim that we need to “Keep Christ in Christmas.” You get no disagreement from me on that. However, I think there is a place for the secular side of Christmas that fits into the preparation of our Savior. For me it is the expression of love we have for family and friends in selecting Christmas presents for them to open on that special day. And, before you go out and max out your credit cards, do remember that it is the thought rather than the price tag that matters!

As a middle school student long ago I would ride the COTA bus downtown by myself on a Saturday to do my shopping for my four sisters, my brother, my parents and grandparents at, what for me, was the only true place to buy Christmas presents: the downtown Lazarus on High Street. If you are old enough you might remember the elaborate Christmas display in the front and side windows of the grand old store. There was no front doors at the entrance back then. Energy was cheap. There was a blower system that kept the cold air out and the warm air in. Six banks of elevators took you up and down into the basement and up the six floors.

I don’t recall exactly what was on each floor back then. I was a kid. I didn’t ever eat in the Chintz room. The basement held the bargains, piles of clothes on display tables. I remember the first floor was jewelry and perfumes and beauty supplies. The second floor was where the record album department was housed. The floor between there and floor six were filled with clothes and furniture that didn’t much interest me. But the sixth floor was the toy department, all decked out for Christmas. Santa held court on the sixth floor and the talking tree from Lucy’s Toy Shop a popular morning local television show.

The Lazarus Annex was on the south west corner of Front and Town Street catacorner from the main store. Originally it had been a small arena where professional wrestling bouts took place. I remember that in the basement of the annex there was packaged food gift boxes for sale and kitchen appliances.

I never made a list on my Christmas shopping journey. I knew that everything I needed was in this department store, and walking the marble floor aisles I knew that I would find just the right gift for Mom and Dad and the family. I was lucky in that I worked for my Dad at Deibels at the rate of one buck an hour. I also had an afternoon paper route with the Columbus Dispatch. It seemed that I always had enough money to buy just the right present for each of my loved ones. I would wonder from floor to floor and always counted on divine inspiration to lead me to my gift selections. If I was stuck on a present for this person or that, I headed over to the annex to see what they had to offer.

When I was done, my hands full of bags of presents like a junior beardless Santa I popped into the Woolworth next store and got a hamburger and a coke at the counter there. I then crossed the street and stood in front of the Old Union Department Store, which I never entered because it seemed to me that all it had were big people’s clothes, and waited patiently for my N. High Street bus, with a transfer to the Fifth Ave. line.

To me, the giving of presents was always more fun than the getting. That moment of anticipation when your sister or your Mom held that badly wrapped present in their hands. Will they like it? The quick rip of the paper, the smile on their faces, the obligatory but sincere hug of thanks. This was was the commercial side of Christmas was and is to me.

Lazarus is long gone and my department store nowadays is Amazon I am sorry to say, but finding the right present is still important to me. Although my grandchildren have their stash from Santa I still can’t wait until they open my gift to them. I don’t take pictures of the moment with my camera. I take it all into the memory box in my head for future recollection.

God sent His only Son to become Man on that first Christmas to show us the way to salvation. I believe that the path forward goes through family, and if the exchanging of presents and the baking of toll house cookies and the decoration of a tree and the annual reading of “The Night Before Christmas” helps to bond us to our family then our path is more sure and steady. I think it is possible to enjoy both the Christmas season and all its trappings and with the spiritual preparadness of the Advent Season. Both are about love.

Jim Silcott