Alone on Christmas ...
Ever since those damn "Home Alone" movies came out, I've always toyed with the notion of being all alone on Christmas.
It seems like one of those character-defining moments in life, the Christmas you couldn't be with your family because of work or school or finances or even the odd incident of oversleeping in the attic while your extended family of 12 hurriedly makes their way to O'Hare for a holiday in France.
It's a romantic notion in my head. When "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" was released, I could think of no better way to spend a holiday than befriending homeless birdwomen, stealing a performance of "Carol of the Bells" or foiling two dunce criminals by lighting off Roman candles in Central Park. Using the opportunity to make a friend or two in the same predicament or finding your inner strengths. Plus, the allure of guilting your parents for forgetting you on two consecutive Christmases is one no child could pass up.
But in my quarter-life, I'm finding that the staples of my own Christmas are slowly falling away.
For as long as I can remember, my family has always gone to Midnight Mass at St. Charles Church in St. Francis. Even during our years as Episcopalians in my father's church, my mom and I cheated on the Archbishop of Canterbury with the Bishop of Rome one night of the year. In its hey day, St. Charles had standing room only attendance, processionals of banners, a drum group and acolytes in their black cassocks and it was even broadcast on KINI, the reservation media powerhouse during the time.
In later years, the numbers dwindled as those patriarchs and matriarchs who went to St. Francis Mission as children started to die and their children, with no sense of loyalty or even faith to The Church, stopped going and their children felt only a mild nostalgia. It got to the point where three young teenagers interrupted a Midnight Mass about four or five years ago and demanded that the deacon invoke the powers of Christ to heal their brother who had the flu and when he guided them to seats in the front pew, the oldest brother dropped a string of profanities in the Church that I'm sure were never heard within 20 yards of the tabernacle before. We later found out the two older siblings were high as kites and their parents were passed out, drunk, at home.
Still, the greatest memories I have in my collegiate and post-collegiate days were of seeing my high school friends in the choir. Leslie, Toni and Burt and I remembered how to read music while Sister Helen conducted us and Mrs. Lanz, our high school choir teacher, played the organ. The tranquility of singing "Silent Night" in Lakota is a feeling I've not felt in two years now.
Even so, Sister Helen has been reassigned, Leslie is stationed in Alabama and Toni just returned from her two year-long commitment to the Peace Corps in Bulgaria and I am in Reno for an indeterminate amount of time. So change happens.
This will be the second year I will attend Midnight Mass at a non-Lakota Catholic church.
If everything goes as it's scheduled, I will work on Christmas Eve until 8 p.m., get dressed and prepare for services, haul my mother and myself to St. Theresa's on Plumb Lane in Reno and listen to the Spanish accent of the celebrant and look for some feeling of unity amongst our fellow Papists. St. Theresa's is a church that was constructed sometime after the Niobrara conference, so it's round in shape and there are two symmetric aisles on either side, much like St. Thomas More Newman Center in Vermillion. While I'm nowhere near what would be called a "traditional" Catholic, it still bothers me that I will not stand in a single line to receive the Host and will probably spit brick if I hear an acoustic guitar during Mass. I will also miss the opening lines of "Ateyapi, cinca na woniye wakan cage kin on."
So in essence, I am alone on Christmas.
No familiar faces, no Lakota, no drum group leading the processional and no jingle dress dancer holding the Infant Christ.
Although I am not truly alone, my mother -- no doubt -- and I will be a little lost again about without hearing a drum beat to mark the beginning of worship. Despite this, I am not lonely on Christmas. I still have my family, my faith and we're prospering just fine in the tail-end of 2007 with high hopes for 2008.
As long as I have those behind me, I can face any Christmas without my beloved St. Charles, natural pine tree from the valleys of Rosebud, but not seeing Toni in her New York sophisticate finest may be a little hard to do without. Christmas is how you keep it in your heart. It's a season, not one evening where everything has to be perfect. I look forward to Advent and the anticipation that comes with it and no matter where I worship on December 24, it will still be Christmas.
It seems like one of those character-defining moments in life, the Christmas you couldn't be with your family because of work or school or finances or even the odd incident of oversleeping in the attic while your extended family of 12 hurriedly makes their way to O'Hare for a holiday in France.
It's a romantic notion in my head. When "Home Alone 2: Lost in New York" was released, I could think of no better way to spend a holiday than befriending homeless birdwomen, stealing a performance of "Carol of the Bells" or foiling two dunce criminals by lighting off Roman candles in Central Park. Using the opportunity to make a friend or two in the same predicament or finding your inner strengths. Plus, the allure of guilting your parents for forgetting you on two consecutive Christmases is one no child could pass up.
But in my quarter-life, I'm finding that the staples of my own Christmas are slowly falling away.
For as long as I can remember, my family has always gone to Midnight Mass at St. Charles Church in St. Francis. Even during our years as Episcopalians in my father's church, my mom and I cheated on the Archbishop of Canterbury with the Bishop of Rome one night of the year. In its hey day, St. Charles had standing room only attendance, processionals of banners, a drum group and acolytes in their black cassocks and it was even broadcast on KINI, the reservation media powerhouse during the time.
In later years, the numbers dwindled as those patriarchs and matriarchs who went to St. Francis Mission as children started to die and their children, with no sense of loyalty or even faith to The Church, stopped going and their children felt only a mild nostalgia. It got to the point where three young teenagers interrupted a Midnight Mass about four or five years ago and demanded that the deacon invoke the powers of Christ to heal their brother who had the flu and when he guided them to seats in the front pew, the oldest brother dropped a string of profanities in the Church that I'm sure were never heard within 20 yards of the tabernacle before. We later found out the two older siblings were high as kites and their parents were passed out, drunk, at home.
Still, the greatest memories I have in my collegiate and post-collegiate days were of seeing my high school friends in the choir. Leslie, Toni and Burt and I remembered how to read music while Sister Helen conducted us and Mrs. Lanz, our high school choir teacher, played the organ. The tranquility of singing "Silent Night" in Lakota is a feeling I've not felt in two years now.
Even so, Sister Helen has been reassigned, Leslie is stationed in Alabama and Toni just returned from her two year-long commitment to the Peace Corps in Bulgaria and I am in Reno for an indeterminate amount of time. So change happens.
This will be the second year I will attend Midnight Mass at a non-Lakota Catholic church.
If everything goes as it's scheduled, I will work on Christmas Eve until 8 p.m., get dressed and prepare for services, haul my mother and myself to St. Theresa's on Plumb Lane in Reno and listen to the Spanish accent of the celebrant and look for some feeling of unity amongst our fellow Papists. St. Theresa's is a church that was constructed sometime after the Niobrara conference, so it's round in shape and there are two symmetric aisles on either side, much like St. Thomas More Newman Center in Vermillion. While I'm nowhere near what would be called a "traditional" Catholic, it still bothers me that I will not stand in a single line to receive the Host and will probably spit brick if I hear an acoustic guitar during Mass. I will also miss the opening lines of "Ateyapi, cinca na woniye wakan cage kin on."
So in essence, I am alone on Christmas.
No familiar faces, no Lakota, no drum group leading the processional and no jingle dress dancer holding the Infant Christ.
Although I am not truly alone, my mother -- no doubt -- and I will be a little lost again about without hearing a drum beat to mark the beginning of worship. Despite this, I am not lonely on Christmas. I still have my family, my faith and we're prospering just fine in the tail-end of 2007 with high hopes for 2008.
As long as I have those behind me, I can face any Christmas without my beloved St. Charles, natural pine tree from the valleys of Rosebud, but not seeing Toni in her New York sophisticate finest may be a little hard to do without. Christmas is how you keep it in your heart. It's a season, not one evening where everything has to be perfect. I look forward to Advent and the anticipation that comes with it and no matter where I worship on December 24, it will still be Christmas.