Just last night my sister was asking me about my favorite Christmas. Of course with my children opening presents is always a wonderful experience. So good in some ways that they all seem the same. Could it be that 20 or 30 years of spectacular Christmases all run together? I guess you would have to say that is a gift in itself. On the other hand, I thought of the first Christmases I remember in Des Plains, Ill., where my father would buy the tree the day before Christmas and never - I mean NEVER - pay the asking price. In those days $5 for a tree was too much, especially one day before Christmas. The house looked the same as always when we went to bed, but when we woke up at 4 in the morning, the tree was decorated and the presents were wrapped. As I remember, all three boys wanted dolls (I am not sure why... ), but we also wanted guns with holsters so that we could be cowboys. There were cars and trucks and the disappointment of being given clothes. By the way, in our world that is not a gift - it may be a necessity, even a right, but not at Christmas, although I would love to have a sweater this year.During the times I lived in California, Christmas was basically our family having the same dinner every Christmas. There was turkey with mom's special stuffing, mashed potatoes, vegetables, and pie. Of course, everything was homemade except for the vegetables out of a can. Otherwise Christmas was a blur in my teenage years because I had hormones popping and other things on my mind. I was always disappointed the years my dad purchased the aluminum tree with a spotlight (no lights hung on it) shining on it and a colored wheel moving, which shone on the tree in red, green, and pink. We didn't need tinsel because it was silver already. This was the 60s and the time of upheaval.Of course, going to school in Oakland, CA, and spending every chance I could in San Francisco, I got to know the famous bookstore, still there today in the North Beach area, called City Lights. It was made famous by Jack Kerouac along with the two bars that still stand today very close by called Vesuvius and Sparks. It was there that I became familiar with the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti who originally was from Yonkers (a place I had never heard of at the time). However, I did come to read his very famous poem Christ climbed down. I have pondered his poem many times since then, especially when the secularization and commercialization of Christmas seems to close in around me and it looks as if "the reason for the season" is lost.I read it every once in a while, like today, and smile at the young boy wandering North Beach, San Francisco trying to discover who he is and what the season is all about. Lawrence Ferlinghetti made a contribution to that young boys search. Below is his poem. I hope you enjoy it, as I have over the years.Merry Christmas!CHRIST climbed downfrom His bare Tree this yearand ran away to wherethere were no rootless Christmas trees hung with candycanes and breakable starsChrist climbed downfrom His bare Tree this yearand ran away to wherethere were no gilded Christmas trees and no tinsel Christmas treesand no tinfoil Christmas treesand no pink plastic Christmas trees and no gold Christmas treesand no black Christmas treesand no powderblue Christmas trees hung with electric candlesand encircled by tin electric trains and clever cornball relativesChrist climbed downfrom His bare Tree this yearand ran away to whereno intrepid Bible salesmencovered the territoryin two-tone cadillacsand where no Sears Roebuck creches complete with plastic babe in manger arrived by parcel postthe babe by special deliveryand where no televised Wise Men praised the Lord Calvert WhiskeyChrist climbed downfrom His bare Tree this yearand ran away to whereno fat handshaking strangerin a red flannel suitand a fake white beardwent around passing himself offas some sort of North Pole saintcrossing the desert to Bethlehem Pennsylvaniain a Volkswagen sleddrawn by rollicking Adirondack reindeer with German namesand bearing sacks of Humble Giftsfrom Saks Fifth Avenuefor everybody's imagined Christ childChrist climbed downfrom His bare Tree this year and ran away to whereno Bing Crosby carollers groaned of a tight Christmas and where no Radio City angels iceskated winglessthru a winter wonderlandinto a jinglebell heavendaily at 8:30with Midnight Mass matineesChrist climbed downfrom His bare Tree this yearand softly stole away intosome anonymous Mary's womb again where in the darkest nightof everybody's anonymous soulHe awaits againan unimaginable and impossibly Immaculate Reconceptionthe very craziestof Second Comings