christmas magic
the ghosts of the past and present collide
I’m six years old and I’m tucked into bed in my brand new Winnie the Pooh pajamas, my gold Christmas dress hanging above me, my hair a mess of ribbons I refused to take out. Christmas is over and I sink into my pillow, exhausted, happy, ready to dream about my new toys and Santa and a day spent with family.
The winter holidays just hit different when you’re a child. I had idyllic Christmases, surrounded by cousins, gifts, holiday cheer. We sang carols, we exchanged presents, Santa came on Christmas Eve and ho-ho-ho’d his way through the night. The morning brought a feast for breakfast and more presents and the knowledge that I must have been a good girl all year. It was all so exceedingly pleasant, and I know my parents worked hard to make it that way for us.
Christmas seemed to last for weeks when I was a child. Friends and relatives coming in and out of our house, bringing bottles of wine and trays of cookies, it felt like the holidays stretched out beyond their prescribed days. One day would bring an aunt and uncle visiting, another day some of my father’s friends from the firehouse. Carolers would knock on our door, singing “O Holy Night” and Santa came by on a firetruck a few days before Christmas. The tree would magically be surrounded with presents on Christmas morning; dolls and records and board games.
When I got older, the tone shifted from one of receiving both presents and relatives to the giving part. I had to buy presents. I had to go visit people. I had to shop and wrap and worry that the gifts I was giving were right and good. It was exhausting, it was anxiety inducing, and it started to take a little bit away from the season for me.
It is the utter perfection in which those Christmases of my childhood existed that made it hard for me to to have the same kind of perfection when I was older. My parents - particularly my mother - set me up for disaster, in a way. I feel like I was never able to replicate those wondrous holidays of my childhood for my own children. Whether I was lacking the money to do so, or so deep in depression that I did not have the stamina to do so, I had a few years where Christmas for my kids might have been lacking. But I tried to make up for it in other years, in other ways. From sprinkling glitter on the floor to make magical santa tracks to spending hours driving from store to store looking for the latest Power Rangers toy, I tried my best.
Even as my kids aged and cared less about presents and more about just being together for the holidays, I strived to make my Christmas perfect. Decorating the house, putting up the tree, trying to remain festive while wrapping presents - something I loathe doing - I would make the best efforts to have the nicest Christmas I could, considering that each year my holiday spirit waned a little more. I struggled with Christmas, I almost grew to resent it but still, through gritted teeth I tried. It became a challenge of sorts, to make the days and the weeks leading up to it festive as hell. It’s not a challenge I always won.
It wasn’t until recently that I embraced Christmas and all its trappings again. Finding renewed happiness in my life because of other circumstances helped. I’ve been more in the mood, more willing to make it happen. I put my tree up early. I shop early, I get my presents wrapped and listen to Christmas music and try to revel in the spirit the holidays bring.
So here we are in 2024 and I am once again finding myself in a situation where I need to call upon the ghost of Christmas cheer. Due to work schedules and traveling, we are not having our big Christmas until December 31st, when my sister and family can come from Rhode Island. And that’s fine, I’m happy to accomodate so we can all be together (Natalie will be on Zoom from LA), because that is the important thing to me:that we revel in the season together. That we uphold our traditions and have a chaotic morning opening presents and building gingerbread houses and playing a white elephant game. That’s Christmas to me. The absolute chaos, the laughing and yelling, Christmas music playing, wrapping paper everywhere; that’s how I recreate the joy of my childhood holidays.
But Christmas morning is going to be a bummer. We’ll still go over to my parents for our annual Christmas breakfast, but we are not doing a big dinner and there will be opening of presents. My son will spend the day at his dad’s and I will spend the day with my cats, I suppose, playing music and enjoying my tree and lights and the Sufjan Stevens Yule Log burning on tv. I will make some coffee and curl up on the couch and watch some football. At some point Natalie and her boyfriend will get on Zoom and we will wish each other a merry Christmas and I will see how happy and settled she is and feel warm inside about that.
I can’t recreate the magic I felt as a child because, well, I’m not a child anymore. But I can let the good things in my life feel like magic for a moment; the love I am given and give freely, the friends I have, the knowledge that just one week later, we will be twelve instead of one. There will be food and presents and hockey and my dad’s birthday to celebrate as well. There will be chaos. There will be magic.