Wrapping up Christmas

Yes, Unbeliever, it’s for Christmas decoration. Isn’t it pretty? (photo by the author)

In the early sixties, when Christmas came around to my childhood home in Ramsey, New Jersey, a mostly-white mostly blue-collar (and at the time, mostly Christian) community, I’d wait for my parents to go out, and head for their closet, where my mom stashed the presents. I’d look up at the shelves loaded with presents, some of which I hoped were mine, just itching to know what they were. I’d climb up on a chair and poke and lift the boxes decorated…