Christmas ushers in a new chapter – hey ‘Papa’

I am grateful. I have a lot to draw on trying to navigate my future as, “Papa.” My Italian and Irish grandparents were close at hand – I could ride my bike to both homes while I was a young whippersnapper – and did so often. I could even get to my grandfather Derry’s business, just to say hello or, as I got older, lend a hand around Derry’s Feed and Fuel, which smelled like a mixture of alfalfa, hay and rabbit pellets. More importantly, in the geography of the heart, my grandparents drew the map.
At Christmastime, it’s an easy connection. The wide-eyed childhood memories are vivid and alive. Lots of family and friends at the Derrys, people coming and going all the time, in for a toast and good cheer. Even during dinner they would come, and though Nana might scowl a bit when getting everyone to sit and eat became a skirmish, Christmas cheer ruled her outlook.
As a child growing up, I’d head to the Italian grandparents for “brunch” which always included my absolute favorite, raviolis with Bolognese sauce … hours-in-the-making, homemade and so delicious. After a few hours of family-only celebration there, we’d head over to the Irish side where the “come all ye faithful” shindig would be in full swing.
Camelot indeed, held together by two sets of American grandparents who were different in many ways, but the same in the ways that really counted.
Grandson Jackson is 2 years old now which is a lot different than 1 and will be a lot different than 3. Tyler Grace is but a couple of months old.
So far, our interaction is running around the back yard, kicking balls, learning how to handle and behave around Roxy, the gentle Golden Retriever and Rocco, the feisty Old Time Farm Shepherd, throwing the balls we just kicked and some twisty-turny goof-around wrastling. With Tyler, it’s hugs, smiles and cooing.
We’ll have 20 or so at the table for Christmas, mostly family and a few good friends. Jackson will be more aware of what’s going on and how special the day is. He’ll start to get a sense of some family traditions, and undoubtedly will enjoy “Cayla” bread that is made by mother-in-law Pat and named after the daughter with the uncanny ability to devour nearly a whole loaf in a morning.
We have sparkly “crackers” on the table and pop them open to get the silly hats for our heads and rattle off aloud the corny riddles found inside. Everyone can shout out a guess and laughter wrapped in the Christmas spirit flows from the busy table.
We’ll thank the Good Lord for all our blessings and, in a relatively new tradition, do this by reading aloud one or two selected short, hopefully poignant poems. We know we’re blessed, despite the trials and tribulations, the ups and the downs that are a part of life in every family. Christmas is a good time to bring those blessings to the top of mind and heart.
And now there are grandchildren in the story.
It’s a new chapter, and we’ll be writing it as we go. The goal is to fill it with happy memories, plenty of love, fun, humor, a good dose of goofing around and some useful Christmas lessons. One lesson that puts a smile on my grandfatherly face is Daughter Shannon’s gentle insistence that Jackson learn to say please and thank you at the appropriate times. Sometimes he inserts a please for a thank you, and it comes out adorably amusing.
Putting away the toys and saying please and thank you will, as all things do, evolve. Hopefully, besides soccer and basketball, I can teach Jackson something about trimming the rose bushes, grilling up the Christmas lamb chops or getting the Christmas tree to stand upright. I’m still working on that one, but I have a few years to get it down.
He and Tyler should learn, too, how to whip up Nana’s famous clam dip and work through all the chopping steps and simmering time it takes to make Ang and Garm’s Bolognese pasta sauce. I even have a stirring oar, now, purchased a few weeks back at a huge restaurant supply store in San Jose called Dong Vinh’s. Maybe Jackson and Tyler can take a road trip with Jenny and me to that strange and wonderful warehouse world, just for kicks and just before we make a huge pot of sauce that we have to stir all afternoon.
It’s not likely Jackson or Tyler will be riding their bikes over, though the distance isn’t that far. It’s just a different time. That’s too bad in a way. As a kid, the freedom to bike over and see your grandparents ranks high up there on the “cool to do” list, even if you didn’t fully appreciate it at the time. It didn’t dawn on me until later that having grandparents close and accessible wasn’t reality for many kids. After Dad left the U.S. Army when I was about 2 years old we came back to California post Texas and Virginia stints and the grandparents were a part of my life in all ways until they passed on. Garm lived a smidgen shy of 97 years, and taught me lessons – and surprised me – as long as she lived.
When she was, oh, about 93 one year after Christmas dinner, Uncle Keith and I went outside to have a cigar. She asked where we had gone and the family said, “out to have a cigar.” “Tell them to come in,” she said. “I’d like to have one.” When beckoned, I thought they were joking. Now I have this great photo of myself and my 93-year-old grandmother – the petite and pretty former San Francisco Columbus Day Queen who rode in the North Beach parade – enjoying a holiday cigar at her dinner table.
It’s a wonderful memory because it always reminds me of what a blessing it was to have her in my life for so long. And it reminds me of her spunk, and how you just never knew when she would “kick up her heels a little bit.”
Of course we never know what’s around the corner. That’s why it’s so important to savor the moments now. In the sports cliché vernacular (rent the baseball movie Bull Durham if you want to go over them all), we’ll just take it one Christmas at a time.
Christmas, time to focus on finding and spreading the joy. May you and yours have a merry one.
Reach Editor Mark Derry at

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