Yesterday was Christmas.
i had NOT gotten into my holiday groove until Dec 24th-- i started up late this year- and since we have NO money, the idea of Christmas was harder to grasp.
yeah, yeah, i know, all that "friends and love will make up for it"...
sure.
No Christmas eve traditional sleigh ride (but, since they stopped doing them in favor of overcrowded hay rides this year, i'm kinda glad), no huge amounts of money to buy wonderful meats and cook Christmas Eve dinners of goose or roast or thick stews, no extra cash to splurge on decorating- no fresh greens wreath on the door, no street trees matching in the yards (our neighborhood block captain abdicated this year and so no one organized our 4 block area), no extras to cut up into swags on the fences.
Now, before you get depressed, this is NOT a sad post--- just a historical
delineation of what i have done over the years.
Days of decorating right after Thanksgiving- rushing to get the biggest tree cut and brought home after trecking into the mountains with saws and boots on. Baking cookies and cakes and making pies by hand from great grammas crust recipes and moms bowls and great grammas stove. Robert Goulet on the Sterio until i had it memorized as a young woman, Twisted Christmas on the computer as Stu has grown up cause it's more fun to laugh.
School parties for Stu's classes, present shopping for days for all his friends, piles growing behind locked doors in the RV, the trunks of our cars.
hauling out the boxes and smothering the house in 4 generations of hand picked wonder, grinches and baskets and reading Dickens out loud, fire places warm and "It's a wonderful life" ad nauseum, pushing and dragging myself to get it all done.
In my youth i wrote Christmas cards- i HAD to start Thanksgiving weekend, and often didn't get them all mailed on time... at one point, my list of greetings rant o over 200.... and by the time mom died, i had trimmed it to none. i don't send them out anymore, but hand a few to those who are close to me with just my name inside.
No more yearly letters with everything we have done and where we have been.
No more rushing out into the yard to make it spotless and perfect and clean (wait! i did do that... Sir was coming and i wanted the house to look nice!).
No dusting and scrubbing within an inch of my life and then staying up so late that my fingers ache trying to wrap the last of the goodies and add a special decoration on to each one.
This year, there was no elaborate christmas morning exotic pear tart or piles of heated scrambled eggs and bacon with music to arouse the house while we waited for family to arrive and exchange presents, no one on their knees digging through a pile coming out from the tree that flowed through the house. No garbage can brought in to handle the waste, nor hours taken to finish the task of what we got for Christmas.
No stocking for Stu with special little things to make him smile, candy and legos and pencils and batteries, See's candy cane with some seasonal figure attached.
No crowded kitchen and pushing to get the bird on and too much crap in the fridge and too many people in the house and flowing eggnogg and beer while them men wandered outside and talked and my family sat and laughed and exchanged stories and swhooosed through the rooms.
No big dinner at the table with them all telling stories i wanted to hear from the days before i came into the world, me plying them with more wine to make the tongues wag and the secrets spill out, all of us picking at the innards of the bird.
No Christmas cake that first gramma would make, and when she passed on, i would try to re-create sometimes for the whole DAY in the week before Christmas, the cake itself fine, the frosting a nightmare of years working to get it right, that crumbly sweet maple taste that looked like fondant with a bit of sea wave tips.
No card games round the table with my mom and dad(or not dad- we often banished him for being a bad winner and a worse loser), coffee and tv behind us as everyone settled in the rooms and did the bloated sated happy.
No, they years have come and gone, swept away so many that i loved, changed me and taught me strange things.
i love making the holidays bright and memorable for the darling boy, but now, He knows how to add to that as well, how to enjoy being pushed to put up the lights and clean up the bathroom. He and i still sing the songs and watch the old movies in the days leading up to the morning.
This year, the shopping took me 3 stops in 3 stores, and nothing to pile under a tree that is ready year round in the corner.
This year, there was cinnamon rolls for breakfast when the boy eventually crawled out from his Christmas Eve overdose of video games since mom took off for the movies with friends.
i did make him stretch out the opening of those 3 meager gifts, and this year, under that tree, there was nothing for me at all.
We enjoyed a morning of Jeff Dunham's puppets making jokes and laughed at stupid holiday shows while dressing to take off for Allie's house.
She has become like mom in some ways- her place was decorated with a beautiful tree, holiday movies on the TV, the bird just ready as i arrived with a friend and a car full of potatoes and cupcakes and deviled eggs. Standing in another kitchen, telling stories and laughing and trying not to snack my way silly as friend after friend arrived with food and hugs in tow.
A tiny bit of family tension/ drama to remind me that the holidays are about just that-- people who love each other enough to be comfortable with each other, and dinner that melted in your mouth and made me happy to be alive.
This year added yet another bit to my growing new traditions, as Stu did not twist and whine about the house to go home and play his games or leave the table and be elsewhere.
There we all sat, trying to stay on this side of kinky, and my son, my darling 16 and a half year old man boy chimed in, made us laugh, and he and i walked back and forth across that line of teasing appropriate/ pushing mom almost inappropriate talk- he is learning how to fit in with adults, how to have fun and learn and add to the conversation, even if a bit is at moms expense (and i am sure my own mom did the same for me), and scarfing off the dessert trays and following the winding conversations of adults at ease in their skins.
i was so proud to have him with us last night. He is becoming quite a wonderful young man.
Now, the years include afternoon movies and Munchkin card games and those same wonderful stories around the table, but now they are not my family tales, but regaling the leather family with bits of ourselves, jokes and laughs, catching up on our lives, and bringing new friends home because, as my dad often said, sharing what we have is just as important as the having of what we share.
Stu LOVED what he got and never once let on that anything was less than what he expected, Breck was kind and smart and handled what i asked him to without a distracted whine, the weather was good, the day was good.
Me? i got my Christmas present just shortly after Thanksgiving this year, when He walked back into my life, blue jeans and kid like smile, eyes that haunt me and a voice that always felt like the warmest blanket as it wrapped me up.
This year, i got just ONE wrapped present, and they are in my ears until that changes with Him, and they are more important to me than anything i can remember in a box.
This morning He called me- just checking in, keeping tabs, letting me know what's going on in His world as well so i am not out of the loop...
i was crying watching the very very very end of "The Ghost and Mrs Muir" with Rex Harrison-- another fantasy love story that won't ever have an end, and there He was in my ear, making me feel just as safe as houses, just as peaceful as the tides.
This year was a beautiful Christmas, and just as special as they come, and i feel like i am living magic this time, that every breath is a gift.
Like every day is Christmas.
"Real happiness is worth almost any risk"...Rex Harrison, "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir".
Happy Holidays my friends.... cherish today.
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