Every time at Christmas when I hear the song “Grown Up Christmas List” it reminds me that the most important things in life are the intangibles of love, health and family.
Do you remember me?
I sat upon your knee
I wrote to you with childhood fantasies
Well, I’m all grown-up now
Can you still help somehow?
I’m not a child, but my heart still can dreamSo here’s my lifelong wish
My grown-up Christmas list
Not for myself, but for a world in needNo more lives torn apart
That wars would never start
And time would heal all hearts
Every man would have a friend
That right would always win
And love would never end
This is my grown-up Christmas list
Christmas has always been a mixed bag of emotions for me. My early childhood was idyllic. As a “cradle Catholic” I remember early on going to Midnight Mass with my parents and my two brothers, driving around to look at the Christmas lights, and then coming home to open one gift before going to sleep. Christmas morning was absolute pandemonium. Our parents spoiled us and there were piles and piles of gifts under the tree from “Santa” every year. However, in 1966, my six year old brother died a week before Christmas. It tore my family apart and Christmas was never again the same in my house. My parents divorced, and my mother slipped into a horrible depression.
Three years later, my mother passed away in the first week of January. My remaining brother and I were shipped off to live with separate family members since my father had to work full-time to pay off the bills that had accumulated from my brother’s and now my mother’s death. I was eight years old at the time, sent to live with a relative that saw me as a burden she put up with only as a favor to my father. Those loving, happy, Norman Rockwell Christmases were a distant memory to me now.
At 13, I was able to come home and live with my father again. We had our own special Christmases and tried to regain some of the lost time, but it was bittersweet since my other brother, who was now 18, had become estranged because he felt my father had abandoned us. I was just grateful to be back in a family home with my ‘daddy’. He showered me with love and called me his princess but never exposed me to the pain he had in his heart as he still mourned the loss of his son and his wife.
At 15 I met the man who would become my husband. We were married one month after my 18th birthday and I eagerly awaited our first Christmas together. That year, my new husband, my father and I celebrated Christmas as a family. My father and I had reconciled with my brother who had attended my wedding that August and we were looking forward to his visit during Christmas week — but the call came two days after Christmas, telling us that he had been killed in a motorcycle accident. Another passing at Christmas time that would become a memory interfering with our ability to create joyful Christmas memories – but I refused to give up on Christmas.
In 1988 when our daughter was born it was now our turn to create those idyllic Christmas memories. My father was eager to join in. Each year, as we sat around our Christmas dinner table I said a silent prayer thanking God for another happy Christmas and another year that my father remained with me – the sole remaining member of my childhood nuclear family. I knew it could not last forever and in 2001, I watched my father’s health fail. I knew deep in my heart that his passing was near but I hoped against hope that there would be just one more Christmas with him; however, on December 20th, as I sat by his hospital bed, he opened his eyes and reached out his hand as if to someone in the room I could not see and said my brother’s name (the one who had passed in 1966). Something in my heart told me this was it…he was moving on and I had to let him go. I knew he would not go if I stayed there and held on to him, keeping him selfishly with me. He looked over at me in a brief moment of clarity and while I had his gaze I said “goodbye Daddy…I love you” and I left the room. The nurse called me at home about four hours later and said that he had passed peacefully. It was Dec. 21st.
We now have new traditions since my father’s passing. My husband’s sister, who lives out of state has 3 little girls who are absolutely adorable and they join us on the day after Christmas for what we call “Our 2nd Christmas.” We have our “Christmas Eve” and wake up to piles of presents under the tree; my husband dresses as Santa and hands out the gifts while my daughter snaps piles of pictures. We then all sit down for a huge family meal and celebrate the joy and love that a close family can bring.
Sometimes in the midst of all of the commercialism we lose sight of the spirit of the season. It’s about Love and being good to one another. As I grew up, all I remember about Christmas is wanting to have a family to celebrate with. I never gave up and I have been blessed. My wonderful husband of 30 years is by my side for another Christmas. My beautiful daughter is here with me; and our house will soon be filled with the laughter and chaos of three young children. Wrapping paper will be flying everywhere, Christmas tunes will fill the air, and I will sit back to observe and thank God that I have another Christmas with my family.
May you, my extended Conflucian family, have a Holiday Season filled with Love, Peace, and Joy. You have all earned it. Celebrate whatever religious or secular traditions that are an important part of your life “With a Christmas Heart.”
As an update, my very best friend — who had stopped talking to me because I didn’t support “teh Precious” — called me this Christmas Eve to say she missed my friendship and agreed that he was a backtracking empty suit. I missed her too and to me, these are the things I consider the very best gifts I can receive.
HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO EVERYONE. I’M SO GRATEFUL FOR THE COMMARADERIE HERE. JOY TO ALL.
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