Christmas

As I get older, Christmas means less and less to me. Working in retail for the last 5 Christmases made me really see how much of a headache it is for so many people. It's easy to blame greed and say people lost the spirit, but that's not entirely it- they're trying. They're out buying stuff for people they love. They're just doing it too late, and everyone is doing it at the same time. The pressure of needing to get everything you want to get for everyone you know, going to every party, making time for family, combined with working and sunlight fading, temperatures dropping, etc. It's just a mess. A lot of it is brought on by society and what we're all expected to do, but at the same time, most of it is with good intentions, it's just too much stuff in one month. Working in retail and being in the heart of the beast for the 6 weeks or so that comprise "the holiday season" killed any Christmas spirit I had. Seeing the anger and misery that it brings out in people, seeing myself grow angrier and angrier every day, I couldn't help but see how much of a self-induced panic attack the whole thing is.

But this year I wasn't working, and I live with 2 people who really like Christmas, so I was hopeful some of the spirit would come back. I tried to get into it by posting nothing but Christmas pictures on instagram for a week. Here are two favorites:

an awesome house down the road from us

a huge tree down the road from my parent's house

I helped Rich and Josh decorate the house tree, watched Ernest Saves Christmas and a few other classics, and tried to let the spirit take me over.

But sadly, life said "oh, you want to have a good christmas? screw you!" and I got what I can only guess was food poisoning for 4 and a half days, ending on December 23rd. I had a horrible feeling in my stomach for a day, and felt sick and just disgusting with a horrible taste in my mouth. I was awake for only like 6 hours out of a full day, and I was a zombie for those 6. After that, I barely ate, and when I did, let's just say it didn't go well. The days I was planning on buying everything and for the first time ever being fully caught up, were spent sitting in my room in a weakened daze, sleeping, or in the bathroom. It sucked. 

And then, on December 21st, my Grandmother died. She'd been deteriorating for quite awhile and had taken a turn for the worse right around the time I got sick. Alzheimer's basically just shut her body down. She was an awesome Grandmother, but she had been in an assisted living home in New Jersey for 11 years, and I hadn't seen her in probably 8. I didn't see her start to fall, just heard it from my Mom periodically over the last few years. So, I wasn't shocked and felt like it was just her time- she had a great life and died at 91, having swam (her favorite thing to do) just 3 weeks before she died. She lived a great life, so this wasn't terribly sad or a shock, but it obviously meant this Christmas wasn't quite going to have the happiness I was hoping for. 

I headed up to Maine on Thursday, Christmas Eve eve. I stopped everywhere I needed to and was extremely successful in last minute Christmas shopping, even wrapping everything that night. My Mom was in surprisingly decent spirits, but the little kid in me trying to hold on to tradition was pretty sad to see that the tree was still sitting in the garage. It bummed me out, but I had to understand it- they hadn't exactly had time to put up a tree and decorate it. 

So, Christmas Eve, my Dad put the tree and lights up, I ate delicious pizza for dinner (which has become a sweet tradition), and I decorated the tree after dinner- the latest it's ever happened. My parents joined in at the end to hang up their favorites, and it suddenly felt a little more like Christmas. Check out these sweet ornaments:

yes, at one point, I was adorable.

and then awkward with a really big head.

This is my all time favorite ornament. It goes on the tree last, with a traditional blind throw at the tree. Wherever it lands, that's where it stays. Why do I do that? Because this ornament is THAT GOOD.

Yup, paper taped to string, with apparently how I wrote my name on the biggest piece. My idea when I was however young I was when I made this was that if I ran out of space on the right side of the paper, I would just wrap the word around. Some teachers said that it actually made sense in a way. I'm not sure what they thought of me writing the letters backwards (maybe I've been autistic all these years), and I'm sure they weren't happy that I apparently thought my name was MICHAE, but whatever.

I also love these ornaments, which always go at the top of the tree:

For a last minute tree with very little Christmas spirit, it came out gorgeous. It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas. 

Tradition changed again when my parents said instead of watching How The Grinch Stole Christmas right before bed (a tradition going back like 18 years), they wanted to watch it first so they wouldn't fall asleep to it. I accepted on one condition- that we watch Home Alone afterwards, which ruled. What a fantastic movie.

The Grinch- the best Christmas cartoon in existence

My parents had already told me that I wasn't getting much this year- that it wasn't going to be a great Christmas because of all of the bad that had come with the month. Sometime around dinner, my Dad told me that we also wouldn't be doing stockings. Yes, I'm 30 and my brother hasn't been here for Christmas in like 6 years, but I still write a note every year to Santa, leave out food, and leave my stocking for it to get filled. These are the traditions that keep the child inside happy. Hearing this hurt, but I understood- they frankly hadn't been able to do any shopping for any stocking stuffers, and really just weren't feeling Christmas enough to try and make it happen anyway. Even though the tree looked great and we were going to try our best to make Christmas work, I was pretty sad about this. This felt big. I started to get bummed out more. As much as I try to never think about it, I couldn't help but think that I had gotten them a ton of stuff with no income, and I wouldn't be unwrapping much at all the next day. Both of them were pretty subdued and randomly sad, so it was kind of awkward too. And now no stocking either?

But it's a funny thing- watching Home Alone and The Grinch, suddenly, in a weird realization that felt like I was in my own Christmas movie, I realized what this Christmas was. This was the Christmas that Santa didn't come, I was home alone, and I was lucky to just have my family on Christmas morning. This was the year The Grinch stole my Christmas, but Christmas came. It came just the same. Christmas Day was in our grasp, so long as we had hands to clasp.

Presents weren't important this year. It was ok if traditions weren't the same. I had been pretty unhappy a lot of the month. It had been stressful trying to put together a Christmas when my spirit just wasn't there. I spent a lot of time wondering if I was going to be able to even have a Christmas with everything going on with Grandma. I worried about her and about my parents. Then I was sick for 5 days. And my parents had had a miserable month, culminating with their mother dying a few days before Christmas. Maybe this year, just us being together was good enough. Maybe just me being there for my Mom and trying to make her happy in a time of sadness was all that really mattered. 

So, I figured out how to do both- make my mom smile and keep my traditions. I wrote a note to Santa, wrote a note back, and filled my own damn stocking. Screw you Christmas bum-out, I'm having Christmas. I left the container to the carrot cake I had just eaten and glass of nog, pulled my Dad's dinner Yuengling bottle out of the trash, and left them for Santa.

And then I put the new Common CD I bought on the way up and a teddy bear I've had for years in my stocking, and left The Dark Knight DVD I brought to watch, a Converge shirt I bought online and had mailed to the house, and a thing of Legos I never put together last year on the fireplace and called it a night. Mom woke up, happily surprised to tears to see that Santa came anyway, and I got stuff I wanted from Santa: a Christmas miracle.

Breakfast was great (one of like 2 I had this year, featuring world famous Alexander scrambled eggs), and present opening was great (I didn't get much but my parents loved everything I got them). I qualified as having done "too much," there were lots of laughs, and only one brief crying session from Mom. But you need those sometimes. We watched the long awaited (at least for me) NBA season start with the Celtics, and even though they lost and the stupid Heat won, it was glorious to watch basketball again. I missed it. I went on my traditional Christmas walk-off-breakfast-and-make-room-for-a-full-turkey-dinner walk, and it snowed on me the whole time.

not much, but still a white Christmas

I listened to The Appleseed Cast (they'll always be a Christmas band to me after getting the Low Level Owl CDs for Christmas one year), and stood down by the water, just being alone with music and the lake in front of me. I reminisced about Jesse, my dog who I still miss every time I walk on that driveway. It was beautiful. 

Dinner was fantastic, and we watched sports into the night. It wasn't the Christmas I necessarily wanted or expected, but it was one my parents needed. And maybe it was what someone who was losing sight of what Christmas should be needed: a time for family and love. "Christmas day will always be, just as long as we have we."

obligatory "post-Christmas animal in wrapping paper" picture

I know it's a week later, but Merry Christmas to whoever reads this blog. Hope you had a good one.

currently listening to: The Smashing Pumpkins; "Starla" (a song I listen to every year to go to sleep on Christmas Eve)