The Christmas That Wasn't

SO my Christmas was quite remarkable if only for the fact that it was, sadly, very unremarkable.

I have always loved Christmas. As a kid, my dad had to make a rule that I was not allowed to listen to Christmas music until AFTER Thanksgiving. Because until he inacted that rule, I would be in my room on, like, July 10th, listening to O' Little Town of Bethlehem or something and it annoyed him to no end.
But I couldn't help yearning for Christmas.
Growing up, ours was a tumultous household and we had many tense moments, angry moments and even sad moments. My mom was an alcoholic. Which is not to say that she couldn't handle her cocktails. But rather, she hid gin or vodka in baby food jars filled to the brim (so that they looked clear and empty to the naked eye); that she drank herself into a stupor during the day while I was at school and I would come home from school and pause at the front door wondering what I would discover on the other side. Is she awake? Passed out? Dead?
Which is to say that I am familiar with most of the rehab facilities in Northern California and even Central California. And which is to say that by the age of nine, I was familiar with such things as detoxification, Alcoholics Anonymous,
and the inside of the Santa Clara Police Department (because my mom once got pulled over after she drank a bottle of perscription cough medicine and she was arrested for driving under the influence -- probably the most innocent she ever was of that particular crime -- no one busted her the time she drove into the metal stair railing at Freddy's Liquors and bent it over with the front end of the Ford Country Squire station wagon she was driving). I was frequently the lone witness to my dad's sick reactions to finding my mom passed out at five in the evening when he got home from work:
Find the BOOZE! was a game we played a lot -- wherein we searched throughout the house for the offending libation which had got my mother to her desired state of intoxication and of course there was also the always thrilling Water Torture wherein my dad dripped water droplets onto my mom's forehead while he yelled at her incoherent form on the couch, "Where's the booze, Jane?"

Christmas Eve was my mom's birthday. And I really only remember one Christmas where everything went horribly wrong. Otherwise, we were pretty lucky to have a sober Jane at the wheel driving the Christmas festivities. We'd have sugar cookies and Russian teacakes and we'd decorate the house and send out Christmas cards with cute family pictures in them. We'd go up to the Santa Cruz mountains and cut down a tree and make a day of it, picnicking at the beach before heading home with our Scotch Pine to decorate. The carols would play all day and all night and it truly was the kind of Christmas you are SUPPOSED to have: warm, happy, cheerful. There'd be parties with Santa Claus as the guest of honor and everyone would sit on his knee and tell him their Christmas wish.
Christmas morning, the tree would be almost obscured by the pile of gifts beneath it and around it and near it. My mom would supervise the present opening while my dad took pictures. It was magical.

And then it wasn't.

After their divorce, my dad's remarriage, my mom's remarriage and later, her death, my dad became Scrooge-like and eventually refused to even participate in Christmas.

As adults, my brothers and I put together our own tradition and for years, we had happy Christmases and almost managed to erase the memories of the bad ones we were trying so hard to outrun.

And then this year. The year that sucked in every possible way. The year my dad died. The year my brother went crazy. The year I lost two jobs and so much more...
We were planning on Dim Sum and a movie. But the crazy brother had other plans. His plans seemed mostly to be not to communicate with my youngest brother and I and so we were stuck in a sort of limbo of -- do we keep calling him? Do we go to his house? Has he killed himself? Is he passed out from drinking? Is he doing drugs? Is he just sitting there taking apart his computer for the nine hundredth time? What do we do? How do we pretend this is no big deal and try to have a holiday?

You know, when I am faced with the possibility that my once closest friend in the world may have committed suicide or might just be in a funk over his divorce or whatever but is not interested in being a part of life as I know it, I just don't feel particularly festive. And when my youngest brother tries to make things better by suggesting we go eat at Denny's (!!!!) instead of going to Dim Sum, when the movie's already out of the question because of time constraints
(time we wasted calling and calling and calling the crazy brother -- filling up his voice mail box completely), I just want to go back to bed and forget that this is supposed to be Christmas.

And I'm thinking, "I worked so hard yesterday to put myself in a good place in my head. Worked so hard to square away my feelings of loss and longing that I always feel for my mom on Christmas Eve -- always her day in my mind, my heart). Sat quietly with my feelings and had my traditional in-my-head conversation with the Mommy who would have been here, should
be here, isn't here. Told her about my year because I don't know if she's aware of what goes on here or not, I have no ideaabout that whole afterlife thing -- after I put that all away,
emotionally speaking, got myself ready to spend Christmas, a downsized version, and just appreciate the small moments of happiness we can still carve out -- after all that -- you
want to put us on a waiting list to eat at Denny's? You want to just got through the motions, open presents from our stepmom and act like it was all such a happy holiday, just so you can mark it off your to-do list: had Christmas with sister. Check."

The anger was sitting in my stomach all day in a ball of spite. I wanted to scream that my year has been bad enough and I don't need this mockery of my favorite holiday to finish things off. I wanted redemption. I wanted to have a quirky but fun Christmas and be able to say, "Yeah, the year sucked. It was the worst ever. But look, we had a great little Christmas and we're sitting pretty now having turned it around just in time for the new year." I wanted that as my armour, my shield as I go into battle and face off against the unknown that is 2006.

I want to have hope. I want to be my usual optimistic self and think that of course 2006 will be so much better than 2005. I want to plan and dream again. But after the year I've had, I feel unsure and I feel like it's tempting fate too much to dare to be my old self. I can no
longer face the future with my pollyana-ish sunny outlook because I have been sorely beaten this year and to pick myself up and stick out my chin and dare the new year to defeat me is a bit too much for me right now. So I go into battle unarmed and with the barest protection of the smallest of dreams, glimmering somewhere deep inside my heart.

Don't hurt me, 2006. Let me gather myself together and scoop up my strength and find my way back home. Let me regain my optimism and hope and my vitality. Let me survive 2005 with grace and a little bit of dignity and let me meet you back here this time next year. And then you can meet the real me and we'll have a laugh and shake our heads wryly over
2005 and the lessons learned.

And there will be a Christmas. Make no mistake about that.