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When I am eleven, my dad is living in Germany. My mom, attempting a return to normalcy, makes the trek out to the Christmas tree farm. I go with her, not out of love or respect for tradition but because she bribes me with a sundae from McDonalds. We manage to find a tree and cut it down and attach it to the roof of the car by ourselves - we are women, hear us roar. That night after we have screwed the tree into the stand and set it up in the family room and decorated it with years' worth of accumulated trinkets, the tree falls over onto the piano.
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I remember Christmas dinner at my aunt's house. My mom's family is back east so we spend every holiday dinner at my dad's sister's house, avoiding her abusive husband and
dodging our maniacal cousin. We eat piles of ambrosia salad - the night's only redeeming quality and my first memory of emotional eating. When I am 20 my cousin dies and we start eating Christmas dinner at my parents' house, immediate family only.
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It's a tired subject, but it seems that Christmas hits the stores earlier than the year before. Hallowe'en isn't over yet but Christmas paraphernalia already runs rampant and I can feel my Christmas Funk beginning. I don't know how to prevent it.
The tree fell on the piano? This story has something in common with one of my beloved holiday memories as a child. A ceramic rooster fell in the pumpkin pie (from on top of the fridge) splattering pumpkin all over the kitchen and dining room... leaving its orange traces in places that would be found throughout the next ten years in unsuspecting places.
ReplyDeleteCollect Grinch stuff and embrace your inner bah humbug-ian? That's what I do, that way it's more an annoyance than a funk!
ReplyDeleteI've been doing it so long that I can even do gingerbread houses now and actually LIKE IT. Scary stuff.
This is unrelated to Christmas, but it is marginally related to ambrosia salad, and it always makes me smile.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6UWR0kSFcE
Twins. I love a lot of things about Christmas but feel melancholy at the same time. Sigh.
ReplyDeleteStart a new tradition with Shawn.
ReplyDeleteI hate that they start Christmas a gazillion months before it even arrives. Makes me annoyed with it rather than enjoy it.
i'm with marie - can you ignore the rest of your family now that you have your own family, and start happy better traditions with shawn?
ReplyDeletei HATE xmas music by the time christmas actually comes around. passionate hatred.
I hate it. I don't always celebrate Christmas-that being said, I don't always participate in giving or receiving gifts. I will always have dinner with my family or Sam's family, because I like seeing them. I think it's important to spend time with them (my family is scattered around, and Sam's dad has Parkinson's-who knows how long he'll be around??)
ReplyDeleteI avoid the stores and stuff as much as possible, turn off the radio if carols come on, stuff like that.
I love the winter holidays, even though my family always seems to be in the middle of some stupid ass argument from October through January. Somehow I am able to ignore them and enjoy everything else. I recommend planning a spring vacation to get you through it.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this is your year to start having Christmas at home. With Shawn. And the puppies. Might not make your immediate family all that happy. But, at least you'd avoid some of the drama?
ReplyDeleteWe all think the holidays are supposed to be this magical time of year. The reality is, it brings financial and emotional stress to lots of people. Maybe we should all agree to take a vacation from the holidays every other year. Stores and news media included.
I'm with Marie and Alice. Start a new Christmas tradition.
ReplyDeleteMy parents had a huge "fuck you" moment with their families when my sisters and I were little. Christmas always meant drama. And they couldn't tolerate it anymore.
So they started their own thing and, to this day, we have Christmas day with just the nuclear family. My parents, my sisters and our partners. Nothing more, nothing less.
There's nothing wrong with turning inward and just surrounding yourself with what really makes you happy, even if it is Christmas and there is societal pressure to have a huge extended family bash.
After all, not to be maudlin, but the Christmas spirit is about remembering your soul and your passion and the things that complete you. Do your own thing and focus on your partner and the life you've built with each other.
Holidays have always been about drama in my family. Will Dad throw a scene? Will Mom cry? Particularly the year my parents split up between Thanksgiving and Christmas, when everyone was also sick, and I moved to Colorado on January 2, glad to get away from it all. Since my dad's been out of the picture, holiday drama has varied from Mom's New Boyfriend Means I Cook (beef)(which I don't eat) Lasagne Because She's Too Busy Acting 15 to Two Sisters Engaged At The Same Time OMGUSuck to YOU MUST SPEND 6 FULL DAYS IN OUR HOUSE IN ORDER TO SPEND ANY TIME WITH YOUR BROTHER WHO LIVES IN LATVIA.
ReplyDeleteNow every year we trade holidays (Thanksgiving with Dan's family and xmas with mine, then the next year it switches) and it's expensive and a huge pain in the ass. I was hoping to be a) living in CA and b) pregnant by now so we would have an excuse to say We're Doing Our Own Thing This Year, If You Wanna See Us, Come Visit. Maybe next year.
Good luck getting through it all. Can you tell I'm a little bitter about it because all the family in question reads my blog and I can't write about it?
Oh, this post made me sad. Come down here and have Christmas with us this year! If our kitchen is done, Nick and I are going to host Christmas (and have our own tree) for the first time ever.
ReplyDelete*hug*
ReplyDeleteWe have a huge, ritualistic family fight every year we go to look for a tree. it's dysfunctional, annoying, horrible, and always.. feels like home. Sometimes the tradition is in the lack thereof... it's in the messed -up-ed--ness. xo
HUGS! Christmas will be awesome again for you someday. Maybe even this year!
ReplyDeleteMy immediate family is awesome. You should come join us :) Now my in-laws are crazy, and I'm already dreading the "where are you two going for the holidays" drama. Life was so much easier when they lived in Florida.
ReplyDeleteMaybe this Christmas our newish brother-in-law won't pitch a hissy fit and bitch you out over the conversation topic 'which is cuter, babies or puppies' and then we can all have a lovely christmas. or maybe we can just go to portland (and by 'we' i do just me you and me and our boys).
ReplyDelete