Being a parent at Christmastime creates a multitude of emotions which must keep therapists across the globe busy until sometime around Easter. Some of us have wonderful childhood holiday memories which we feel inclined to replicate for our replicants. Others of us have not-so-super memories which we work to NOT repeat, under any circumstances. Often, the sights and smells and sounds of the season can bring back all of the wonder and the magic that we felt as wee little folk. And most of us are still terrified of mall Santas. I think that's only natural. They are creepy as hell.
As I type this, I am sitting next to our HUGE Christmas tree, which is currently taking up a quarter of our living room. It is covered in various ornaments which we have collected over the years - many of them have a story or come from a place which we love. A few are leftovers from my husband's childhood tree. There are none from mine. Under the tree sits a labor of love undertaken by said husband and myself - various brightly-wrapped gifts adorned with ribbons and bows, which we toiled to perfect until 1 AM this morning. Before the wrapping came the shopping. Before the shopping came the list-making. Our children had ideas and dreams and plans regarding these presents. They were confident that they could ask for something and they would get it. This is a thing which boggles my mind, how sure they are that their wants will be taken care of. It makes me happy, yet terrifies me at the same time. How much we have the option to make them happy....and how easily we could crush their optimism. I want them to have the good memories. I want that more than I can communicate.
I don't know how much I've shared about my own childhood - it wasn't horrific or anything, it's nothing I'm ashamed of, but I did grow up in poverty, so my memories are all colored with things which I *hope* my children will never have to experience. While my mother did a fine job of making this time of year magical for me - she really did, I have SO many happy, bubbly feelings associated with Christmas - there was always the ever-present knowledge that money was an "issue." Add to that my parents love of alcohol AND my father's dislike for Christmas, and you can see why my love of the season was surrounded by a bit of a minefield. I've always been an optimist to the point of being ridiculous, however, and this served me well.
I told you all of that to tell you this: A very specific memory of one Christmas Eve which I take out and examine when I wonder if I'm losing track of the season, or if such a thing as Christmas magic truly exists. It was 1981 and it had been a very difficult year for us as a family, financially...really in all ways. Over the summer we had moved into a small rental house which, in hindsight, was little more than a shack. It was old and drafty and tiny but it was home to me, and I vowed to make the best of it. As winter approached, however, it became clear that things were more dreary than I had suspected. We had very little money. We had no vehicle. And my eleven-year-old heart broke as it was made evident we would have no Christmas tree. No pretty twinkling lights, no glittery ornaments. I tried to keep the spirit of the season alive by singing carols and decorating with what we had. Then, Christmas Eve dawned.
There was a knock on the door. Was it friendly neighbors, aware of our plight and determined to make Christmas special for us? No, it was a deputy from the Fire Marshall's office. He was dropping by to let us know that the house we were in had been condemned and was not suitable for dwelling. We had one week to vacate. Then he left. Merry Christmas. And it was done. I was pretty sure that even my Little Mary Sunshine attitude couldn't survive this level of doom and gloom. I'd had it. I was broken. In tears, I ran to my room (really a walled-in porch) and threw myself on my bed. I heard my father leave shorty thereafter. It was really cold out, and since we had no car I hadn't a clue where he could be headed. Knowing him, maybe to a bar. I cried some more. Everything seemed dark and bleak and it just hurt.
Sometime later, as afternoon was bleeding into evening, my father returned, his nose bright red from the cold and his fingers painfully frozen. And behind him he was dragging a Christmas tree. He had wandered around town until he found a tree lot willing to sell him a tree for only $5. Seeing as how it was Christmas Eve, there was a great air of urgency to get the ornaments out and our tree decorated before nightfall. It was small - we stood it on a side table - but to me it was the most beautiful tree in the entire world. And that will forever be the most magical Christmas Eve of my life.
I wish this could be a "happily ever after" story, but life progressed and life often does - we did find an apartment to move into within the week, we did continue on as a family, dysfunctional but always trying. I only had ten more Christmases with my dad, some were better than others, others were worse than some. But no matter what came, I always had that memory of him dragging that tree behind him, a small gesture to make a sad little girl smile on a not so merry Christmas Eve. Thanks, Dad. It worked.
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