On this eve of Christmas, I thought I would talk about what Christmas has meant to me, what it means now and what I hope it will mean in the future. I will make another post after this one that will be a story I wrote for my parents two years ago for Christmas.
Christmas has always been sort of an enigma for me. There were lots of things to enjoy about it, but there was also something missing. Growing up in southern California, my Christmases didn’t match those portrayed in film, pictures, stories or cards. We didn’t have snow or Jack Frost nipping at our noses. We didn’t see folks dressed up like Eskimos. The lack of a fire place left a hole in the Santa Claus story. The image of frosty panes of glass protecting the warm and bright holiday celebration happening inside the family home was just a mere fantasy for me. Even the ‘Twas the night’ story seemed foreign and otherworldly to me. So Christmas has always left me with a sense of longing for that Norman Rockwell setting. Not saying that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy Christmas as a child.
A new sort of longing was introduced this year as I long to be able to spend it with my parents. The follow-up story to this post illustrates my mother’s love for this holiday and I can’t help but ponder just how much she wanted to be here for this year’s Christmas. Sadly she lost her fight to make it to Christmas back in September. So while children are wishing for their two front teeth for Christmas, I am left wishing for my two parents. As that wish cannot be fulfilled, at least in a way that is acceptable to me right now, I have to find someway to make the best of it. This year, that will mean pretending that December 25th is just another day on the calendar. That may seem like a silly way to go about it, but right now that is the only way I know how to handle the emotional impact of losing my parents.
A more realistic Christmas wish would be for future Christmases to be filled with the joy of my parents memory and the celebration of the life they gave me. I am sure that is an attainable wish, it is just going to be one of those wishes that takes time to fulfill and I will need to find the patience to let that wish come true.
My heart aches knowing that in prior years, this night would be joyous. Thirty-five years ago, when I was ten and my parents were my age now, we would be playing the family game and hoping that mom will forget to send us off to bed. We would be looking at the myriad of presents stuffed around the tree, wondering what treasures were waiting for us tomorrow. We would be listening to Christmas music and laughing and having a jolly good time. No, Christmas wasn’t like the perfect image I had in my head, but it sure was a pretty awesome time.
May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white….