A few weeks ago, Rosey Gerry asked if I would write a story for the Lincolnville Historical Society’s Christmas Show last Friday, and to not tell my mother. What follows is what I came up with.

This is my 49th Christmas. To the best of my recollection, all but two have been spent, at least partly, in the old farmhouse atop Sleepy Hollow.

Christmas 1999 I was in Taipei, squatting in my older brother’s apartment, while he was off enjoying the summertime Christmas of Australia with his fiancée. It was chilly in the way only a tropical place can be when the temperatures dip south of 60 degrees, and the wind blows and the rain falls, and there is no real concept of central heating.

I made some extra cash by donning a Santa suit for a couple English Language schools in order to bring the Jolly Old Elf to the children of Taiwan. And then spent Christmas Eve hanging out with the other Western expatriates in the sud-slinging embassies for those missing the family and traditions of their homelands.

The following Christmas was also spent in a foreign land, but this time my entire family was with me on the Australian Gold Coast, to celebrate a wedding, and discover the very Australian tradition of grilled Christmas lunch at the beach.

These were notable exceptions to the many, many Christmases spent here in Lincolnville.

Christmas season started for me and my brothers, as for many of our generation, with the arrival of the Sears Wishbook. That massive volume brimming with all the best toys that the year had to offer. The hours spent pawing through the glossy pages, circling what we most wished for.

My parents really took the holidays seriously. My mom’s creative side shone at Christmas. Following a mass produced European advent calendar we received one year — I couldn’t have been more than three or four, but I remember opening the little windows — Ma figured she could do better. I don’t think advent calendar’s were very common here in those days. 

Ma decided that there should be a connection between the picture behind the door and the picture on the front of the advent calendar, so on December 1 (1979? 1980?) there appeared a beautiful watercolor of the outside of our home, with 25 doors neatly cut into it, each day revealing a picture — my brother and I behind the window of our bedroom, mice exchanging candy canes under the foundation, birds holding holly in the branches of the old ash tree.

And so for years, every December supplied another calendar, each more elaborate than the last, culminating, I believe, in a 3D paper reproduction of the greenhouse that had recently been added to the front of our home.

Ma and a friend later recreated a few of those early calendars, and are available for purchase in her shop to this day.

As the big day approached, my dad would take us into the woods to find the perfect tree. Standards for Christmas trees have changed, as in the old pictures they very much resemble the trees that a certain Mr. Charlie Brown may have procured, but we loved them. Decorated with tinsel, and lights that tended to get too hot, and the ornaments, many of them passed down from my mother’s own girlhood trees. Most of these have long since broken and disappeared, but that is the way of such things.

Baking Christmas cookies, or at the least perusing the increasingly tattered pages of the Betty Crocker Cookie Book, helping determine which ones my mother would bake. Many years later, my older brother and his wife gifted me with a brand new reproduction, with all the same wonderful circa 1970 full page photos of the piles of cookies.

In those early years, my strongest memories were of waiting for sleep on Christmas Eve, of being bundled into the same room with my brothers on that night, listening for reindeer paws on the roof.

After sleep came and we awoke, we were under very strict orders not to come downstairs. There was a cow to milk, and animals to feed, and we had to wait for my grandpa and my bachelor Uncle Bill to arrive from Camden. 

Uncle Bill lived in Washington D.C., and was the go-to man for the exotic toys not found in Midcoast Maine. I believe he traveled much of the East Coast one year searching for the Exploding Bat Bridge that I had spotted in the Sears Catalog and was all I wanted the Christmas of 1979.

So for that excruciating period between waking and being allowed to run down to the front room to see if Santa had really arrived, we jostled each other around the vent that was cut in the upstairs hallway and looked down to where the tree stood, trying to get a glimpse of presents that may have been left there- always strategically placed just barely in view from that vent.

And presents there were. Fisher-Price Little People playsets, first introduced to us by the older children of my parents’ friends the Buttermans, and a favorite of all three of us boys for years. Coyote Hollow, an amazing construction created for me by my parents, made from a hollowed log, and including little handmade finger puppets of my favorite animal, the coyote of course. The latest Star Wars action figures. An Exploding Bat Bridge.

But first stop upon being allowed down the stairs was always the front room, where the old Franklin stove had a fire burning, and the stockings were brimming. He had come.

Over the years, many traditions were altered. My uncle married and started his own family in D.C., with a large package of amazingly thoughtful gifts from him and my Aunt Lynne arriving every December. The hardbound copy of The Joy of Cooking, is still in constant use, though now largely bound with red duct tape. It contains an inscription, which reads: “Christmas 2001. Dear Eddie, This is a must for every new and experienced chef. We hope you have many happy years as you sauté, flambé, and deglaze. Lots of love, Uncle Bill, Aunt Lynne, Emily, Kelly, and David.”

I have a bit of a thing for cookbooks. And my uncle married an incredibly classy lady.

My grandfather passed away in 1985. We were still not allowed downstairs until my folks saw fit.

Christmas Eves were spent for many years with Dale and Taylor Mudge, the couple my parents met at Ducktrap in the summer of 1974, both women pregnant with second sons who would be born days apart in early January of 1975. Somewhere exists videos of the Christmas Eve plays the seven O’Brien and Mudge kids would write and perform, always centered around the general theme of making fun of our dads.

Later, and for the first time, church became part of our Christmases, with the candlelit Christmas Eve service at the Center Meeting House, followed by a gathering of friends back at Sleepy Hollow.

Christmas morning, after the stockings had been emptied, we would make our way to Youngtown Road, where Frank and Cyrene Slegona would serve a fantastic breakfast to a gathering of friends in their own old farmhouse. I was always amazed by the fact that they would light their tree with actual candles.

I have written about Frank and Cyrene before, and I now wonder if Frank was thinking about that awful Christmas in 1944, on the borders of Germany.

I would be remiss not to mention the Christmas of 2013, a rough year all around for my family. Beginning with the diagnosis of a cancerous tumor in the back of my three year old’s head in February, the year was full of awful treatments, months spent apart with half my little family in the hospital, but also an incredible amount of love and laughter, and a community that embraced and supported us. The boy was released from the hospital for the final time on Halloween, skinny and bald, with the immune system of a newborn, but done with treatment. He was prohibited from going anywhere inside that was not our own home.

Many of the usual Holiday traditions couldn’t happen, but it was a wonderful time. We could attend the Beach Bonfire — the now four year old with a fuzz of blonde hair growing in and running with his siblings and other little ones on the beach — but not the party at the Schoolhouse, so I researched and prepared a bunch of vintage holiday appetizers and cookies and had our own party. We watched Christmas movies and just appreciated being together.

And then came the pre-Christmas storm, knocking out power for days. We may not have been able to go to Sleepy Hollow for the traditional opening of the stockings, but the lack of power and the woodstoves at Sleepy Hollow drove us to chance it and spend the afternoon of Christmas Eve with my parents in front of the fire.

Our next door neighbors on Slab City, Dave and Michelle Kinney, were out of town for Christmas, and offered us the use of their home and generator, so we were warm that night. Before the sun rose Christmas morning, I made my way across the street to our cold house, to make sure Santa had found the children’s stockings in a new location. As I approached my front door, the power came on.

A Christmas Miracle in a year of miracles.

This year marks my seventh Christmas without my father.

The thing about looking back on a lifetime of Christmases is you are made to remember all those people who are no longer with you. My grandfather, Frank and Cyrene, my uncle Bill, Dale. My Dad.

But come Christmas Eve, the stockings will once again be hung with care by the chimney in the front room. And the kids will not be let downstairs until we are good and ready. Their aunt and uncle and cousin will make their way down from Rockland, and we will exchange gifts and Christmas bacon. And we will remember the past and think about the future and just be together in the moment.

Christmas in a small place on the Coast of Maine.

My little tale was just one of several stories and musical performances presented at the Schoolhouse Museum Friday Night, emphasizing the incredible talent that exists here. Thank you Rosey, and the folks of the Lincolnville Historical Society for putting it all together.

It was a rough week in Lincolnville, with two structure fires Friday morning, on Stone Road and Mass Pike, resulting in the complete loss of both homes. My thoughts go out to both families.

I want to especially call out the firefighters, who forwent sleep Friday to come to the aid of their neighbors. The Lincolnville Fire Department (as with Hope, Northport, Searsmont, Union, and Belmont who also responded) are all volunteers. The Fire Departments of Camden, Rockport, and Belfast also responded.

I have written about the beauty of mutual aid, and nothing exemplifies this more than the work of municipal and volunteer firefighters. Nice work guys.

Also spare a thought for my buddy and man about Lincolnville Andy Young, who was Life Flighted to Bangor after a grinding disc flew off the machine into his leg, barely missing the femoral artery. I often think how much Lincolnville owes to that air ambulance, and friends who have been saved by it.

Christmas Eve Services:

If you are looking for a traditional Christmas Eve church service, both the main churches in Lincolnville will be holding candlelit services Tuesday evening. The doors at the Lincolnville UCC will open at 3:30 with the service beginning at 4. Bayshore Baptist starts its service at 5:30, so you can probably attend both! I think I got volunteered to park cars at the UCC, so maybe I'll see you there!

In this time of hope and gratitude, as we close out the year, spend some time thinking about what you can do to be present in your community, to be there for your neighbor, for the stranger.

Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Solstice, Merry Christmas. Thank you for putting up with my random musings over the last two years. As always, reach out at ceobrien246@gmail.com.

Municipal Calendar

Monday, December 23

Select Board (Warrent only Meeting), 5 p.m., Town Office

Tuesday, December 24

Library open 3-6 p.m. 208 Main Street

AA Meeting 12:15 p.m., Community Building, 18 Searsmont Road

Christmas Eve, Town Office closing at Noon

Candlelit Christmas Service United Christian Church, 4 p.m.

Candlelit Christmas Service Bayshore Baptist Church, 5:30 p.m.

Wednesday, December 25

Christmas Day, Town Office Closed

Friday, December 27

AA Meeting 12:15 p.m., Community Building, 18 Searsmont Road

Library open 9-12, 208 Main Street

Saturday, December 28

Library open 9-12, 208 Main Street

Sunday, December 29

United Christian Church, 9:30 a.m. Worship, 18 Searsmont Road

Bayshore Baptist Church, 9:30 a.m. Sunday School, 11:00 worship, 2648 Atlantic Highway