Anticipating Christmas

On my cell phone’s small screen, I watched as my grandsons danced around my daughter’s family room in their Halloween costumes. The three-year-old was a black furry cat and five-year-old DJ grasped an ominous sickle while he mimicked his favorite character from the Disney movie Moana. Barely a week later when we Facetimed again, the boys were jazzed up about all things Christmas: making cookies, decorating the tree, and yes, crafting their Christmas wish list. 

When my five siblings and I were kids, sometime around Halloween, our mail carrier would drop the Sears Holiday Wish Book through the mail slot of our front door. For my family of eight, there was a collective gasp and a rush to nab the thick catalogue for the first look. 

Back in the old days, Sears sold everything to everyone: toys, clothes, shoes, housewares, tools, and appliances. 

Besides operating retail stores where it influenced fashion, Sears offered innovative concepts like catalogue phone ordering, parcel pickup/returns, and layaways–novel concepts for that era. As part of the burgeoning middle class, families like mine flocked to Sears as an alternative to our local ‘Mom ‘n Pop’ stores. The desire to be ‘in vogue’ and hold onto newly acquired middle class status was at the heart of Sears popularity in the 60s and 70s.

The appearance of Sears’ Holiday Wish Book signaled the start of the holiday season, and it meant it was time to dream, to hope, and to desire something new and special. And while we may have glanced through the JC Penney’s mailer, the Sears catalogue played the major role in the formulation of my family’s Christmas lists.

Figuring out what to put on our holiday wish list was a process. First there was the ‘overwhelm.’ Once we recovered from awe and wonder over the Wish Book’s extensive offerings, we dogeared pages, and then we got serious about writing out our final lists. My mother had a hard fast rule: the Sears Wish Book could not leave her desk in the kitchen. So, when my we took turns with ‘the book,’ we slid onto the stool at Mom’s desk armed with loose leaf paper and a pencil. 

That’s when the next set of challenges commenced.

Mom’s desk was the family control center, and it held one of our household’s two rotary dial telephones. The block-length curly cord constantly became entangled with everyone and everything in proximity to mom’s desk. So, completing the list became the ultimate exercise in focus. 

As the rotary phone jangled and our siblings ran in and out of the kitchen hollering for something, we struggled to fill loose leaf sheets with item descriptions, product codes, and catalogue page numbers. In the margins, five-point stars and appeals of “PLEASE! PLEASE!” indicated how badly we thought we needed an item.  

If you weren’t the first user of the Wish Book, the sections on toys or clothes would undoubtedly be decorated with suspicious smudges. The stains signaled which sibling had perused ‘the book’ last. Dark brown, the shade of chocolate pudding, meant one of my two brothers had been flipping the pages while consuming Mom’s signature afterschool snack. A strawberry, sticky residue signaled that my younger sister had consumed a lollipop or Jolly Rancher while jotting down her wishes. 

Regardless of who perused the book last and left their calling card, the result was the same. My mother was left with a monumental task. First, she scrutinized our imagined desires and weighed those against a very tight household budget. Secondly, in between caring for my younger siblings and her roles of washer woman, car pooler, and short-order cook, she navigated the eternally busy Sears order call-in lines. Back then company websites and online ordering options did not exist. 

Undoubtedly, when it was my mother’s turn to place the budget-buster catalogue orders, she discovered our longed-for items were out of stock, on back order, or discontinued. No wonder the cocktail hour began at five o’clock and included a dry vermouth Manhattan for Mom and a Scotch on the rocks for my dad.

Nowadays, there is no Sears Wish Book to peruse or busy order line to navigate in placing phone orders. Instead, shoppers flock to malls, big name box stores like Target or Costco, or order everything online with the brush of just a few keystrokes. I know my mother would have loved that convenience as much as I do.

At the top of my wish list this year are books–I can’t wait to read Barbara Streisand’s new memoir. And my favorite place to shop is bookshop.org an online site that benefits local independent bookstores instead of profits lining the already deep pockets of you-know-who: A…n. 

Well, however and wherever you conduct your gift shopping, I wish you peace and joy. My wish for you is that your heart is full of hope, and that the new year blesses you with all wishes fulfilled.

Follow Me Here

Julie’s new book, Belonging Matters: Conversations on Adoption, Family & Kinship released on November 1, 2023 and is available for purchase in all formats wherever books are sold.

On December 18, Julie will do a Q&A/Author Talk about Twice a Daughter with the Hiraeth Hope & Healing Book Club.

On January 9, Julie will speak to The Respect for Life Group at St. Mary Star of the Sea on Longboat Key in Sarasota.

On February 16, find Julie at J. McLaughlin’s on Longboat Key. She will be signing her books and donating proceeds from the “Sip n Shop” event to benefit the Longboat Key Library. 

This week Julie will discuss her adoption story with Jason Caywood on the Stories of Adoption podcast. 

To listen to other podcasts where Julie shares about her books, adoption story, and perspectives on all things related to identity and belonging, go to the media tab on her website.

Don’t miss a blog post!

Receive my blog posts directly to your inbox. 

Available on Amazon!