Now that I live away from home, Christmas is no longer a holiday that I begin and end with my family. It is a holiday that I join in on, a holiday that is left to childhood memories and feelings of the past. I really feel like that, until I am married and have my own family to celebrate the holidays with, Christmas has become simply a time to "remember when" and just spend time with the family I have.
Two memories dominate my mind when December decides to show her chilly face in my life. First, there's the memory that makes me look forward to Christmas. The memory of growing up in Tehachapi. The memory that reminds me of how Christmas feels. This one consists of decorations on the house, the snow covering our 2 1/2 acres of land shimmering in the moonlight, my sister and I pulling our sleds up a hill only to ride back down it again, calling after our dog who had decided to hide in the snow from us, making cat huts (instead of snowmen) out of snow for my cats (who loved them, by the way, and would hide in them as soon as we put an old towel inside that they could lie down on), hot chocolate, a roaring fire, a giant Christmas tree with presents stacked underneath it, listening to the sound of laughter as I watched my family open presents, the smell of the pancakes my mom would make every Christmas morning...
The Christmas of my childhood.
Then, there's that memory that always ruins my Christmas, that memory that makes me despise this time of year more than anything else. You probably guessed it. It's the memory of my father and the legacy that he left behind when he decided to thrash his way out of his family's life. Now, most people might be mad at me for not just saying "screw him!" and throwing this memory out, but, when it's been so deeply ingrained in my mind, it's hard to remember Christmas without remembering him. Without remembering how much he hated the holiday. Without remembering how he moaned and groaned about getting the Christmas tree every year because "it wasn't Christian" and "it's too much trouble" and "that's not what Christmas was all about." Without remembering how, on Christmas day after my sister and I had opened up all of our presents, he would ask us to give him half of the presents that we had recieved to give to the homeless shelter. Without remembering him getting mad at us when we asked him why he didn't just ask us to do that before we opened the presents, before we had seen what they had given us. Without remembering closed blinds and hiding in bedrooms and going out to see a movie with my mom and sister just so we could get the hell away from him sitting at home, being an absolute terror.
I once gave my father a Grinch tie as a Christmas gift and a joke. Now, years later, I wonder if I was predicting the future.
So, as I end finals this week and head from my university to my mom's house for Christmas, I open my book of memories and try to flip backwards through all the bad memories to my childhood in Tehachapi, when all I thought about was stockings and snow and servings of bacon, fresh from the skillet.
What memories do you carry with you at this time of year?
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