It's Cold Inside

I had this thought today: "I hope I don't die just before Christmas". Crazy as it sounds, my year has been a bit rough and my health concerns have made me paranoid about every racing pulse or short breath. But when I thought this to myself, I actually wasn't overly concerned about dying just about dying this close to Christmas.

It was a cruel thought, particularly as a mere 6 days ago and 11 days before Christmas, 27 people, 20 of them children, were gunned down and killed in Newtown, Connecticut. The week before, a friend's sister had committed suicide. I know with certainty and without googling it that millions of people are suffering or dying in some sort of fashion regardless of the advent of December 25th. Of course, suffering or dying does not limit itself to calendar holidays, be they religious, secular, or silly. What are held fast to that digital or paper calendar, perhaps even one magnetized to your fridge, are the cultural and familial traditions that bind us to the rituals, emotions, and expectations of  this particular "holy day".

Grief and loss can be unbearable in any context and fraught with private and painful reminders and triggers. But grief born at Christmas? A constant, excruciating sensory inundation of reminders - each song, smell, tinsel string a slap. Each year, a grief to be ushered in by early November and marched relentlessly through December in a fierce grip of public celebration, commercialism, and obligation.

When we were 24, my same-aged cousin nearly died. Just before Christmas, however, he came out of a coma, and the family rejoiced and did great goofy happy dances down the hospital halls. My cousin, however, came out of the coma a quadriplegic. He had a year of physiotherapy and suffering ahead of him. (spoiler alert: he has since recovered and is almost his old self) For years, we never understood why he would withdraw around Christmas time. He had lived! He had survived! He had proven all the "experts" wrong!

But, of course, he had lost a great deal too: his independence and mobility, for awhile; his short term memory, for a long time; his youth and innocence, forever. He grieved at Christmas, for his lost self. None of us in the family realized this until he finally stood his ground three Xmases ago and said, "I can't do this anymore". He couldn't fake the frivolity any longer. Christmas made him sadder than sad and none of us had noticed.

I don't need to tell you that Christmas oscillates, that some years it seems crass and others magical; some are twitch-inducing; others, delightful. I don't need to tell you that just as we are conscious of those in financial need at Christmas, we can be equally sensitive to those whose hearts are quietly breaking and re-breaking at every sight, smell, and sound of Christmas cheer, their grief and sadness inextricably and irrevocably linked to this cultural zenith of celebrations.

We can pray our own times come, late in life, on a bright, insignificant Spring day when frosts are slain and flowers begotten. Peace to all.






And, to banish what might be your imposed Christmas soundtrack of grief, there's nothing like a little Van Morrison, Summertime in England. It just is:

Oh, Luke Skywalker, where have you been?!

Christmas at the Bramble house brings a brooding cloud of parent shame that is on par with the should-be shame of toddlers-and-tiaras-special-juice parent pushers. There exists in our humble home enough lego to build a second summer home in the Hamptons or, at least, Lake Cowichan - enough for a wrap-around deck and extendo-dock. The collection hit the ground running with #1 and then over the last decade and with child #2 gathered enough momentum to be the natural disaster plot in a Will Smith doomsday flick.

So, it was with some happiness coupled with deep embarrassment that I announce two new babies in the Bramble-lego-brick household: the adorable "Alien Conquest" and its collectible twin "Indiana Jones". Merry Christmas 2011.


And so begins the great clean-up of 2012, for, in order to make room for these enormous new sets, one must reorganize and as I like to say - redistribute (to the neighbours, to charity, to the recycle bin). This past Saturday, as I shuffled and lugged and carted, I rediscovered the joy of rediscovering.


Every baby and child-rearing book touts the power and simplicity of the "put away for a rainy day" toy strategy. But not having read such books since, well, I was pregnant, I guess it had slipped my mind.


You see, my children are spoiled rotten. Like budding hoarders, they are mostly unaware of all the cool stuff they already have. But with a little bait-and-switch, suddenly they are looking at Luke Skywalker as if they had never held his little plastic body in their sweaty, greasy hands or as if they had never snapped his blond hair off and replaced it with Harry Potter's...or Hermione's. They'll be mesmerized anew. For at least 20 minutes.


So, my fellow long-suffering-long-guilty parents, I recommend doing the ol' switcheroo every few months - shuffle a few books, move the playmobil upstairs, and bring the puzzles out of the closet. It'll be like Christmas without well, the Christmas. 


p.s. My 16-year old is going to kill me for lumping him in with his little brother but replace "Luke" with "Winston" and it's all the same. 

All I Want Is Christmas

Julie can’t stand the candy canes the secretary has hooked along the top edge of the lampshade. I hear her disgusted tone clear across the table at the staff Christmas dinner. Everyone hears her actually, with the exception of the secretary, who is, mercifully, absent. Julie thinks the candy canes are tacky. Not the canes themselves of course, but the way in which they adorn the otherwise upstanding lamp. This surprises me because, well, I think Julie is a little tacky herself. In fact, candy cane decorations are exactly what I think Julie is not only capable of, but covets. Now, Julie doesn’t wear spandex Mickey Mouse tights or flashing poinsettia earrings, but there is something about her that, while I can’t quite put my pinky finger on it, has essence of déclassé. Meow meow

I am thinking of Julie and the candy canes one morning as I cycle along our fair city’s scenic route, right through the heart of some old money homes and beachside retreats. I see some elaborately decorated residences, but for the most part, I see single-coloured, single-stringed lights hooked and hung evenly along sloping roof lines. A clean, symmetrical show of Christmas spirit. No dripping “icicles” or air-filled bobbing Frosties; no indoor lights crisscrossing the living room window or twinkling candy canes dotted around the front lawn. And goshdarnit, these houses look great. I feel a real affinity for these smartly-decorated homes and their loving owners. This is my kind of Christmas.

It has since dawned on me that Julie may be as tacky as all get out, but she too has her kind of Christmas, and, clearly, it is one without random bulk candy cane placement. Christmas traditions, for those who have ever celebrated this holiday, are, if not hard-wired, pretty close to super-glued. I’m willing to bet that Julie’s mother never hung candy canes from their living room lampshades. Her mom probably stuffed tinsel in the cracks of the dining room table and wrapped green sparkly garland around the banisters, but candy canes were just not on in Julie’s childhood Christmas, a permanently-etched and perpetuated memory.

My husband, to most, is a fountain of flexibility, a true man of the moment. To me, five Christmases and Thanksgivings in a row, a stubborn, ungrateful stuffing critic. My turkey stuffing. Year Two I managed to eek a semi-confession from him: Mum did something different. And all that implies. Mum’s was better. I only like Mum’s. I’ll try yours. I’ll even smile as I eat yours. But I prefer Mum’s stuffing. Despite all attempts, I have been unable to duplicate Mum’s stuffing and I have finally accepted I never will. My husband’s memory could sniff out an erroneous spice or an errant raisin. His childhood stuffing has been super-glued.

When I left a local, major department store last week, after a fitful burst of Christmas shopping, I noticed a holiday message pasted to the door that read something along the lines of “Merry post-Ramadan, middle-of-Hannukah, soon-to-be Kwanzaa, just about-Christmas”. It fell just short of Happy Festivus. I felt the tug of a lampshade candy cane and raisin stuffing; I felt my super glue flex and stretch. Surely no one is here tonight buying Ramadan presents? This is my Christmas, the same one I have celebrated since my mom can remember. This “holiday” message did not reflect my Christmas; how tacky.

Of course, the “Christmas debate” has been raging for many years now, between whom I’m not entirely certain, but I know that some people are irate about all this Christian clatter. And some people want to fix what is the matter. Political correctness has dictated that government, schools, and businesses extend an inclusive holiday message. Absolutely. But does it make sense if you aren’t celebrating a holiday? That’s like saying: Happy Valentine’s Day, you sad, pathetic guy who just got dumped. Or Happy St. Patrick’s Day, Elizabeth.

I was so relieved by a reasonable reaction last season to the stripping of Christmas décor at an American airport. The rabbi who had caused the kafuffle, feeling Hanukkah deserved to be represented just as tackily as Christmas, threatened to sue the airport. After much silliness, tearing down and re-decorating, a wise man revealed that Christmas is now widely celebrated as a secular holiday in many western and non-western cultures and not to the exclusion of anyone in those cultures. It can be one big food-filled, wine-spilled party for whoever wants to join! I was relieved because I could have my childhood Christmas and not feel guilty, not have to grin through the stuffing.

Some of us have our super-glued Christmases, some of us don’t. Julie tolerates the lampshade candy canes and goes home to her tinsel-stuffed dining room table. My husband grins and eats it. We have sloppy multi-coloured lights drooping from our roof and hedges. Our kids love them. I, well, you know what I prefer.

Christmas is what you have always known it to be, or something you are just starting to celebrate, or something you don’t even think about. Everybody and anybody can do whatever they want on December 25th; Christians can keep the Christ in Christmas; Bob can keep his eggnog spiked. There is room for all things tacky and otherwise in this Canadian’s Christmas, as long as I can call it that.