The Spirits of Christmas

Christmas used to be different. Not better or worse, just different as times are different. Both my families lived in Sacramento, California, either in Carmichael or really close to Carmichael. It seemed like the day always started at Mum's, my maternal grandmother. In my memories of Christmas morning Grandpa Jack isn't there, he died when I was 12...on Christmas morning, actually. My Uncle Jack and Aunt Patty would show up with my cousins, My Aunt Jill and Uncle Randy would have spent the night. All us kids would sit cross legged in front of the tree and tear at packages as Christmas music played, At some point, my father or my grandfather would brave all the stop signs along Garfield Avenue to pick me up and we'd drive to my paternal grandparent's house. A large tree would be set up in the living room, requisite Christmas music playing. The only gifts left by that point would be for me, And then we'd eat. In these memroeis, all my uncles are there: Jeff would be loud and argue politics with my father and grandfather. You could do that then, argue politics, and still be family at the end of the night. Uncle Phil I remember as being a solo, before he got married and joined his wife in some religious cult. Uncle Chip was closest to my Dad, he died a couple of years ago. All of them are gone, either in self-exile or dead. But every time I hear Christmas music I think of them, think of those long lost Christmases. It was different for all of us, wasn't it? Before cell phones. Before an argument over politics could shatter a family. It was an innocent time and I think most of us chase innocence, at least in our memories. I miss people on Christmas, maybe it's the same with you. I don't just miss my connection with them, I miss the connection all of us had but times change. With the awareness of loss there also needs to be an apprecition of what you have. The person who texted you Merry Christmas while you were asleep. The people you know who will be thinking of you today. It's easy to get on a soapbox about the "commercialism of Christmas," to seeing Christmas as a stressful time of buying gifts and seeing relatives we don't really want to see, listening to that abhorrant music about snow and bells sang by people who have been dead for fifty years. I guess the spirit of Christmas, like everything, is what you make it. For me it's a day of mourning. That may sound grim, like I am the pit you find in your martini olive, but it's not a negative thing. My grandparents have been dead awhile, my remaining family members scattered, but the people who remain in my life I am grateful for, I am grateful for one more opportunity to get a text or email from them and, Inshallah, seeing them at some point in the future. That to me is the true spirit of Christmas.

And, if you celebrate it it, Merry Christmas to you...