Oh Christmas

I still don't really like you, but maybe not as much as I expected.

(Winter Village Circa 2002)

Christmas has come and gone (thankfully). Good riddance. I know, I know. How un-American, what kind of jerk begins a post decrying the most joyous holiday of them all? I am and I do. I am on the side of Grinch and pre-ghost Scrooge. I side with the Abominable Snowman before his teeth were stolen and the magician who stole Frosty’s hat. I am prepared for the inevitable disappointed shakes of the head. Bring them on. But, well, there is a but in my proclamation, but I will save it for the end of this post.

It is New Year’s Eve when I start writing this and the house is quiet, The dogs are snuggled in my bed —they burrow under the blankets when the temperatures are (California) cold. Visions of sugar plums are far from my head. I turn on Antiques Roadshow reruns, mostly for noise and to distract from the evening and the silence, refusing to watch a countdown, a Bravo host and his news anchor friend banter (forced sober or not), or a silly has-been singer or band marking the passage of the calendar year. Yet it memorable, since it marks the end of the holiday season, my first without Liz. And between you and me, I couldn’t see it end quickly enough.

“But it is the holidays,” you say.

“I know,” I reply. “But I don’t like the holidays, and this year has basically sucked.”

Not the most artistic or descriptive sentence, but I don’t think I will remember 2024 with joy. It started crappy, with Liz asleep by 7:00 PM because of the effects of her chemotherapy and it is ending with intentional solitude. And f*ck the fireworks. You are a poor copy of July 4th, and I refuse to assign any joy to the unscripted and erratic explosions. But this post isn’t about today, or 2024, but is rather my chance to voice my criticism of Christmas, America’s favorite holiday —possibly the western world’s favorite day. A day that fuels shopping frenzies, economies, and brings discordant families together, swelling stomachs with bland and mostly terrible food —if marshmallows are the best part of a dish (sweet potatoes) you know that it is pretty bad. Decorations start appearing in November and last through January, before being unceremoniously stuffed into cardboard and plastic boxes, shoved into attics and corners for another ten or eleven months. This is a holiday that has generated more related or theme songs than any other celebration, and we force-feed the lyrics on children before they know their home address. Everyone loves Christmas, even my Jewish friends don’t seem to harbor any hatred of the secular day …except for me.

The funny thing is that by most metrics I should love this damn holiday. I am a sentimental person by nature. I romanticize the past and become emotionally attached to people and things. I even have a hard time depositing anything in the trash that could have any meaning, or be reused in any possible way. (I have written about this predilection before: . And you would not be wrong to assume that my sentimentality aligns with Christmas, where people in the 21st century still sing about a long dead German king and riding in a horse drawn sleigh —I guarantee no generation X, Y, or Z member has ever ridden in a horse-drawn sleigh outside of an artificial Instagram photoshoot. My sentimentality also aligns with the unpacking of ornaments that have been collected and sometimes marked to remind family and strangers of the year of purchase or creation. For years I was fully in, I loved Christmas, even putting up a miniature tree in my bedroom through my late High School years, and even once snuck into a friend’s apartment to erect a tree when they didn’t have one, “just to be nice”. But sometime in the early 90s something changed. In part it was because Liz and I began our relationship and there was a natural push and pull between spending an appropriate amount of time with each of our families, which is only natural when two families with strong traditions and personalities trying to monopolize the limited precious holiday dates —there is most certainly a hierarchy between Eve and Day. I really didn’t like fighting about whose family was more important or the (sometimes) passive-aggressive expression of disappointment by parents for our "refusing” to bring the family back together “one last time”. To solve this conundrum, we found ourselves reaching a tenuous detente, often spending the holiday just the two of us. If it was just me and Liz, at our house, parents and family could still complain, but the culprit was my selfishness and not an intended or deliberate slight.

In our 32 years together, we spent most of our Christmases together, without a visit to either of our families, a forced isolation usually accompanied by my over consumption of alcohol. Candidly, if I were visited by the ghost of Christmas Past (at least pre-2012) I would have only a fuzzy memory of the happenings, which would perplex a Dickensian spirit —”Is that what I did,” I would say, “wow, I don’t remember doing that… or that…well maybe that.””That was from It’s a Wonderful Life.””Oh, yeah, right.” I also do not have many photographs of Christmas past, since before 2017 we didn't usually have children visiting and apart from photos documenting Liz’ Winter Village, I cannot think of any photos or videos of presents being opened, or our private celebrations. It was just the two of us and since we had a tradition of buying gifts for each other on most non-holiday days, Christmas usually consisted of a few small gifts that were not exactly a surprise, and maybe one or two special gifts I managed to purchase without Liz’ knowledge. If my consumption was not prohibitive, I might make a special meal, or just a meal, depending upon our then-finances. My point is that Christmas soon became just a day, albeit a non-work day, but the actual holiday became less and less important. The magic of the day eroded, even if the number and size of the house, yard and tree decorations increased. Christmas was no longer magical, it became pedestrian, just a pain in the butt —an expensive pain in the butt, but not the day celebrated in movies, Hallmark television specials, or the minds of sleeping children.

The past few Christmases have been rough. Christmas 2022 was very sad, when on the Eve our last chihuahua died of heart disease complications next to our bed. 2023 was after Liz’ chemotherapy regimen began and the pain and fear limited our activities. She also proclaimed that we would not be putting up our outside decorations, which I did not object to, but the interior of the house still looked like Christmas threw up all over our living room. And this year, well, you can guess why I was dreading this year. I only erected our non-traditional tree, three wreaths, and one lighted topiary, which were a small selection of Liz’ favorite decorations. The pillows and swags, quilts and miniature santas remained in the barn. The lights and the art, snowflake holiday card holders remain packed away in boxes, never seeing the light of December days. I was just not feeling it and refused to buy in this year.

But, and this is a hard right-turn, but this year I decided to spend the holiday with my chosen niece and her two kids, aged eight and ten in my family cabin. I arrived a few hours before them and decided that my annoyance with the holiday should give way to a celebration for the kids, which may be the true meaning of the holiday. I hung lights, wrapped the banister with ribbon and put up a rather sad little artificial tree, the epitome of a Charlie Brown tree. Wrapped gifts found their way below the tree and there were even treats left out for Santa (miniature cake bites instead of cookies and almond creamer instead of milk.) In true holiday fashion, the eight year old was having a hard time remaining on Santa’s good list, and although there were threats of presents being withheld, somehow we still managed to open late on Christmas Eve.

I wanted to hate this Christmas. I wanted it to be a reflection of my inner turmoil and my internal angst over the absence of my friend, my Liz, but if I am honest, I enjoyed myself. I enjoyed decorating for the kids and I enjoyed being able to spoil the kids. I even enjoyed a chaotic Christmas Day which was necessitated by the parenting agreement with father of my chosen niece’s children, requiring nine hours in the car taking them to his house and then returning to the cabin. The time on the road was an annoyance and tiring, but I also spent more solo hours with my c

hosen niece than we have ever spent. There was a connection formed on the day, that only grew over the following days. As we hugged when we left the cabin a few days later, I loved her more than ever before, and I realized I am not truly alone.

I still don’t really like Christmas and I am annoyed that I am constantly being told that I have to celebrate with family and eggnog, but I also know that I made it through my first Christmas without Liz, with the help of a beautiful young lady and two (usually) wonderful kids. Maybe not all Christmases suck.

But don’t get me started on New Years.