Got to Miami. Got sick. Got home. I’m going with gastroenteritis. Sicker than I’ve ever been since I was pregnant with Christopher (in bed for 3 months, housebound for 3 more), but at least then I knew why. Anyway. I’m behind on work and still not 100% and the only one happy for so much bed time is Maggie. I’ve been catching up on all the comments, and you’re all insane. Then again, leaving Roz as bandleader had to end badly. I knew that.
This column is from I think 2004. I’m too lazy to doublecheck, so we’ll go with that. More later…I’m going back to bed.
I have ghosts at my holiday table.
I’m not the only one, far from it. But the festivities of this time of year drown out the quiet sadness so many of us live with. Tradition is just another word for remember, and that bittersweet pill doesn’t go down without some persuasion.
I’ve unfolded the fake Christmas tree that used to make my dad so nutty. The only tree was a real one to him, and my memory is scarred with the endless trips to prove it. We’d pile in the station wagon and drive an hour to a farm. Once there, my father would wear a bow saw over one shoulder, and an axe over the other. As we stood admiring the perfectly good trees on the edge of the farm, he would resolutely lead the way, convinced our tree was hiding deep in the bowels of the forest.
After twenty minutes, my sisters and I would be frozen, our mother helping to haul us through snow up to our thighs. And on he would march.
At last he’d stop, admiring a tree that looked no different than the others. We’d watch as he chopped it with precision, making it his own. A professor of mine used to call it ‘killing a tree for Christ’.
After the endless walk back to the car, he’d tie it down while my mother massaged feeling back into our cold blue toes. And every year, it would be too big for the house. Dad would saw it from the bottom, then give up and clip it from the top. I only ever remember our blue felt angel peering out of a cage of pine branches, her head bent against the ceiling.
My father would haul out the tree lights. Those Wise Men brought gold, frankincense, myrrh, and my father’s Christmas tree lights. In those days, you had to clip them to each branch, and then put in the bulbs. They would never light up, and we’d spend an hour testing bulbs as needles stabbed at our hands, hands covered in sap as strong as superglue.
When I moved out, my dad gave me those lights. I tried to use them one year, and after ten minutes had to unplug them with an oven mitt. I said a silent thank you that we weren’t all dead.
My father had an unerring eye for Christmas trees; they all looked like Charlie Brown’s. We’d have to hang the preschool treasures in the largest gaps, because everyone knows the smallest kids make the biggest ornaments. Mom would carefully hang her special ones up high, the ones that had made the trip from England. I still do this, as the kids beg for the same stories I heard every year.
My mom knitted everyone personalized stockings one year, so that everyone in the family had their own. As the grandbabies arrived, she’d get knitting again, keeping the set complete.
When Mom knew she was sick for the last time, my sister Gilly was pregnant. Somehow, mom got the stocking made even though it was February, and everything was grey. She fretted about not knowing what name to put on it, and we told her not to worry. She’d have time.
My nephew was born the week after mom died. They never met, but I believe they know each other anyway. Love can leap a universe.
We put the name on for her.
Seeing these stockings crushes me, and yet I wouldn’t dream of not putting them up. I still feel guilty putting up a fake tree. I cry at the first poinsettia I see, because it was my job to buy one for mom. That’s me every year, all teary eyed in the dairy section in front of the eggnog, because I can’t bring dad his annual carton of the noxious stuff.
Tread gently at this time of year. Death, divorce, geography and circumstance separates too many of us from people we love. So many of us are carrying our hearts in both hands, terrified of stumbling as we try to go forward.
I will light the familiar candles for dinner on Christmas day. I will make the same turkey, the same beans, squash and potatoes. I will do it for my children.
But I will also do it for the ghosts at my table.
My parents chose to go on a cruise this year, with friends celebrating a 50th wedding anniversary. I was stunned when my mother called in the fall on night and said that they were thinking of doing this. I never dreamed they would go through with it, that she would even consider not being home with the family for Christmas. But they did.
They left yesterday and won’t be back for a month.
This will be the first Christmas that they have not been with family. There is only one year they were not with us, but they were out of town at my sisters’ place, so I didn’t have a problem with that. This year, I have a huge problem with it.
They aren’ts ghosts, I am thankful that I will see them again, but something in me just can’t accept that they made this choice to not be here with us for Christmas.
I don’t think I could do it.
Hope you feel better soon. Have heard about this bug going around and it is nasty.
Everyone has ghosts of Christmas past.
A friend’s husband died on Christmas Eve while wrapping her Christmas present. Christmas was never the same for her again. I thought of them when I heard about the insanity at Sandy Hook. So many lives destroyed.
Sorry to hear you really are sick. I had just assumed you had figured out that you only needed to do a blog about once a week. From there your little band of followers take it in all sorts of directions that most times no one could have imagined.
I think for most of us the ghosts of Christmases past come to visit. Christmas celebrations at Grandparents homes. Making to rounds to visit Aunts ans Uncles and cousins. All the homemade food especially tourtiere. When we were first married a lot of my parents Christmas stuff came with us. We had their first artifial tree. It would have been good for cleaning chimneys, it was so thin and scraggly. But I almost cried when we sold it to get a new improved version. Tne new improved version is gone now too replaced by a short disco tree that sits on a table. O.K. enough of that.
I am down in Barbados for a (cloudy) day. Don’t usually comment when I’m away but can’t help myself on this one. My heart ached when I read today’s blog but it’s absolutely crushed for the 26 families that will be missing one dear, sweet soul this Christmas. Presents were no doubt already bought, clementines already stuffed in stockings. Most of us here have children and can understand the searing pain they must be enduring now.
I can’t bear it. I just can’t. The thought of all those women throwing themselves in front of a man armed with semi-automatic weapons to save those babies…and those babies they couldn’t save.
If I was an American, I swear I’d be lining up to get out…to anywhere. Anywhere they didn’t make it so easy, so acceptable, to accumulate weapons made only to slaughter people.
I can’t even write the blog, have the discussion, form the words for this.
I can’t begin to fathom the sadness of an entire town, and the remorse.
Friday night, while we driving silently on a dark road north of Whitby, the radio announcer dedicated Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” to all those wee souls, thus reducing MDB, myself and probably most of the people in earshot to a blubbering mass.
How do we end the madness?
Unfortunately we can’t end the madness. The genie is out of the bottle so to speak. We can’t take back what the first mentally ill mind decided when they decided going to a school and shooting people was the way to go. They got publicity. Now it is the thing to do to rid yourself of demons or to make a statement or whatever. We can’t wish or pray mental illness (especially at such an extreme) or guns out of existence. We can only keep the victims and the survivors in our thoughts and if you’re so inclined in our prayers.
And unfortunately this is not just an American problem. Think Montreal Poythechnique or Taber, Alberta or some of the cases recently in Europe. It just seems to happen more regularly down there because, I guess, their love of guns. All 3 weapons belonged to the mother? Why? I guess it will slowly come out.
As you said poor babies, so much life ahead of them. So much potential to never be realized. As I sit here I can’t even comprhend how the mind of a parent could possibly grapple with the fact that their child was shot for the simple act of going to school that day.
Every country in the world has to cope with mental illness. No country has outrageous gun violence like the U.S. While Canada and the U.S. are both terrible at coping with the very real impact of mental health issues, getting rid of the damned guns is the first, best step.
I’ve been vocal about being bipolar. The ‘mentally ill’ aren’t ‘someone else’ They’re us. They’re me. Trust me: we are far more likely to harm ourselves. The health system and the courts need to get ahead of this growing problem, and understand that denial, ignorance and punishment are not acceptable treatments.
But nobody, anywhere, needs semi automatic killing machines. That the killer in Newtown had access to an arsenal in his own home speaks louder to his mother’s ridiculous idea of ‘safety’ or ‘sport’ than his mental state.
>end rant. For now.
Did you ever watch ‘This is Wonderland’ on CBC?
Nope, DJ.
It was a wonderful series depicting life in the Toronto Court System.
They were applauded and awarded for their portrayal of persons with mental health issues, and the way they were treated in the system.
It was one of those shows too good for T.V.
I have season one on DVD.
Your library might have it.
I sincerely apologize. I did a bang up job of mucking that right up. I am aware that they are us as we have all either dealt with mental health issues ourselves or know someone close to who has.
Again my sincere apologies and it won’t happen again.
Nooooooo, PJ, my apologies if you thought I was bashing your comment. I meant to just continue it. I think it’s time we all started talking about all of this, and stopped being precious about something that is a fact of life for everyone.
If you aren’t coping yourself, you love someone who is. It’s time the stigmas got tossed.
I can never understand why people (like Chris Brown) say that this is especially heartbreaking because it’s so close to Christmas. What the hell does that have to do with it? It’s an unspeakable tragedy, spring or summer or fall or winter. It is beyond comprehensible. Clementines and presents and eggnog have nothing to do with it.
Interesting sentiment, Tom. I believe if you bothered to read what I actually wrote that you’d see that I never said it was especially heartbreaking because it’s near Christmas. I was expressing that because presents had already been bought it would make the immediate impact even worse because those presents would be either returned, or given to someone else and would be yet another reminder of the horror that has been wrought on their child.
You’re right that it’s tragic no matter when it happens. At this time of year there will simply reminder after reminder that a 6 or 7 year old will not be there.
Merry Christmas.
This is on a friend’s Facebook page. I don’t know if it is true but, unfortunately, I think it is. I hope you feel better Lorraine.
http://www.bradycampaign.org/xshare/pdf/facts/Brady_GodBlessAmerica.pdf
I haven’t been reading about the tragedy , it’s just too depressing .
Unlike Canada , Americans have the right to own property . If assault rifles were made illegal in all the states ( unlikely ) the owners would have to be compensated for their weapons at fair market value ( as has already happened in Australia ) . This would cost billions of dollars they don’t have and alienate the majority of voters in many states .
Ontario outlawed pitbull terriers and that has not stopped people being bitten and attacked by dogs . Outlawing assault rifles will not stop unstable people from killing themselves and others . They will find another way to do it or illegally purchase the guns any ways .
This was a tragedy for all involved and there will not be an easy solution to the problem .
I see that a group in the U.S. is saying that gun control advocates have ‘blood on their hands’ because teachers have been banned from carrying guns to school, and if they’d had them, they could have shot the gunman. Hmmm.
Hey, why not arm the kids in kindergarten? Nothing more daunting to a gunman than facing 30 six-year olds each packing a L’il Shooter kid-sized Glock. Start ‘em young.
When we were young Christmas was always about us (the kids). Presents from Santa, time off school, visits with friends and family. As we grew older and became adults the emphasis started to shift. It became more about the time we got to spend with Mom and making sure she was happy and provided for. Visiting friends gradually started to taper off as they all started to have families.
Mom really enjoyed Christmas. She’d put up some sort of tree. Set out her Christmas village and generally prepare her house/apartment for the festivities of the season. And there was always the big dinner to look forward to.
Mom also enjoyed the receiving of the “prezzies” and we’d try to make sure we got her everything on her list as she’s always tried hard to do that for us when she was Santa.
As Mom got older and more frail we decided that we’d do the big meal on Christmas Dayat one of the hotels/restaurants that had a nice buffet. No cooking, cleanup and Mom really liked that being able to conserve her energy.
Christmas Day 2010 she went for a nap after we got back from dinner leaving my brother, wife and I talking and laughing. She came out from her “nap” as relaxed and happy as I’d ever seen her and remarked on how nice it was to have a house filled with laughter/love once again. I think if she’d gone to sleep and not woken right then she would have died a very happy woman.
That was Mom’s last Christmas with us. She died on Canada Dy the following year.
For me Christmas just doesn’t seem as fun anymore.
I agree, Nursedude. One thing I find interesting as I look back, is that we all got revved up for Christmas because my Mom loved it so much, but we never had much money. She was really careful all year and planned and planned and planned.
The excitement wasn’t the presents, even though as kids, I’m sure that’s all we thought about. But nobody ever got crazy over the top stuff. It was books and PJs and socks and underwear. She made Christmas fun and nutty for all the right reasons.
I see a lot of people just go ‘buy’ Christmas, then wonder why it has a hollow little centre where its heart used to be.
Our moms are probably up there baking:)
Maybe it’s not harder this time of year, it just seems harder because of the expected “cheer”, that makes it somehow worse.
Society has no idea how to help the mentally ill that aren’t coping, those who have alienated their families, won’t stay on their meds, etc.,etc. The hospitals can’t help, the police are overwhelmed. I agree, the more we talk about it, the better off we all are, denial isn’t helping anyone.