Christmas of 1959 in Butte, Montana, did not hold much hope of being merry. My father had been out of work in a copper mining strike since August and the thirty dollars in picket money he got each week wasn't even covering the cost of food. When Christmas arrived with the strike holding strong, it was clear that the only gift we'd be grateful to get was a single Christmas turkey. Adding to the heavy mood was an uncommonly cold but dry start to winter without a flake of snow to mute the monotonous landscape.
St. Helena’s Catholic Church was the cultural heartbeat of the neighborhood. Though it wasn't much bigger than local houses, its impact was that of a cathedral. From his own working-class childhood, the priest, Father Gannon, understood the entertainment value of a Latin Mass so he included everyone in the drama. Christmas was his most ambitious production.
A near life size manger consumed the altar. Beaming faces of every figure gazed upon the empty crib where the son of God would arrive on a red satin pillow. Draped in white flour sacks trimmed with garland, a host of us angels slowly ferried the savior of the world down the center aisle to the manger. Father Gannon then took the porcelain infant from the pillow to the crib while we hovered nearby shedding glitter.
My father grew up in a local Irish parish where he served as the altar and errand boy for the priests and nuns. As an adult he decided he'd seen enough of what the Church had to offer and didn't need any of it. His role that night was strictly as our driver. He dropped me, along with my sister, mother and aunt off at the church just as a candle light procession was forming to go inside, a bright warm glow in a world of dismal prospects.
When the glorious ceremony came to an end, it was well past one in the morning. Yet everyone was bright and happy. During Mass, fresh clean snow transformed the stark monotony into the glistening echo of a sky filled with stars. We stepped into the set of a perfect Christmas movie.
My father wasn’t there to pick us up when we got out of church. My aunt, who probably loved my father more than my mother did, made excuses for his being late. We waited while my mother accepted that he probably fell asleep and wasn’t coming. Then she said, “It’s a beautiful night. Let's walk.”
My mother and her sister were best friends but daily life didn't allow them much time to recall the past. Now as we made the first tracks over a gleaming white plateau, they reminisced about the Italian version of their own childhood holiday where an old woman called “La Befana” brought gifts on January 6th, the Feast of Epiphany. A legend with many variations throughout history, its celebration involved pageantry, bonfires, and lots of singing witches.
A piece of fruit was their usual gift from “La Befana”. At the best of times, it was an orange. During the 1920's in the dead of a northern Winter, Butte was weeks away from the nearest citrus tree. So an orange was indeed a treasure.
Between stories, my sister and I made snow angels and sang Carols that chimed
against the crystal air. In the starlite dawn of that Christmas morning, two pairs of sisters across generations became extensions of each other through time. My aunt, who never went beyond a fifth-grade education, looked at my sister and me and said, “This night is a glimpse of eternity that you'll remember for the rest of your lives.” And she was right.
