Sky E-News

The feeling of nostalgia is bittersweet.  It is a melancholy feeling, a yearning for the times that have passed.  This feeling can be evoked by a song, by a passage in a book or a poem, by the certain scent of orange blossoms or magnolias, or by the feelings and the memories evoked by sitting in front of a blazing fireplace on Christmas Eve.  Now, when I sit in front of a modern gas fireplace, I first think of the wood burning stove in my grandmother’s house.

Not only did the stove provide warmth and atmosphere, but my grandmother also used to the stove to make hot tea, and to boil her secret recipe for hot chocolate.  It was where we gathered the night before Christmas, and it was where we gathered the next morning to open our presents from Santa, while we waited for my grandmother’s also secret recipe for our special holiday breakfast.  My grandfather feigned grumpiness while trudging out doors in his pajamas through the snow to bring in more firewood and the children hid behind the twinkling lights of the Christmas tree containing our laughter.

Through technological advances, all that is necessary to start a fire in a gas fireplace is the flip of a switch.  No more trudging through snow, no more chopping of the firewood.  The artistic advancements have created ceramic logs that look incredibly realistic, and the temperature is much more easy to control than the wood burning stoves of the old days.  The fireplaces now can be designed using traditional masonry techniques, or they can have a sleek, modern and hip design of contemporary simplicity.

We all still gather around the fireplace, while our grandmother makes the delicious breakfast, and as grown up children, we still sit behind the Christmas tree, as our grandfather feigns grumpiness as he gets up from his chair to flip the switch on the gas fireplace.  Next year, we are getting him a remote control so he can light the fire from his chair, and we wonder in what way he will be grumpy then.