I think I've just put a finger on why I hate Christmas. The best holiday I've ever had occurred years ago when I still wanted "stuff" under the tree, but ended up getting so much more. I was around six or seven, so I was still living in New York at the time with my mother. We were living with my grandfather in Manhattan and one night my mother took me by the hand and walked with me down to Rockefeller Center. She put me on her shoulders (she was my height then--about 5'2") and we watched the big tree get lit. The crowds were pressing in on us and we could barely see, but we were there--we even got to see the Rockettes.
The memory of that makes me cry now because things are so different. In a couple of years, I'll be as old as she was that night and I still don't have kids--she had two by then: one six, one seven. I feel like we grew up together, and as I got older, I learned that we'll never have the sort of relationship a mother and daughter should. But the difference is that back then, she tried. The fact that she failed isn't what makes her a miserable mother. It's the fact that she gave up. No amount of Barbie dolls or Babysitter's Club books can make up for one's ineptitude in trying to understand the kid you keep calling "sensitive" and "emotional". You can't hide "don't care--rather have my new boyfriend" with gifts. That's when Christmas started to suck.
Growing up with my grandmother was fine for me. I feel like had this been another life, the tables would have been turned and she would have been my mother instead. Sadly, I'm closer to her than I am to my mom, but in a way it's because I felt like she actually wanted me, even with all my idiosyncrasies and my coke-bottle glasses. She never picked on me.
So...as I sit here now contemplating getting sloshed at 7 a.m., I ask one thing: figure out what you're celebrating now before it's too late. It's better to be happy and recieve nothing, than to have the world at your fingertips and be bitter. I figured out how I will be celebrating from now on--by closing old wounds.
Merry Christmas to all, and a Blessed Chanukah to all else.
Posted by Tiffany at December 25, 2003 07:03 AM