It's amazing how things can be so normal and yet strange at the same time. This past weekend the family baked cookies as we always do, using recipes from the 1950s that all basically start with "Take a pound of butter..." Kind of like Paula Deen's recipes except that we only bake these once a year so we don't get diabetes. I have a Christmas tree, although a small one, for the first time in nine years in the city needing that extra comfort of pine smell and colorful lights.
Yet this is the first Christmas without my great-aunt or my aunt who died within weeks of each other last year right before Christmas (as in, my aunt passed away on the 23rd, my great-aunt on the 10th). I hate to dwell on the past, but I'm so good at it, that I've managed to dredge up those feelings again.
I remember Christmas as a happy time in the past, time to take a break particularly since my parents were teachers so we could all spend time together. Time to decorate the tree, put out the wooden carolers we had, light the luminaries and drive through ours and other towns to see the light shows others put on. We had the cookie baking, and caroling if we wanted in the main square of town. In short, we mostly had movie-style Christmases and lives in many ways while we were growing up.
I suppose it goes to show that having the fairy-tale, movie Christmas when young doesn't have much to do with how you grow up and experience the transition to your life. I feel that there should be a life where in some alternate universe I'm married, have children, and manage to recreate that feeling of safety that I was incredibly lucky to have when I was a child. In this universe I barely make it through the year, deal with incredible stress and loneliness, and dysfunctional family relationships. I have one day off, today, when I don't even get to go to my parents' house or even see their tree decorated with all of the ornaments I once lovingly placed on our tree each year.
Maybe that's why it's so hard; the accumulation of the loss of family members one by one, the loss of time to truly celebrate the holiday, the loss of innocence which is inevitable, but since I started with such wonderful experiences the new normal is that much more difficult.
This is not to say I had a bad Christmas. But it certainly puts in sharp relief the differences of my life now and my innocence growing up.
Yet this is the first Christmas without my great-aunt or my aunt who died within weeks of each other last year right before Christmas (as in, my aunt passed away on the 23rd, my great-aunt on the 10th). I hate to dwell on the past, but I'm so good at it, that I've managed to dredge up those feelings again.
I remember Christmas as a happy time in the past, time to take a break particularly since my parents were teachers so we could all spend time together. Time to decorate the tree, put out the wooden carolers we had, light the luminaries and drive through ours and other towns to see the light shows others put on. We had the cookie baking, and caroling if we wanted in the main square of town. In short, we mostly had movie-style Christmases and lives in many ways while we were growing up.
I suppose it goes to show that having the fairy-tale, movie Christmas when young doesn't have much to do with how you grow up and experience the transition to your life. I feel that there should be a life where in some alternate universe I'm married, have children, and manage to recreate that feeling of safety that I was incredibly lucky to have when I was a child. In this universe I barely make it through the year, deal with incredible stress and loneliness, and dysfunctional family relationships. I have one day off, today, when I don't even get to go to my parents' house or even see their tree decorated with all of the ornaments I once lovingly placed on our tree each year.
Maybe that's why it's so hard; the accumulation of the loss of family members one by one, the loss of time to truly celebrate the holiday, the loss of innocence which is inevitable, but since I started with such wonderful experiences the new normal is that much more difficult.
This is not to say I had a bad Christmas. But it certainly puts in sharp relief the differences of my life now and my innocence growing up.
posted by AnonymousX at 4:48 PM
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