All The Pretty Lights

I used to hate Christmas. I would get all depressed and drink a lot, using the holiday parties as a way to mask my despair through overindulgence. My goal was to be the one unnoticed at the party, not to be the life of it. For many years of my life, starting at adolescence, the holidays were a time of stress and loneliness, and continued until just a few years ago.

My mother began a retail career when I was 12. If you're female, you know how important a mother's guidance is right around middle school age. My mother decided, however, that I didn't need her anymore and she went back to work. As is the nature of the beast, the retail monster ate up all of her time, especially starting around Thanksgiving. She worked 12-hour days, if not longer. If she wasn't home, my father saw no reason to come home, either. He went out to do Lord knows what and I was home alone. Sometimes until 10 at night. I grew to really hate the holidays, because it represented abandonment.

After I moved out, I began creating meaning to the holidays on my own. I began to find reasons to celebrate and decorate and enjoy myself. While I still battle depression that is sort of erratic about when it hits, I no longer dread the Christmas season and get suicidal.

(as an aside, i did try to kill myself once, and it was 2 days before Christmas 10 years ago.)

Now that I have seen the good parts to Christmas again, I can remember all the good times I had as a kid. The smell of our plastic, fake tree, how the needles were slightly rubbery between your fingers, how the ornaments had to be placed just so, because the leaves wouldn't bend or move. The excitement and thrill of unwrapping each ornament from its tissue paper wrapping, oh-so-carefully, waiting to see which treasure was inside. Helping my mother set up our wooden nativity scene, where each figurine had some kind of assembly. I loved the 3 wise men and putting their thin, brittle staffs through the hole in their fists. And the lights. Always the lights.

I was so lucky because, as a kid, I had both sets of living grandparents. The best part was that they lived 3 blocks apart. We did Christmas Eve with my mother's huge family and then Christmas Day with my father's side. When I was still little, we'd drive 2 hours northwest of our house to my great-grandmother's, and we'd stay there for a few days starting on Christmas Day. And my parents would throw New Year's Eve parties that were totally not like a horror movie - very mellow, relaxed, and a small gathering of very close friends and neighbors. My parents didn't associate with lushes.

My favorite Christmas memory is a conglomeration of several years. It's a memory of me setting up the tree with my mother, and being absolutely transfixed by the star at the top.

After dinner, I would sit in complete darkness with the only lights coming from the tree and the garland on the mantel. I would put on a Christmas record (usually a Burl Ives kiddie version of something) and just lay on our couch. My parents would be in their room or my dad in his home "office," or any number of other things, but they would leave me alone and leave the lights out. I would cuddle with my blanket and Teddy, and my little terrier who was still a young pup then, and would slowly start to fall asleep.

My mother would come in around bedtime to move me into my room, and I would throw an exhausted, groggy little fit so that I could sleep on the couch in the glow of the tree. I never won, unless we were already out of school for the holidays.

Just about every day I think about ways that my life has gone bad wrong. I lament over bad choices, ill-informed decisions, or shoddy luck. Sometimes even taking stock of the good things doesn't cheer me up. Memories like these, though, really make everything okay. When I walk into my own home now, regardless of the crappy parent conference I just weathered 20 minutes before, I walk in and see that tree and cover myself in a blanket and everything just seems to be peaceful and calm. I curl up around the 3 loving dogs I have now and realize that at that very moment, we're making new memories. More great Christmas memories to help override all that's gone so wrong with Christmases in the past.

But I still don't do mall crowds. Thank GOD online shopping has become the norm for holiday gifts now! Crowded shopping malls is one tradition I'm thankful to forget...