merry holidays

Christmas is not my favorite holiday.  If pressed, I would have to admit that it probably doesn’t even make the top three. 

There.  I said it.

It’s not because I don’t love baby Jesus, the manger story, Santa Claus, evergreen trees or Charlie Brown.  No, I like the sentiment of the holiday, both secular and religious.  Children receive a present from a kind, magical man for being good all year.  Great!  God gave the world a magnificent present and people take time to remember and thank Him.  Awesome!

Of course, part of my dislike for Christmas is rooted in childhood and, more specifically, the divorce of my parents.  Christmas morning always meant the absence of one of my parents and, more often than not, my sister, too.  And, Christmas morning wasn’t always on Christmas or even in the morning.  If it was the year I was flying to MI to spend with my dad, then Christmas with my mom happened before I left or when I returned.  If it was the year I stayed in GA, then I would open the box of presents from my dad and then call him to tell him how much I loved them.  Yeah, that’s special.  Then, with step-parents and cousins of every conceivable permutation involved, it meant that I could possibly get four to six Christmases in one year.  The magic kinda wears off after Christmas number three. 

However, when I became an adult, I found another reason to become disillusioned with Christmas.  Again, it’s not the holiday itself that makes me cringe.  It’s all the hub-bub that makes me go hum-bug. 

I love presents just as much as the next girl, but the thought of someone searching for hours trying to find something that I may like because they have no idea what to get me literally makes my stomach hurt.  Imagining someone stressing over what present to buy me makes me more ill than when it is me wondering what to buy someone else.  Presents are supposed to be fun and Christmas turns them into a chore.  Not only a chore, but an obligation.  This self-imposed obligation gives us tunnel-vision and then people come up with ridiculous websites like StandforChristmas.com where shoppers can post which retailers say “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays.”

From the website’s front page:

Millions upon millions in our nation deeply value the great truths of Christmas and the holiday’s inspiring place in American life and culture. We hope you will take a moment to “Stand for Christmas” by sharing feedback about your Christmas shopping experiences.

Did they read what they wrote?  Since when do the “great truths of Christmas” have anything to do with shopping? 

The website has visitors rate stores as being either ”Friendly”, “Negligent” or “Offensive” to Christmas.  One of the highest rated “Friendly” stores is Bass Pro Shops.  Well, that’s all fine and dandy, but you want to buy a fishing pole, they will take your hard-earned money no matter what religion you are.  However, they just happen to know their customer base and market to them.  I think that using Christmas as a marketing tool is far more offensive than saying “Happy Holidays.” 

If I see something that I know someone will absolutely love, I will buy it.  If not, I will make a christmas ornament or bake something delicious or, as I am doing this year, I will give money to charity in their name.  I’m not anti-present, I just want the present to mean something.  That said, I will always buy presents for the children in my family.  To me, the gift-giving portion of the holiday should be really be all about the kids.  Presents are special and magical when you are a child.  If I want, I can have my own personal “Christmas” every time I walk into Target.

Whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year and however you celebrate it, try not to lose sight of what’s really important (hint: you can’t buy it at Bass Pro Shops).

tis the season

Christmas is not my favorite time of year.  It probably doesn’t even rank in the top three.  I’m not entirely bah, humbug.  I do like Christmas lights and trees and Santa and Nativity scenes.  I’m basically down with the decorations (except blow-mold anything).  However, I do not like being told how I should feel for a good month and a half (not to mention being told how I should spend my money, but my friend Jeff has already said this better than I could).  Stop telling me that I have to be cheerful and wish for snow or else I am some kind of freak. 

Of course, being as self-aware as I am, I know where this all stems from.  I had about four Christmases with both my mother and father together, and since they coincided with the first four years of my life, I really don’t remember much.  Then, after my mother and step-father moved me from MI to GA, much of my holiday was spent in a car or on a plane traveling to my father and away from my mother, then vice-versa.  I was always happy to see someone and missing someone at the same time. 

While in MI, with my father, I would have Christmas with my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  All his family lived within a 40 mile radius of one another.  I lived 800 miles away and only saw them maybe twice a year.  They were my blood relatives and complete strangers, my father included.  I wasn’t any closer to my mother’s side of the family except for my grandma.

Christmas in GA was only slightly better in that at least I was in more familiar surroundings and it was seldom snowing.  It was really nice when my sister was there, but her father lived in MI, too, and she had moved out on her own, so she had her own Christmas to deal with. 

So, excuse me if I don’t want to bake cookies, or wear bells.  Don’t judge me because I don’t own any Christmas themed clothing and my decorations are blue and silver, not red and green.  Although I am very happy to be around any family this time of year, I can’t help but think about who I will not see this Christmas.

traditions

I guess one thing that I will miss out on by not having kids, is passing down family traditions.  Not that my family has a whole lot of meaningful ones, but any they do have and any that I start will most likely end with me or my husband.  I don’t feel too bad about it because it seems like true traditions are few and far between these days anyway.  The kids grow up and they want to do their own thing or the one relative who kept the tradition alive dies and then it’s lost.  To me, it’s more important that you keep in touch with your family and honor a relative’s memory than making sure you bring the exact same apple pie to Thanksgiving dinner every year. 

There are only a few things I would pass down if I could.  One would be dressing up for Halloween every year no matter how old you are.  Halloween was always a big deal while I was growing up and thanks to my naturally dramatic nature, I’ve kept it alive.  I think it’s important to have at least one day a year when it’s okay to let your freak flag fly. 

Another would be making corned beef and cabbage every year for St. Patrick’s Day.  My husband’s mother is Irish so I only thought it appropriate that we take the time to make the traditional meal every year.  We’ve only had this tradition for about 3-4 years now (I finally got over my fear of boiling meat) but as long as I’m still able to fill a pot with water I’ll keep making it. 

The only other thing I would pass down isn’t technically a thing, it’s more of an attitude.  That is to get out and see things, experience people and places that you’re unfamiliar with and don’t be afraid to try something new.  As a child, I was exposed to many things that my friends never were.  I moved across country, traveled on airplanes by myself, ate all kinds of ethnic or “unusual” food thanks to my mother’s love of cooking, and traveled to England and Europe.  I think this helped to broaden my world-view, made me slow to pass judgement and less hesitant to venture into the unknown. 

Even if I could pass these things down, there is no guarantee that they would be continued after I am gone.  And I’m not sure I would care if they were.  I would want my family to make their own traditions as I did, to find what makes them happy, what means something to them.  I guess I lack the desire to leave anything behind when I am gone, be it my DNA or a silly tradition.  The only thing left will be my words and then, as now, anyone can decide to stop and read or just pass them by. 

How my step-father almost died in his homeland and nobody cared

Or – The hills are alive with the sound of desperate gasps for air.

During spring break of my sophomore year of high school, my family went to Germany.  Some kids got to go to the beach or, you know, some place warm.  There is still snow on the ground in Germany in early April.  I shouldn’t complain, I was the only kid I knew with a passport, but I was a teenage girl and hormonally obligated to complain about everything.

My family at the time consisted of my older sister, our mom and Al, the man our mom had for some reason decided to marry some eight or so years earlier.  Al was of German descent and had been to the country before, but this was a chance to see it with the family.  Or, just a thinly veiled chance for him to get plowed off Jaegermeister in the land of its origin.

Even with the snow, it was a beautiful country.  We saw castles, the Alps, the Black Forest, ate sausage and Al got to drive like an asshole on the Autobahn.  He received that merit badge on two continents, we were so proud.

One night we were traveling to the next town on our itinerary and decided that it was getting too late to try to make it that night.  So, we started to look for a hotel.  Most of the hotels in that area were small, family run affairs with only a few rooms.  Apparently they fill up quickly because the first couple we stopped at were booked full.  I believe it was close to midnight when we finally found a vacant zimmer (Deutsch for room).  Exhausted from traveling we all settled into our room – that’s right, all of us were in one room.  Mom and Al in the bed, me in a hide-a-way bed and my poor sister on the floor.  Cozy.  The bathroom, like most small hotels in Europe, was down the hall.  I was the first to use it and discovered that after a few minutes, no matter what you were doing, an exhaust fan turned on.  I guess the owners figured better safe than sorry.

That night, I was brutally roused from a sound sleep by a loud thud and excessive coughing punctuated by gasps for air.  Mom turned on the light and we all surveyed the room with bleary eyes.  Al was standing, albeit bent over, by the bed and was the one making all the racket.  The corner of the mattress on his side was sagging, like one of the slats underneath gave way.  My sister, seeing that mom and I were alright, lay back down and pulled the blanket over her head.  Even in my post deep sleep daze, I realized what had happened and settled back down to resume my slumber.

Al suffered from sleep apnea, although it really was the rest of us who suffered.  His snoring could be heard from the vacuum of space.  Sometimes he would stop breathing and his brain would send his body some kind of signal which would cause him to wake up gasping for air like a re-animated corpse.  This is what happened that night, but at some point the bed slat had broken as well which just added another level of hilarity to the situation.

I could still hear the hacking and wheezing from under my blankets and it was really making it hard to sleep.  I hear mom tell Al to go to the bathroom and get some water.  He coughs himself out the door, mom turns off the light and sleep descends on us all.

I wake the next morning to find that all appears normal.  The bed was righted, Al was breathing and we were all looking forward to breakfast.  As we were talking while gathering our things, the events of the previous night were mentioned.  My sister and I laughed as we realized that at the time we were both thinking, “Mom will go check on Al if he doesn’t come back from the bathroom.”  Mom laughed because she was thinking that one of us girls would go check on him.  This just made my sister and I laugh even harder because mom obviously didn’t know that neither of us gave a rat’s ass if he choked to death or not.

That prompted me to say, “Well, it’s a good thing that he didn’t die in the bathroom cause that fan would have just turned on and no one would have known there was a dead body in there for a while.”

Oh, we all laughed and laughed.  Except for Al.  For some reason, he didn’t seem to think any of it was very funny.  Poor bastard never learned that if he was only able to laugh at himself every once in a while, one of us might have just given a damn.