Christmas 2021
Christmas 2021 Vlog Transcript
Hello everybody, Builder Tom here, hoping you’ve been infected by the spirit of this holiday season and not the flu or a variant of the Covid virus.
Funny thing, but the house where the classic movie “A Christmas Story” was filmed is just a few blocks away from where my father grew up. That movie coming closest to fitting my mind’s eye of what his boyhood must’ve been like in Cleveland, Ohio during the 1930s and ‘40s. I can see my dad as a boy buckling on his galoshes before going out to shovel snow after yet another winter storm that had blown in off of frigid Lake Erie. Chances are a cup of hot chocolate made with Ovaltine will be waiting for him when he comes back inside. While drinking his hot chocolate, my grandmother might hear what Richie’s mom in the movie heard; that what my dad really, really wants for Christmas is a Red Ryder BB gun.
My father was a Depression-era baby, a steel buyer’s oldest son. His working class neighborhood must’ve felt safe and plenty big enough right up until that moment when the daydreams of a boy gave way to the ambitions of a man.
To this day, I marvel at the serendipity that brought my father from his boyhood Cleveland days to Kansas City. A serendipity that could easily fit the Johnny Cash song “I’ve Been Everywhere.” Kansas City became my father’s last stop, a place to set down roots and call home for him and his family. A place that perhaps reminded my father of a simpler time when a boy could buckle on his galoshes and dream of a Red Ryder BB gun sitting under the tree on Christmas morning.
The holidays are many things, including being a special time to fondly recall loved ones who gave us many of our Christmas memories. As for me, I have my dad’s old Red Ryder BB gun to remind me that I am a most fortunate son.
May this be the year you receive what you really, really want for Christmas. Better yet, may this be the year you receive what you really need.
From all of us at Bickimer Homes, Merry Christmas.