It is Christmas Eve morning, and as I putter about my house, I am thinking about many previous Christmases. Christmas is not my favourite holiday. I like Halloween better than Christmas, even though Halloween is but one day, and Christmas is now a month long jumble of shopping, of parties, of decorating, of preparation. Maybe that's why it is not my favourite. It seems overdone. I spent many years searching for the perfect Christmas and never found it. Along the way, I created some traditions for myself and some traditions to share with The Kid and I love those. Each year there are news stories and editorials and conversations about how the true meaning of Christmas is lost and of late, concerns about this season being recognized as Christmas without recognition of all the other religious holidays this time of year. I'm tired of hearing about both. Each one of us has the opportunity to make Christmas (or any other holiday or any other day, for that matter) exactly what we want. Choose to buy into what you want. Believe or not. Celebrate or not. Say Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. It's up to you. You decide.
It's not that I dislike Christmas; I DO like it and parts of it I love. I just no longer search for The Perfect Christmas, setting myself up for unfulfilled expectation of what it is supposed to be, exhausting myself and getting crabby by trying to do things I don't want to do and working at creating The Perfect Christmas. In ruminating through my memories this morning, I remembered some bits and pieces of my childhood Christmases. The more I relaxed and just thought, the more I remembered. That was good for me, because I thought I didn't have many childhood Christmas memories.
Three Christmas memories:
- The year I turned seven, Sister Three ordered my present from either the Sears or Eaton's catalogue. I was pestering her to see what she was ordering and of course, she wouldn't tell me. She carefully put the order form in her purse and set her purse high up on the top of the fridge, where I couldn't reach it. When she left the room, I dragged a chair over and looked. She ordered a little jewelry box that played music and had a teeny ballerina spinning endlessly! I was so excited - my excitement was more about thwarting her attempt to keep this secret from me than about the music box. I'd outsmarted her for sure! I didn't even have the chair moved back to the table when I was filled with an incredible sadness. This was no longer a surprise. I've never since wanted to know what a gift was before opening it.
- The year I turned six, Barbie dolls were THE item to have. And I didn't; there was no Barbie in my life. I wanted a Barbie so badly I ached. My teacher had arranged a gift exchange for our class and we all pulled a name out of a box and brought in small little gifts for one other class member. The teacher had "pulled" the name of a girl whose family may have been the poorest in class. This girl got a Barbie from the teacher! I was so angry; I could tell the name-pulling was rigged and a Barbie doll was far over the fifty cent limit to be spent. My family was likely the second poorest family in town and I had no Barbie doll, but this other girl got one. It was so unfair. On Christmas morning, Sister One was encouraging me to open one particular box first, but that was not the one I wanted to open. There was another gift of a more mysterious shape that I had my eye on. I very clearly remember having a tantrum and throwing the first box, and ripping the pretty paper off the second. Barbie doll clothes! How cruel for my sister to give me Barbie clothes when I didn't have a Barbie. What a mean trick to play on a little girl, who ached for a Barbie for months. The tantrum continued and finally, the first ignored box was opened. There in perfectness, was a Barbie, with short reddish hair, smiling at me. I was so ashamed and filled with guilt for not listening and having a full-blown tantrum that was more suited to a two year old. It took me many more years to truly learn to not be envious of what other people have, to look at who is less fortunate than myself, to be grateful for what I have, and to know the other box may hold my heart's desire, but the beginning of those lessons started with Barbie dolls the year I was six.
- The year I was eight, Brother One came home for Christmas with his new wife. They had gifts for us four younger siblings. They brought in bags and bags of food, including the seldom seen chips and pop. It was wondrous. My gift from Brother One and his wife that year was a Timex watch. I still have it, tucked away in my top dresser drawer. It was my first "adult" gift and the first Christmas I no longer believed in Santa Claus and the first Christmas I understood fully that my Mom could not give her children the things she so wanted to give. There were some very lean times, but we were never really hungry, and older siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins and strangers always made sure we had a gift or maybe two or three to open, and good food on the table. The sharing continued throughout the year; it was a true statement of charity beginning at home. They all helped take care of us, showering us with love, and supporting my Mom in ways physical and emotional she couldn't begin to repay. My Mom was a remarkable woman who lived her life watching her dreams shatter. In spite of that, all her children today know and understand she loved us more than life itself and sacrificed herself and her being in ways we still can't comprehend.
I haven't always had Merry Christmases, with some being shadowed by the alcoholism that is prevalent in my family, and with great stress both as a child and an adult of not having enough money to make The Perfect Christmas, and with struggling to "do it all" to turn Christmas into the carol or card I thought Christmas should be, and with the life-changing Christmas day in 1992 when my Mom died. My enjoyment of Christmas now is centered on time with family and sharing myself. I choose to believe and to make each December 25 the Perfect Christmas, for me.
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Feeding My Soul, Part 247
I target the last Saturday before Christmas as the day to put up the tree and decorations. With The Kid half a world away I did this alone yesterday. I am not putting the tree up this year. I am the foster parent of The Cat - The Cat has been here other Christmases and LOVES decorated trees. I have no energy for the on-going arguments with The Cat, knowing ultimately she would win most of them. It was very strange to do this by myself and to not be putting up the tree. I went through some loneliness and crabbiness and wondered why I should bother. It felt like a chore and for awhile I talked myself into believing I was only doing it for the guests I'll have here on Christmas Eve. I hadn't been pulling things out of boxes for too long though, when I knew I was doing it for myself. And I was doing it for The Kid. I needed here her in spirit. I was rummaging about the boxes of too many Christmas things, deciding what would come out this year, and what would stay hidden away, and my Grinchness began to lift. I had fun and enjoyed the thoughts of other Christmases and spent time reminiscing with myself. Later in the day, I realized that this was yet another reminder for me to make the choice to enjoy what I'm doing and love the little things that can bring me joy. It takes work and conscious decisions to do that. It's always worth it. I sometimes forget that and let myself slip back to taking things for granted and using jade coloured glasses to view my world.
Three things that have recently fed my soul, things I didn't realize were feeding my soul until I stopped and let myself appreciate them:
- I bought a new grater. It is small and very sharp with a cover that clips over the grate and has a padded handle. I liked it in the store and I bought it for more money than I would usually spending on something like a grater. Grating is easier than with my old square metal box that I've had for years, that is the same style (but not the quality) that my Mom had for years. A new grater has made a little tiny slice of my life easier (pun intended) and it feeds my soul to remind myself that I can buy new things just for me, no matter what the reason.
- I went to a meditation class, Tai Chi, two Christmas parties, and out for five meals in the past couple weeks. They were obligations I didn't know how to get out of and events that were tiring me out. It was too much being in public and crowds and social interaction. At the times I'd decided to do these things, I truly wanted to do them. By the time came to go, I wanted to stay home, stay warm, sleep, and just be. I could have done that, but forced myself to attend each of these. Each was soul-feeding in their own way at the time, but I didn't recognize that my soul was being fed not just by the external interactions but by pushing myself out of my winter doldrums.
- A co-worker had a business trip two weeks ago, to provide training for one of our external clients. The first day she was back at work, she was happy and excited that she had gone, that the training had been successful, that she was helping people learn and understand. It fed my soul to see her talk about how she loves to teach and it fed my soul for her to say "It fed my soul". She gets it, and she gets me, to know using that term would mean I understood completely her emotion.
Christmas will be different for me this year with The Kid gone and my house will be different with no tree. I know I will love the time off work, and the meals, laughs, and love shared with family. I know I will also remember the wee things will feed my soul. I will forget that again I'm sure, like forgetting exactly which decorations are carefully and lovingly packed away each year. I need to remember to find those soul-feeding moments. They are always there. Old ones to reflect upon, taking them out of the storage spaces in my brain and dusting them to carefully place them in my heart; and new ones that may not seem to be much more than a new grater that catches my eye but turns into a moment that makes my life easier.
Three things that have recently fed my soul, things I didn't realize were feeding my soul until I stopped and let myself appreciate them:
- I bought a new grater. It is small and very sharp with a cover that clips over the grate and has a padded handle. I liked it in the store and I bought it for more money than I would usually spending on something like a grater. Grating is easier than with my old square metal box that I've had for years, that is the same style (but not the quality) that my Mom had for years. A new grater has made a little tiny slice of my life easier (pun intended) and it feeds my soul to remind myself that I can buy new things just for me, no matter what the reason.
- I went to a meditation class, Tai Chi, two Christmas parties, and out for five meals in the past couple weeks. They were obligations I didn't know how to get out of and events that were tiring me out. It was too much being in public and crowds and social interaction. At the times I'd decided to do these things, I truly wanted to do them. By the time came to go, I wanted to stay home, stay warm, sleep, and just be. I could have done that, but forced myself to attend each of these. Each was soul-feeding in their own way at the time, but I didn't recognize that my soul was being fed not just by the external interactions but by pushing myself out of my winter doldrums.
- A co-worker had a business trip two weeks ago, to provide training for one of our external clients. The first day she was back at work, she was happy and excited that she had gone, that the training had been successful, that she was helping people learn and understand. It fed my soul to see her talk about how she loves to teach and it fed my soul for her to say "It fed my soul". She gets it, and she gets me, to know using that term would mean I understood completely her emotion.
Christmas will be different for me this year with The Kid gone and my house will be different with no tree. I know I will love the time off work, and the meals, laughs, and love shared with family. I know I will also remember the wee things will feed my soul. I will forget that again I'm sure, like forgetting exactly which decorations are carefully and lovingly packed away each year. I need to remember to find those soul-feeding moments. They are always there. Old ones to reflect upon, taking them out of the storage spaces in my brain and dusting them to carefully place them in my heart; and new ones that may not seem to be much more than a new grater that catches my eye but turns into a moment that makes my life easier.
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