When I was 8, my parents moved us out of the Bronx to a suburb in NJ. It did take some getting used to, but after awhile, we realized that what we lacked in convenience, we more than made up for in privacy. For the first time, I had my own room! In the Bronx, I shared a bedroom with two of my brothers, while my youngest brother bunked in with my parents. In our new digs, my older brother Frank and I each had our own rooms and our younger brothers, Mike and Chris shared a large room. It was great until Christmas approached and we realized that we needed to make some adjustments to our Christmas traditions. In the Bronx, my brothers and I would wake up on Christmas morning and charge into the living room announcing the arrival of Christmas. My parents would groggily stumble out of their room, a few feet away, carrying our youngest brother with them and sit on the couch, smiling and yawning, while we announced what Santa had brought us. It was simple and efficient, just like our apartment. But then we moved from our two bedroom fifth floor walk up to a 4 bedroom multi- level house in what my mother referred to as ” the country”. We needed to regroup, but being Palmieris, we were more than up for the challenge.
We first had to consider logistics. Mike, Chris and I were upstairs, on the same level as our parents’ room and the main portion of the house, including the living room, which of course housed the tree and Santa’s bounty. Frank’s bedroom was on the lower level, which meant he would have to pass the tree on his way up to our room. We had a pact that no one could look at the gifts until we were all present, so this was our first conundrum. We solved this by Frank swearing he would come upstairs with his hands over his eyes and feel his way along the wall until he got to my room. We would then go together to Mike and Chris’ room and decide when we would proclaim it was time to see what Santa had brought, rousing my exhausted parents out of their sound sleep.
This brought us to our second problem. How would we know when it was okay to wake my parents? In the Bronx, it was easy. We could look out our window and see and hear the bustle of traffic, the sounds from the neighboring apartments and the church bells announcing the first mass of the day. But now we were in a quiet house, surrounded by nothing but other quiet houses. There were no businesses and no churches within earshot, no neighbor’s faucet running or chairs scraping. All we had was a quiet side street without traffic. When we went to bed, my parents warned us not to get up too early. When we asked what constituted “too early”, they just shrugged and said “When you see the Murphy’s lights on then you can wake us up.” The Murphys!!! Now the Murphy’s house was on a hill around the corner, visible through our younger brothers’ bedroom window. The Murphys by everyone’s or at least my parent’s standards, were the perfect family. They were Irish Catholic, attended our church in perfectly ironed wrinkle free outfits, shiny shoes and had perfect manners. The older children happily looked after and played with the youngest (there were six of them). The kids all had perfect attendance, were on the honor roll and won citizenship awards. The older children had jobs after school, but still managed to help with babysitting their siblings as well as household chores. They would happily run errands for their parents and were the type that would run past neighbors’ houses and ask if they needed anything while they were out. The boys would mow the lawn and shovel a snowy driveway with smiles and happy whistles. The girls would clean the large house, grocery shop and help with the cooking. They always had a friendly wave and toothy grin to display to anyone they encountered. The boys were altar boys and their family was always chosen to bring up the gifts during mass. My parents were not the only ones who would sigh in exasperation and say “Why can’t we be more like the Murphys? Look at how nice they are. They never fight. They don’t argue with their parents. They volunteer to help out etc. etc. etc.”
Now mind you, my brothers were also altar boys but their cassocks were always a bit wrinkled and their shoes scuffed. They started out neat and clean, but on the way there were trees to climb, frogs to chase, rocks to kick etc. We also attended Mass as a family, but while my mother started us out impeccably dressed, by the time we got to church, we looked like, as she so often stated, unmade beds! My brother mowed the lawn, but not without a sigh and often a scowl. I would babysit my younger brothers, and while I smiled, as soon as my parents left, I was on the phone with my best friend Karen, decrying the injustice of it all. While the Murphy boys all had neat haircuts and the girls were properly coiffed, my brothers often had unruly hair and mine started out looking great, but with even one percent humidity I looked like a cross between Rosanne Rosannadanna and Yoko Ono. My brothers and I all got along too, but there were times we did fight, often in public, much to my mother’s dismay and embarrassment. When this occurred we were treated to the “look”: a clenched teeth “Don’t you embarrass me. Just wait until you get home” look.
My mother perfected this over the years. She would somehow not move her mouth, much like a ventriloquist, while maintaining a smile for the public, yet her words were somehow clear. It was truly miraculous. We called this her Tin Man act because she sounded like the tin man from the “Wizard of Oz”, when he was saying “oil can” to Dorothy without moving his mouth. Of course, not being the Murphys, we would anger my mother even more by imitating the tin man when she pulled her ventriloquist act. One of my brothers would whisper “oil can” and the rest of us would take up the chant proving Mom right once again, as that was something the Murpy children would never have done. Oh well. We’d always start out in church just fine, but within the first 30 minutes we’d be whispering, nudging, giggling over some private joke, only to be given the “look” by my parents with a possible Tin Man imitation by my mother, while the perfect Murphys sat in their perfectly starched Sunday best, shoes shined, hands to themselves, eyes either cast straight ahead at the priest or staring at their missiles. Even at that young age we would have to admit, we were not the Murphys…not by a long shot. And while we were okay with that, I’m not sure my parents, especially my mother, ever were.
So on that first Christmas Eve in our new home, when my mother told us we could get up when we saw lights on at the Murphy’s, we worried that once again we were being set up by this superhuman family. Without any other plans though, we reluctantly agreed, while secretly hoping they were not so perfect that they allowed their parents to sleep in on Christmas morning. If that were the case, then we were going to have to have some serious words with the Murphy clan! Here at least we knew we had the advantage. We were city kids after all and the Murphys wouldn’t stand a chance! But for the time being, we reviewed our plan on Christmas Eve and went to bed waiting for Santa, and praying the Murphys were human.
On Christmas morning, I heard a noise on the stairs which I first thought might be Santa or an elf until I heard a grunt, an ouch and a word the Murphy children would surely never utter and knew it was Frank , true to his word, sneaking up past the tree with his eyes closed. Soon he made it to my room and together we creeped our way down to our brothers’ room where we walked quietly to the window, holding our collective breath, almost afraid to look. Then what to our wandering eyes should appear but a light in the Murphy’s window!!! A single light that nonetheless beckoned us. A light that shone as bright as the star of Bethehem….well, okay, I exaggerate, but to my 8 year old self, it was pretty darn bright! Hallelujah! The Murphy clan was indeed human and excited about Christmas too. Maybe we could one day aspire to be the Murphys after all?? ! Oh the possibilities! Probably not, but for one fleeting moment we were on the same page and that was good enough that morning, because we had more pressing matters! After announcing “Their light is on” with all the fervor of Paul Revere shouting “The Red Coats are coming!”, we ran into my parents room and dragged them out of bed. When my mother asked what time it was, we told them we didn’t know but the Murphy’s light was on! Not believing us at first (afterall, we were not the Murphys) , she confirmed the light, then, true to her word said “Okay, let’s go”. In her eyes, what was good enough for the Murphy’s was good enough for us!
Led by my brothers, we all ran to the living room and tore open the gift wrap. It was chaotic, noisy and glorious. We had a ball, showing each other our gifts from Santa, describing them to our parents, as though they had no idea what Santa had left us, and just overall having a great time. After we had sufficiently calmed down, Mom went to make breakfast before Mass and we hung out by the tree, setting up toys, games etc. It was still dark out and my parents mentioned how odd it was that the Murphys were up so early. I guess they also thought it was very “UnMurphy-like”, but shrugged it off. Dad said we might want to rethink our early morning plan next year, but we didn’t care. Next year was a lifetime away and we would deal with it then. Fortunately, my father must have forgotten the rethinking because the tradition never changed, at least until we became teens and needed to be dragged out of bed by our parents, but that’s a post for another day! Every year as kids, we followed the same routine. We would check to see if the Murphy’s light was on and every year we would use that light as a battle cry to charge out to the tree. And every year my parents would if not happily, then willingly, oblige. Secretly it made us all happier to know that underneath the perfect veneer of the Murphy clan, there were some traits we shared, the excitement of Christmas morning being one of them.
It wasn’t until decades later that I learned the truth. The Murphys actually didn’t get up before dawn. They were only allowed to get up after the sun rose and never before 7 AM! Years later, when I told one of the Murphys about our tradition and how we saw their light on long before dawn, she just laughed and said her father turned that light on when he went to bed, to light the downstairs in case someone woke up during the night. It was on every night, not just Christmas! I guess we never had reason to look for a light in their house other than Christmas morning! I’m a bit relieved that my parents never found this out. For one morning each year, my mother could say “We’re just like the Murphys” and that makes me smile. I’m not sure I will ever tell my brothers. I think some things need to remain family legend. But discovering the truth after so many years proved to me our initial assessment was correct: We most certainly were not the Murphys! But who knows? Maybe the Murphys secretly wanted to be us…….
New Endings 