Have you seen these?
A Year in Books - 2009-12-27
Skip Tracer, Loan Detective - 2009-11-22
New Job - 2009-11-03
The coleslaw got served. - 2009-10-21
Probably a new job. But maybe not. - 2009-10-08

Again with the Christmas, Ana?
2000-12-28 17:04:41

Again with the Christmas, Ana?

Well, yes. This is the real Christmas entry. All those other ones, those were just warmups. I admit, it's gotten a little out of control. Every single entry I've written for the past month has mentioned Christmas. I guess I was just feeling extra Christmassy this year. Is that really so wrong? It's not like I was even trying to sell you anything.

***

So, Christmas. Sunday, I stopped at Vincent's house on my way out of town. I found him stoned, and hanging out with CJ. He said he hadn't even showered yet. I said I really had to leave as soon as possible, and that was that. I ran out to the car and got the presents I'd picked out for him, dropped them off, and got the hell out.

Any residual guilt I had disappeared when I saw Jake's truck coming around the corner as I pulled into the gas station. Jake's family is all out east, and I remembered that Jack and Anne were going to his parents'. So, Jake drove up to Cowtown, to see if he could find any other lonely people. Go, Jake.

And yes. Seeing Jake did make me feel all squishy and Christmassy inside. No one is ever really alone on Christmas. Maybe The Spirit of Christmas always makes the effort to insure that. If you really want Christmas, it will always find you. Just think. If I had decided to wait for Vincent, then Jake would have driven all that way for nothing. There is indeed order to the Universe. Or, maybe I'm just on the verge of getting dangerously sappy here. Moving onward.

***

I got to my parents' house. My dad shoved a shrimp in my mouth. He said later that it was really strange, to think that he'd spent more on food this year than he'd been able to spend on all of Christmas some years when we were kids.

I remember sitting on the floor, looking up at the lights of the Christmas tree. I remember always having some candy, and at least one pretty cool thing to unwrap. I remember going for walks on Christmas Eve (we had no car) to look at the lights. I remember holding my dad's hand, and being overwhelmed with everything that was Christmas.

I know that we were poor. I remember other nights, when dinner was the same bean soup it had been all week. But I don't remember ever being disappointed with Christmas.

***

We unwrapped many presents. Lynne got me a gel candle (Love those things! It's a pretty blue one, that looks amazing with the lights off). Mom got me the Fantasia box set. (I'd asked for American Psycho. But Mom is good at that. She always seems to get me something that I didn't ask for, but would have wanted, if I'd thought to ask for it) Dad gave me money, with orders to "spend it foolishly" (I picked up American Psycho. It all worked out.) Everyone seemed to like the things I brought.

I got many packages to take home to D. Mom told me what they all were. One of them was a copy of Blazing Saddles. D. and I had given the same thing to Dad. I explained that this was a Running Theme this year. Both of us, acting independently, had picked up a copy of "The PowerPuff Girls Powerzine" for each other. He'd given me mine the day he bought it, because it was "just too cool to save." I told him he was getting one too, but since it was already wrapped, he had to wait to open it.

Mom also said that one of the packages was three boxes of Twinkies. She said that Lynne had told her that she (Lynne) had "heard somewhere" that D. didn't really like Twinkies. My brain went "Nnngh!" Was Mom protecting me from the news that she had seen my journal, or was Lynne protecting Mom from the news that I had one?? I decided it must be the latter, and in any case, I really didn't want to explore the situation any further right then. Instead, I explained, as tactfully as I could, that although D. eats Twinkies sometimes, he really would prefer something salty or spicy or meaty.

I hope that settles things for now. All evidence to the contrary, I really don't want all this drama surrounding my journal. I just want to have one. I want maybe a few people to read it and compliment me on it sometimes. Is that really too much to ask?

***

After we opened presents, we went driving around looking at lights.

(On my way into town, I'd been thinking about how I really should live somewhere north of Zenith. As mentioned, we had no car when I was growing up, so I spent a lot of time walking around the part of town between the high school and the river and the lake. Now, when I drive into Zenith from Cowtown, I always come from the south. The south side of town means nothing to me, nostalgia-wise, because I rarely had a good reason to cross the river. So, I drive through a bunch of stuff that I suppose is technically my hometown, but just doesn't feel like it. I cross the river, and I'm suddenly just four blocks from my parent's place. There just aren't a lot of detours I can reasonably take. If I planned to leave my house an hour early some time, for the express purpose of cruising the north side of Zenith, D. would think I was nuts, and I'd probably be forced to admit to myself that that was really what I was doing.)

The point is, I was looking forward to driving around my side of town again with my family. The holiday tradition of the Christmas Eve Walk had morphed into a Christmas Eve Drive, soon after my parents got the car my junior year of high school. I was ok with that. That was an improvement, as far as I was concerned. But this year, I would have really liked to look at the Zenith lights. I would have liked to go down by the lake, and look at the big old houses again. But Mom and Dad and Lynne had done that already. They told me the big houses on Washington Ave really weren't that impressive this year. So we drove up to Ankh-Morpork, and looked at those lights instead.

I'm not upset about it. It's a minor detail. I drove the traditional route myself, after hanging out with my aunt and uncle on Monday. I had realized I didn't really want to see the lights anyway, especially if there weren't that many. I wanted to see the houses, and remember how impressive they had looked to Little Ana.

I guess the point is it was just a "You can't go home again" moment. And really, that was the only one I had all night, so for the most part, I got my nostalgic Christmas.

***

We drove home. We ate more. We all sat squished together on the couch (very nice) and watched A Christmas Story and then Fantasia 2000. I left Zenith about 9 or so. (A good six hours after I'd gotten there. Sweet.)

***

Christmas Day, after work, I drove back to Zenith. This was the part I'd been dreading. About 30 years ago, my Dad went off in a completely different direction than the rest of his family. He got heavily into sex, drugs, and rock n' roll. His brother got into school administration.

I suppose it was always tense, but I only really became aware of it about 10 years ago, and it's gotten steadily more bizarre since then. Everyone but my parents would be drinking. My mom and my aunt would both imagine a couple hundred thinly veiled insults, of which maybe a third would have been intended. My dad would find some excuse to tell The Lego Story.

(Long, long ago, maybe I was twelve. Lynne got a set of generic Legos. My cousin got pirate Legos. While my uncle assembled Nick's pirate ship for him, including where Nick had to place the little Lego men, I built a cow using Lynne's Legos. My dad saw it as this amazing Metaphor: Maybe he couldn't afford all the nice things his brother could, but his kids were more intelligent and creative, by God, than Jim's "Yuppie vermin" would ever be.)

So, there's all these years and years of resentment and misunderstanding going on, and it gets worse every year. I went through a period a few years ago, when I wanted Dad to just say screw it to his family. He so obviously had nothing in common with them, and it was stupid to try and pretend he did a few times a year. I'm older now, and I know that can't happen. In spite of everything, it's his family, or something.

I still don't see why I should have to deal with it, though. No, that's not true either. It would really suck for Dad if he had to go through that alone. Maybe I am a screwup, but I'm his screwup (And in a lot of ways, I'm screwing up the same way he did 30 years ago...). It's important that I'm there, and that I'll get all of his jokes, even if his brother doesn't.

***

That's what I was thinking as I drove into town. (I drove by the Paine Art Center, just because I could.) But I got to my Aunt's house, and discovered I'd missed the worst of it. They'd opened most of the presents, and eaten already. Side strangeness: The presents were all to and from the grandparents. It's been like that for years. Nothing from Dad's family to Uncle Jim's or vice versa. So, I opened my stuff (the same two-pound box of chocolates I've gotten for the last five years. (Lynne got one too, this year. That's probably really symbolic of something.) A hat and mitten set. A check. Go, Grandma.) and ate the plate of food my aunt reheated for me. We sat and talked for a while. The fact that Mom had picked out a movie for Grandpa that he already had was rehashed for my benefit. Thanks.

Suddenly, the tension in the room reached critical mass, and everyone was going for coats. I had many bags of cookies forced upon me. The worst part of Christmas was over.

I told Mom that I'd come down on Wednesday, to go shopping with her and Lynne. I drove home, via all sorts of Zenith landmarks that seemed important at the time.

***

When I got home, D. was there. We traded all the stuff from our respective families. We went over to see what Vincent was up to. Dante was back, and he and Nages and Vincent and Jake were playing on the computers. D. immediately went over to Bob's PlayStation. Not very Christmassy. I decided to go see what Alice and Yahn were up to.

Yahn was asleep. He works for the college, so he has the month off. He quickly adjusted to a schedule where he goes to sleep right before Alice leaves for work, and wakes up about 10pm. He was asleep, and had been all day. So, Alice and I got stoned and hung out for a few hours. She kept saying "Oh, go on. Have another hit. It's Christmas!" and I kept cracking up. Here was someone who desperately needed Christmas. Getting stoned with someone doesn't seem like much of a gift, but I'm glad I thought to do something. She said she'd called home, and spent an hour talking with everyone, and that had been good too. She's still going to try to get home for a few days sometime this month.

Yahn woke up. We went over to Vincent's. We managed to drag Dante and D. away from the technology and play Pile Magic. (It's something Yahn invented. Everyone draws from one huge-assed stack, specifically designed for the sorts of dynamics that occur in multiplayer games.)

As I was sitting on the floor, with all my friends basically being themselves, (Smoking and gaming and laughing at each other) I had another Christmas Moment. Alice had been right. This was Christmas, and the way we were celebrating it was just as good as the previous night had been with my parents, and about a million times more real than the afternoon at my aunt's house.

God bless us, everyone.

previous--next


ComicsCurmudgeon
DamnHellAssKings
EWAV
Francesco
Neil Gaiman
Indeterminacy
Ironic Sans
KnowledgeForThirst
tmwfa
Postsecret
PassiveAggressive
WaiterRant
Wil Wheaton

Barren
Kahlora
LiveJournal
MySpace
Thor
Twitter


Achewood
AlienLovesPredator
DinosaurComics
Hobotopia
HoustonChron
NeuroticallyYours
PerryBibleFellowship
Pibgorn
RedMeat
Sinfest
SluggyFreelance
SomethingPositive
xkcd


Alter Ego
Chat Noir
Chronotron
CrayonPhysics
FVBN
HHGTG
House of Bugs
La Pate a Son
Popcap
sirteT
3DPong


A&L Daily
Everything
Fark
The Onion
Red Dwarf
SomethingtoRead
Slate
Straight Dope
Taus
TV Tropes
Wikipedia
Wonkette


Cockeyed
Inventors
McSweeney's
MentalFloss


GRSites
MyImager
W3
Webmonkey