Welcome back to Blogmas 2025, day four of my annual December marathon where I post holiday-themed content every single day until Christmas. For those keeping track, yes, I’m still doing this to myself voluntarily. This year’s twist is that I’m letting AI generate my daily prompts, because apparently I needed to add an element of unpredictability to an already ambitious undertaking. Today’s prompt cuts right to the heart: Personal Reflection – What’s the earliest Christmas you can clearly remember, and what stands out most about it?

Now, here’s the thing about early memories—they’re slippery little creatures. What I think I remember from when I was three or four years old might actually be a mashup of several Christmases, blended together like ingredients in my grandmother’s famous macaroni and cheese. But that’s kind of the point, isn’t it? When traditions are consistent enough, when the rituals repeat with such precision year after year, individual memories become less important than the collective experience they create.

My earliest Christmas memories all lead back to the same place: my grandparents’ house in Daleville, Virginia, just a stone’s throw up Interstate 81 from where my family lived in Salem. That house at the foot of Tinker Mountain was Christmas headquarters, the gravitational center around which our entire extended family orbited every December.

The House That Christmas Built

Let me paint you a picture of this place, because understanding the setting is crucial to understanding why these memories have stuck with me for nearly four decades. My grandparents’ house wasn’t particularly large or fancy, but it had that specific quality that certain houses possess—it knew how to hold people. The kitchen, where Mamaw performed what I can only describe as culinary wizardry, connected to a family room where adults would gather before dinner, talking about things that seemed monumentally boring to a four-year-old me.

But the real magic happened in two places: around Mamaw’s Christmas tree in the living room, and down in the finished basement where we’d migrate after dinner like some sort of post-feast ritual that had been encoded in our family DNA.

That tree. Lord, that tree. Mamaw had it on some kind of rotating motor—because apparently, static Christmas trees were for amateurs. This thing would slowly spin, presenting its full glory in a 360-degree showcase that would make a used car lot jealous. Every ornament got its moment in the spotlight. It was like Christmas tree theater, and I was a captivated audience of one, sitting on the carpet, watching for my favorite ornament to make its appearance.

The star of the show, at least in my young eyes, was a Mickey Mouse ornament where Mickey was dressed as Santa. Every year, I’d search for it among the branches, and every year, finding it felt like discovering buried treasure. I’m sure there were other ornaments—probably dozens of them, each with their own stories and significance—but four-year-old me had locked onto Mickey Santa like a heat-seeking missile of Christmas joy.

The tree’s rotation was hypnotic, almost meditative. In my memory, it moved at the perfect speed—slow enough that you could appreciate each side, fast enough that you didn’t get bored waiting for your favorite ornament to come back around. It was probably just some store-bought tree turner from the 1980s, but in my mind, it was a marvel of engineering, a Christmas miracle in motor form.

A Symphony of Senses

What really cements these early memories isn’t just what I saw, but the full sensory experience of Christmas at that house. The smell of Mamaw’s cooking would drift from the kitchen into the family room, a complex bouquet of aromas that announced themselves in waves. First, the turkey (or sometimes ham, depending on the year). Then the sides—baked apples, green beans simmering with ham hock, rolls that she’d made from scratch because store-bought was apparently a sign of moral failure.

And underneath it all, like a bass note in a Christmas carol, was the smell of Papa’s pipe tobacco. He had this special recliner—his throne, really—where he’d sit and smoke his pipe while surveying the controlled chaos of grandchildren tearing through his house. That smell of pipe tobacco mixed with Christmas dinner is so deeply embedded in my memory that even now, decades later, if I catch a whiff of pipe smoke somewhere, I’m instantly transported back to that family room, to that chair, to Papa quietly puffing away while the rest of us carried on around him.

I close my eyes now, forty-some years later, and I’m right back there. The rotating tree, Mickey Santa making his slow journey around the branches, the smell of too much good food, the sweet smoke from Papa’s pipe, the sound of cousins laughing, adults talking, the basement door opening and closing as kids ran up and down the stairs despite being told at least seventeen times not to run in the house.

The Basement: Where Christmas Really Happened

After dinner—and I mean after everyone had eaten themselves into a food coma that would require at least three days to fully recover from—we’d all migrate to the finished basement. This was where the real action happened. We’d sit on the floor in a rough circle, and the present exchange would begin.

Now, when you’re three or four years old, sitting on the floor is your natural habitat. You don’t think about how adults’ knees might protest or how getting back up might require assistance and possibly crane equipment. You just plop down, cross-legged, ready for the main event.

The present-opening had its own rhythm and rules. We didn’t just tear into everything at once like savages. No, there was a system. One person at a time, starting with the youngest (which was only me for one year of my existence). Everyone watched as each gift was opened, appropriate oohs and ahhs were offered, and thank yous were properly distributed. It was democracy in action, if democracy involved a lot of wrapping paper and occasionally someone crying because their cousin got something cooler.

I remember the anticipation building as my turn approached, the weight of the wrapped box in my small hands, the sound of paper tearing (because let’s be honest, no four-year-old has ever successfully found and followed the tape seam). I remember the flash of cameras—actual cameras that used film, kids, ask your parents—as moments were captured for photo albums that would later be pulled out and pored over, usually at subsequent Christmases.

The Weight of Tradition

Here’s what I’ve realized, looking back at these memories from the wise and slightly cynical height of my forties: what made these Christmases special wasn’t any individual moment or gift. I couldn’t tell you what presents I received at any of those early Christmases. Mickey Santa ornament aside, I can’t recall specific decorations beyond that rotating tree. What I remember, what has stuck with me all these years, is the tradition itself.

Year after year, we’d make that short drive up I-81 to Daleville. Year after year, the same rituals would unfold. The same tree would rotate. The same Mickey Santa would make his appearance. The same pipe smoke would mingle with the same dinner smells. The same basement would host the same present-opening ceremony.

As a kid, this repetition was comforting. It was reliable. In a world where you’re constantly growing and changing, where last year’s shoes don’t fit and last year’s favorite toy has been abandoned for something new, there was something profound about having this one constant. Christmas at Mamaw and Papa’s house was bedrock, fundamental, unchanging.

Of course, that’s the lie we tell ourselves about traditions, isn’t it? That they’re permanent. That they’ll always be there, rotating slowly like Mamaw’s tree, always presenting the same familiar ornaments for our appreciation.

The Inevitable Fade

Both of my grandparents are gone now. Papa went first, taking his pipe smoke and his recliner throne with him into memory. Mamaw held on longer, making it to 2023, though the big Christmas gatherings had long since become smaller affairs. The house at the foot of Tinker Mountain belongs to someone else now. The rotating tree is probably in a landfill somewhere, its motor long since burned out. Mickey Santa might be in a box in someone’s attic, or might have been sold at an estate sale to someone who had no idea why a child in the 1980s would stare at it with such wonder.

My cousins all have families now, scattered across the country like ornaments that fell off the tree and rolled to far corners of the room. The logistics of gathering everyone together for Christmas dinner would require a level of coordination that would make D-Day look like a casual get-together. We try, occasionally, to recreate something of those old gatherings, but it’s like trying to photocopy a photocopy—each iteration is a little more faded, a little less sharp than the original.

The Optimism of Four-Year-Old Me

It’s funny, because as I’ve gotten older, I’ve grown more cynical. Somewhere along the way, I lost that four-year-old’s capacity for pure, uncomplicated joy at the sight of a rotating Christmas tree. The kid who could sit mesmerized by Mickey Santa’s slow journey around the branches has been replaced by an adult who knows how much those presents cost, who understands the stress of hosting family gatherings, who realizes that the pipe smoke that smelled so comforting was probably taking years off Papa’s life.

I hold onto these memories as artifacts from a time when life was full of hope, when optimism wasn’t something you had to work at but was just your default setting. When you’re four, you don’t know about mortgages or medical bills or the thousand small compromises that make up adult life. You don’t understand that grandparents age, that traditions can die, that sometimes families drift apart not because of any dramatic falling out but simply because life pulls people in different directions.

Christmas was magical then, the way it only can be when you’re a child. When you don’t yet understand that someone had to buy all those presents, cook all that food, clean up all that wrapping paper. When the biggest concern is whether Mickey Santa will be on the tree this year (spoiler alert: he always was).

Making Peace with the Present

Here’s the thing I’ve learned about childhood Christmas memories: they’re not really about Christmas at all. They’re about feeling safe and loved and part of something bigger than yourself. They’re about the luxury of taking permanence for granted. They’re about a time when magic didn’t require suspension of disbelief because you hadn’t yet learned not to believe.

I can’t recreate the exact Christmas I had at four years old. I can’t bring back Mamaw’s rotating tree or Papa’s pipe smoke or that specific basement in that specific house. The extended family gatherings that seemed so effortless (though I’m sure they weren’t) are logistically impossible now. Mickey Santa is lost to time.

These days, Christmas looks different. It’s quieter, smaller. Sometimes it’s just me and whatever family members can make it work. Sometimes it’s friends who’ve become chosen family. Sometimes it’s acknowledging that the Norman Rockwell painting of Christmas we carry in our heads was always more aspiration than reality anyway.

But maybe that’s okay. Maybe part of growing up is recognizing that you can’t recreate the past, no matter how much wrapping paper and nostalgia you throw at it. The magic I experienced at four years old in my grandparents’ house was real, but it was also specific to that time, that place, that particular configuration of people who will never be in the same room again.

What I can do is honor those memories while creating new traditions, even if they’re smaller, even if they’re different, even if they’re just for me. Maybe it’s watching It’s a Wonderful Life and yelling at Mr. Potter. Maybe it’s driving around looking at Christmas lights while listening to the same songs Papa probably had on his radio. Maybe it’s just taking a moment on Christmas Eve to close my eyes and let myself be transported back to that house at the foot of Tinker Mountain, where the tree is always turning and Mickey Santa is always about to come into view.

The Rotating Tree Keeps Turning

Sometimes, when I really need to, I can still see it all perfectly. The tree turning slowly on its motor, displaying its treasures to anyone patient enough to watch. Mickey Santa making his stately journey around and around, reliable as the seasons themselves. The smell of too much food and pipe tobacco. The sound of family, back when family meant everyone in one place at one time.

I’m still that four-year-old, somewhere deep down, sitting on the carpet at my grandparents’ house, watching the tree turn, waiting for Mickey Santa to appear. Still believing in the permanence of traditions, the reliability of rituals, the magic of Christmas that doesn’t require explanation or justification.

The tree is still rotating in my memory, and it always will be. Mickey Santa is always just about to come into view. Papa is always in his chair. Mamaw is always in the kitchen. My cousins are always there, all of us young, all of us together, all of us frozen in that perfect moment before we learned that nothing—not even Christmas at the foot of Tinker Mountain—lasts forever.

But maybe that’s the real magic. Not that these things last, but that they happened at all. That for a few years in the 1980s, in a house in Daleville, Virginia, a family came together and created something worth remembering forty years later. That a rotating tree and a Mickey Mouse ornament and the smell of pipe tobacco could add up to something more than their parts, something that survives long after the tree stops turning.

That’s my earliest Christmas memory. Or memories. Or maybe just the story I tell myself about Christmas, built from fragments of truth and filled in with the putty of nostalgia. Either way, it’s mine, and it’s what I carry with me into every December, a four-year-old’s wonder wrapped in forty-something years of experience, still watching that tree turn, still waiting for Mickey Santa to appear, still believing—despite all evidence to the contrary—in the magic of Christmas.

Feature Photo by Jeswin Thomas