So, This Is Christmas

I wrote this during Christmas 2005. It's a story from my point of view, about my family.

In the corner of the living room, the Christmas tree stood crooked, its width glowing with soft yellow lights hanging in uneven strings. Beneath it rested the wreckage of another successful Christmas.

 

Ha, she laughs. Successful? Hardly.

 

In the kitchen, the adults were talking and laughing as they reminisced about the days of yore. “Remember when the Cougar caught on fire on the highway?” her mother asks and her uncle laughs so loud that she swears she saw the picture frames shiver. They’ve been talking about the same thing all night and it’s not a topic that will ever leave these walls. She’s crazy, their mother. The grandmother.

 

She ruined Christmas, she wants to yell but in all actuality, that’s not the truth. She’s not crazy. There’s nothing wrong with her brain. She’s only addicted to drugs and medication, whether she likes to admit it or not.

 

The adults can’t get enough of it as they make fun of her slurred speech and klepto-like tendencies of ravaging the refrigerator after every major holiday. Now they begin to discuss the possibility of the grandmother committing murder. Her follies have become incredible stories. There are no boundaries to this conversation. Your mother is your mother, no matter how insane she may seem to be.

 

They’re talking about me now, she thinks as her mother speaks of the necklace and earrings that she bought her daughter. “She doesn’t like it. She wants to take it back,” she says to her uncle and the girl sighs heavily and the forlorn expression stays on her face.

 

I’m sorry that you forgot that I don’t like to wear jewelry. Christmas is not how it used to be, she thinks as she presses the keys beneath her fingers. I’m nearly an adult and I wish that Santa Clause was real. He always knows what everyone wants.

 

Christmas conversations have gone awry. Leftovers have been unevenly distributed. Gifts are unappreciated and piled in the corners of dark and lonely bedrooms. Swear words and accusations threaten the ties that bind their family.

 

So, this is Christmas, she thinks as the adults re-enter the room, ready to watch Christmas movies and top off the night with some drinks. I don’t think I like it so much anymore.

 

EDIT: 4/22/08 The woman that I speak of in this piece is my grandmother, a very troubled and possibly deranged woman. She passed away today, cause unknown at this point. I've heard that it was from pneumonia. The other side says that it was from an overdose. Either way makes since. See, she'd been homeless, living outside of my aunt's house, begging for a second eighth chance. No one could help her anymore. We had all exhausted ourselves on her. It's too hard to explain in words, right now, why this woman had broken all of our spirits, why we didn't want anything to do with her. But now that she's gone... and I can't find the tears that I feel I should be crying... it doesn't matter anymore. Another woman in my family gone and although none of us seemed to care about her, all our hearts are broken.

Reviews

[The Elder Pine]

The season is more of a materialistic festival then a remembrance of the birth of Christ. I sympathize with the situation this piece displays. I have had Christmases similar to this one. Thank you very much for sharing. It is a fresh breath of reality in a stagnant pool of sensationalism and synthetic goods.

[Damian Alan Gray]

I hate Christmas. An overrated reason for people to get stressed and get drunk. However, and because of that, I loved this piece. Thanks for sharing!