Where Are You Christmas?
I've been thinking about Christmas memories today. I think in my mind I am trying to resolve the conflict within myself between these moments I recall from the past, while seeing them through the new lens of how I view my family now. Or, if I should be put more accurately, seeing things through a lens of reality, with my rose-tinted glasses removed.
Can my past memories exist in this new world where I understand now the toxic atmosphere that permeated my childhood and family life?
Oddly enough, several of the memories I recall quite often are ones in which I was alone. Even as a young child I was observing and analyzing the season from my own perspective. In a way, it only seems to confirm this epiphany I've had about being this sort of outsider, scapegoat, "forgotten child" or whatever my role was based on the information I've taken in.
One memory I have quite often was a Christmas eve in what I think was the mid to late 1980s, when I was still in grade school. One of the most exciting traditions on Christmas eve for me was putting out the luminaria candles. These were kits purchased at the local church where I went to grade school. Basically brown paper bags, white candles and sand. You filled the bags with enough sand to weight them down and also to support the candle. You'd insert said candle in the bag and then light it, lining your driveway and sidewalk out front with them to "light the way" for Jesus, or something like that.
Even as a child, I found a wonder and beauty in this tradition. When we would be driving home from Christmas eve mass, either with my grandmother in the car or having dropped her off for my aunt to be taking to her house, we would see houses where people already had theirs outside. It was just this simple little thing, but I was so excited to participate in it. And this one year, I just remember our house was the most lit up with lights it had ever been. It had snowed, so I was placing the candles in the shoveled off perimeter of the driveway and around onto the sidewalk under the glow of thousands of lights and blow molds.
I do not know why this image sticks with me in my head, but I see it crystal clear. There was a wooden fence at the end of the driveway, painted black and I am right there by one of the posts trying to get a candle lit. And I accidentally set the bag on fire and in trying to blow the flames out, I blew too hard and the melted wax sprayed up onto my glasses. Such an odd memory.
There was another Christmas, I think when I was a few years younger, where I distinctly recall sitting in the darkened front room on the couch, just observing the flocked artificial Christmas tree. The glow of the outside lights permeating the white sheers covering the windows. My mother was out in the kitchen, I think preparing the turkey or making the stuffing for the next day. The distinct smell of those holiday foods in the air. I felt that "magic" of the season in that moment. I was slightly older than the age of Santa Claus beliefs and starting to understand the nostalgia of the holiday... and I just knew in that moment to sit there and take it in.
As a younger child I recall laying in the very back of my mom's giant, green Plymouth station wagon on the drive home from church another Christmas eve night. It had to have been when my brother and sister were still young enough to have also been there. I was peering out the slanted back window of the tailgate at the stars, searching out "the Christmas star". And even though I know I was young, I was contemplating the possibilities of seeing that star up there that could have been the same one spotted thousands of years before.
There was another Christmas, when I was 18. It was the first one after getting my Jeep and having my own transportation for the first time. Exroommate and I went over to this girl Tracy's house we were friends with to exchange gifts. I'd never left the house on Christmas eve before when it wasn't with my parents. We didn't hang out with her too long, but she had gotten me a Lava Lamp. The first of many I'd eventually own. It was snowy outside. Christmas lights were glowing everywhere. I do believe I was playing the cassette of 'A Very Special Christmas' in the Jeep as we drove there and back, as well as Duran Duran's 'Wedding Album'. I recall the glow of the streetlights and seeing the snow blowing through the illumination.
I am not intentionally *not* mentioning memories of family, or friends. I just have very clear, distinct memories of all these personal moments where it just often seemed I was alone, or contemplating things in my own mind, versus sharing an experience with someone. I do remember after turning 21 spending many Christmas eves at bars. It felt exciting in its own way to be out and about on Christmas eve. I remember very clearly when I still lived with my parents, driving to the city in my white Cavalier for one, while listening to NSYNC's Christmas album that had just come out that year.
The funny thing is, a decade later, I would be creating even more of these solitary memories for myself. Once I had a vehicle again, I stopped going to my folks on Christmas eve. It had become too much of a hassle to bring all three cats with and I really didn't mind spending the night by myself, as most of my friends at the time had their own things to do. So I started another tradition of sorts. I would go get dinner at Melrose the first few years, specifically to see Addy and bring her some Christmas gifts. Then after I'd eat, I would go walk around the neighborhoods and look at people's Christmas decorations, with holiday playlists playing in my headphones.
In my final years in the city I lived up north in Edgewater, so I would either walk all the way home from Melrose or, in the case of the final two years, I would go to the McDonalds on Clark St. because Addy had either already left Chicago or was not working. I really did not mind it, and was quite excited to do my routine once the evening came. I loved to people watch while eating, and then to walk around and people watch from the sidewalk.
Yes, it was rather voyeuristic in some sense, as I'd be watching Christmas parties and gatherings through people's windows... from the sidewalk of course. Yet, I found it so exciting. Seeing how other people lived and celebrated the day. Seeing their decorations. With the sounds of Christmas music in my ears and the crunching of ice and snow beneath my feet, if it had happened to snow before that night. Some houses were darkened, with no one home, except the glow of a tree.
I loved these solitary moments. I loved observing the world. One year I remember walking past the windows of this Chinese restaurant and seeing a guy eating alone in there I'd known from online from years before, and had actually taken to a play once about Jason and the Argonauts. He looked at me knowingly, but we hadn't talked in years so I just kept walking. I'm not sure if he would have wanted the company or not.
There was this one house on the west side of Ashland I'd always go past. It was this tiny house of sorts on a corner, built in this rectangular, modern style, with massive, full length front windows down and up stairs in front. I rarely ever saw the two guys who lived there home, but their tree was always glowing in the silent house on those Christmas eve nights when I'd walk by.
I do miss these kind of moments, if there's anything about the city I do miss. Where we live now, there's not much walkability for this old tradition of mine. This is why I'd love to visit New Orleans for Christmas some day. Just to go walking around the Quarter on Christmas eve and people watch.
After the Sparrow and I met, we would go driving around looking at Christmas lights, though it was not a Christmas eve thing. I am not sure we really have a tradition yet. His mom was here the first year we lived in this house, and we had people stop by. It's where I met some of his friends for the first time. I rather liked it. It feels nice to have people in your home on Christmas eve. I don't even remember what we did last year. With Apollo being sick, we were probably just here, dreading going to my mom's and seeing my sister.
I'd like for us to have some traditions, but the specter of my family still looms large. And with a niece on the way, I feel like Christmas is going to become more about her, and if they aren't going down to Georgia to spend Christmas with my in-laws, then the in-laws may well be coming up here.
The past two Christmases have not been great. Last year the drama of my family and Apollo's health really just squashed the "magic". This year we could not even get halfway decorated before my family ruined it again. Then work has just been a nightmare, beating what little motivation I had left out of me. I don't like to force meaning out of anything these days, and if the "spirit" isn't there, it's simply not going to be there. I don't know if or when it will even return. It seems life is intent on poisoning things that bring any level of joy or happiness again... an attitude I maintained for many years in the late 2000s and 2010s, but I thought I had grown past until recently.
I don't *need* Christmas to *be* something. I am just looking to enjoy whatever it is, and to seek out whatever it means to me. And that meaning has changed drastically over the decades. From the blatant materialism early on, to my utter disillusionment with the holiday in my late 20s, a resurgence in my 30s as I tried to create this idea of family and spirit that was not there in many respects.
I do think in recent years the Sparrow and I have somewhat overdone things. We buy way too much crap when it comes to decorations, and it sometimes feels like when we do try to go all out there are few people over to see it. The holidays always get busy and time runs out. The cats put a wrench in things too, just by being cats and destroying the tree. The toxic tentacles of my family reach out year after year, trying to pull me back in, with no consideration that I have my own family now and that we may want to have a separate life and traditions.
And there's work, which has always been present and suffocating, yet I look back and can recall few, if any, of the moments when it tried to ruin past holidays... well, except for that one New Year's Eve I had to work at that staffing company client that moved locations. I think they dropped our services shortly after that, not liking the bill for double-time they got for my hours that day.
I wanted this to be more about my personal memories about the day. And the private moments I remember. But, I do have other memories that are trying to creep in now. Negative ones revolving around my family. Not only ones that made me angry, but ones that make me very sad, and leave me feeling very empty.
I will say again, those Christmas eves I was alone walking the streets of the city, I did not feel lonely or that I was missing out on anything. I felt very excited to be observing the world. I felt excited to see those decorations. To turn each corner and see houses down the block lit up. Seeing people parking their cars and going into doorways with packages. People in lit up dining rooms, at dinner tables, in Christmas sweaters and Santa hats.
Then I think of the excess that was waiting at my parents house. The gross over-indulgence of gifts given with no meaning. The awkwardness of sitting at a table with three other people, where there was either nothing to say at all, or my attempts to talk cut-off because they did not want to hear anything I had to say. Shoving bag after box after bag of gifts into my vehicle, not even being able to take it all home in one trip. And having to make a dozen trips up and down the stairs once I got home to unload it all from my double-parked vehicle.
It always felt good to come home. I do remember that.
I'm diverging even farther now from the point. As I realize these past several months have just felt overly-busy and annoying. Obligations overtaking hobbies and enjoyment. The charitable things I was doing earlier in the year having fallen to the wayside by the pressure of work and personal dramas. When is my chance to quietly enjoy life?
Sure, I may be doing that right now, taking this moment to write. But I can feel the anxiety of work lurking in the back of my brain. I feel the dread of my family and what will be happening this December 25th. There is so much negativity currently, beating me down.
In these things, I've not learned my lesson yet, so I am doomed to keep repeating them.
Can my past memories exist in this new world where I understand now the toxic atmosphere that permeated my childhood and family life?
Oddly enough, several of the memories I recall quite often are ones in which I was alone. Even as a young child I was observing and analyzing the season from my own perspective. In a way, it only seems to confirm this epiphany I've had about being this sort of outsider, scapegoat, "forgotten child" or whatever my role was based on the information I've taken in.
One memory I have quite often was a Christmas eve in what I think was the mid to late 1980s, when I was still in grade school. One of the most exciting traditions on Christmas eve for me was putting out the luminaria candles. These were kits purchased at the local church where I went to grade school. Basically brown paper bags, white candles and sand. You filled the bags with enough sand to weight them down and also to support the candle. You'd insert said candle in the bag and then light it, lining your driveway and sidewalk out front with them to "light the way" for Jesus, or something like that.
Even as a child, I found a wonder and beauty in this tradition. When we would be driving home from Christmas eve mass, either with my grandmother in the car or having dropped her off for my aunt to be taking to her house, we would see houses where people already had theirs outside. It was just this simple little thing, but I was so excited to participate in it. And this one year, I just remember our house was the most lit up with lights it had ever been. It had snowed, so I was placing the candles in the shoveled off perimeter of the driveway and around onto the sidewalk under the glow of thousands of lights and blow molds.
I do not know why this image sticks with me in my head, but I see it crystal clear. There was a wooden fence at the end of the driveway, painted black and I am right there by one of the posts trying to get a candle lit. And I accidentally set the bag on fire and in trying to blow the flames out, I blew too hard and the melted wax sprayed up onto my glasses. Such an odd memory.
There was another Christmas, I think when I was a few years younger, where I distinctly recall sitting in the darkened front room on the couch, just observing the flocked artificial Christmas tree. The glow of the outside lights permeating the white sheers covering the windows. My mother was out in the kitchen, I think preparing the turkey or making the stuffing for the next day. The distinct smell of those holiday foods in the air. I felt that "magic" of the season in that moment. I was slightly older than the age of Santa Claus beliefs and starting to understand the nostalgia of the holiday... and I just knew in that moment to sit there and take it in.
As a younger child I recall laying in the very back of my mom's giant, green Plymouth station wagon on the drive home from church another Christmas eve night. It had to have been when my brother and sister were still young enough to have also been there. I was peering out the slanted back window of the tailgate at the stars, searching out "the Christmas star". And even though I know I was young, I was contemplating the possibilities of seeing that star up there that could have been the same one spotted thousands of years before.
There was another Christmas, when I was 18. It was the first one after getting my Jeep and having my own transportation for the first time. Exroommate and I went over to this girl Tracy's house we were friends with to exchange gifts. I'd never left the house on Christmas eve before when it wasn't with my parents. We didn't hang out with her too long, but she had gotten me a Lava Lamp. The first of many I'd eventually own. It was snowy outside. Christmas lights were glowing everywhere. I do believe I was playing the cassette of 'A Very Special Christmas' in the Jeep as we drove there and back, as well as Duran Duran's 'Wedding Album'. I recall the glow of the streetlights and seeing the snow blowing through the illumination.
I am not intentionally *not* mentioning memories of family, or friends. I just have very clear, distinct memories of all these personal moments where it just often seemed I was alone, or contemplating things in my own mind, versus sharing an experience with someone. I do remember after turning 21 spending many Christmas eves at bars. It felt exciting in its own way to be out and about on Christmas eve. I remember very clearly when I still lived with my parents, driving to the city in my white Cavalier for one, while listening to NSYNC's Christmas album that had just come out that year.
The funny thing is, a decade later, I would be creating even more of these solitary memories for myself. Once I had a vehicle again, I stopped going to my folks on Christmas eve. It had become too much of a hassle to bring all three cats with and I really didn't mind spending the night by myself, as most of my friends at the time had their own things to do. So I started another tradition of sorts. I would go get dinner at Melrose the first few years, specifically to see Addy and bring her some Christmas gifts. Then after I'd eat, I would go walk around the neighborhoods and look at people's Christmas decorations, with holiday playlists playing in my headphones.
In my final years in the city I lived up north in Edgewater, so I would either walk all the way home from Melrose or, in the case of the final two years, I would go to the McDonalds on Clark St. because Addy had either already left Chicago or was not working. I really did not mind it, and was quite excited to do my routine once the evening came. I loved to people watch while eating, and then to walk around and people watch from the sidewalk.
Yes, it was rather voyeuristic in some sense, as I'd be watching Christmas parties and gatherings through people's windows... from the sidewalk of course. Yet, I found it so exciting. Seeing how other people lived and celebrated the day. Seeing their decorations. With the sounds of Christmas music in my ears and the crunching of ice and snow beneath my feet, if it had happened to snow before that night. Some houses were darkened, with no one home, except the glow of a tree.
I loved these solitary moments. I loved observing the world. One year I remember walking past the windows of this Chinese restaurant and seeing a guy eating alone in there I'd known from online from years before, and had actually taken to a play once about Jason and the Argonauts. He looked at me knowingly, but we hadn't talked in years so I just kept walking. I'm not sure if he would have wanted the company or not.
There was this one house on the west side of Ashland I'd always go past. It was this tiny house of sorts on a corner, built in this rectangular, modern style, with massive, full length front windows down and up stairs in front. I rarely ever saw the two guys who lived there home, but their tree was always glowing in the silent house on those Christmas eve nights when I'd walk by.
I do miss these kind of moments, if there's anything about the city I do miss. Where we live now, there's not much walkability for this old tradition of mine. This is why I'd love to visit New Orleans for Christmas some day. Just to go walking around the Quarter on Christmas eve and people watch.
After the Sparrow and I met, we would go driving around looking at Christmas lights, though it was not a Christmas eve thing. I am not sure we really have a tradition yet. His mom was here the first year we lived in this house, and we had people stop by. It's where I met some of his friends for the first time. I rather liked it. It feels nice to have people in your home on Christmas eve. I don't even remember what we did last year. With Apollo being sick, we were probably just here, dreading going to my mom's and seeing my sister.
I'd like for us to have some traditions, but the specter of my family still looms large. And with a niece on the way, I feel like Christmas is going to become more about her, and if they aren't going down to Georgia to spend Christmas with my in-laws, then the in-laws may well be coming up here.
The past two Christmases have not been great. Last year the drama of my family and Apollo's health really just squashed the "magic". This year we could not even get halfway decorated before my family ruined it again. Then work has just been a nightmare, beating what little motivation I had left out of me. I don't like to force meaning out of anything these days, and if the "spirit" isn't there, it's simply not going to be there. I don't know if or when it will even return. It seems life is intent on poisoning things that bring any level of joy or happiness again... an attitude I maintained for many years in the late 2000s and 2010s, but I thought I had grown past until recently.
I don't *need* Christmas to *be* something. I am just looking to enjoy whatever it is, and to seek out whatever it means to me. And that meaning has changed drastically over the decades. From the blatant materialism early on, to my utter disillusionment with the holiday in my late 20s, a resurgence in my 30s as I tried to create this idea of family and spirit that was not there in many respects.
I do think in recent years the Sparrow and I have somewhat overdone things. We buy way too much crap when it comes to decorations, and it sometimes feels like when we do try to go all out there are few people over to see it. The holidays always get busy and time runs out. The cats put a wrench in things too, just by being cats and destroying the tree. The toxic tentacles of my family reach out year after year, trying to pull me back in, with no consideration that I have my own family now and that we may want to have a separate life and traditions.
And there's work, which has always been present and suffocating, yet I look back and can recall few, if any, of the moments when it tried to ruin past holidays... well, except for that one New Year's Eve I had to work at that staffing company client that moved locations. I think they dropped our services shortly after that, not liking the bill for double-time they got for my hours that day.
I wanted this to be more about my personal memories about the day. And the private moments I remember. But, I do have other memories that are trying to creep in now. Negative ones revolving around my family. Not only ones that made me angry, but ones that make me very sad, and leave me feeling very empty.
I will say again, those Christmas eves I was alone walking the streets of the city, I did not feel lonely or that I was missing out on anything. I felt very excited to be observing the world. I felt excited to see those decorations. To turn each corner and see houses down the block lit up. Seeing people parking their cars and going into doorways with packages. People in lit up dining rooms, at dinner tables, in Christmas sweaters and Santa hats.
Then I think of the excess that was waiting at my parents house. The gross over-indulgence of gifts given with no meaning. The awkwardness of sitting at a table with three other people, where there was either nothing to say at all, or my attempts to talk cut-off because they did not want to hear anything I had to say. Shoving bag after box after bag of gifts into my vehicle, not even being able to take it all home in one trip. And having to make a dozen trips up and down the stairs once I got home to unload it all from my double-parked vehicle.
It always felt good to come home. I do remember that.
I'm diverging even farther now from the point. As I realize these past several months have just felt overly-busy and annoying. Obligations overtaking hobbies and enjoyment. The charitable things I was doing earlier in the year having fallen to the wayside by the pressure of work and personal dramas. When is my chance to quietly enjoy life?
Sure, I may be doing that right now, taking this moment to write. But I can feel the anxiety of work lurking in the back of my brain. I feel the dread of my family and what will be happening this December 25th. There is so much negativity currently, beating me down.
In these things, I've not learned my lesson yet, so I am doomed to keep repeating them.