Other Stories from the Author
They Cried for Each Other at Christmas Time
Christmas 1978 was the worst Christmas of my life. It was the first Christmas that started a string of 30 miserable yuletide seasons. It was the year that I lost my child-like innocence. Nothing after that Christmas was ever the same. In subsequent years, all the cherished family Christmas tree decorations, colored lights and tinsel seemed lackluster like an extremely faded polaroid instant color photograph. The vibrant colors from the tree lights were just not vibrant anymore.
That year, mom decided to not have a Christmas tree or any decorations at all. She said she didn’t feel cheerful. Dad didn’t feel cheerful either, but he knew we had to have some sort of Christmas, at least for the sake of the kids. So rather than decorate the kitchen, the den and the living room, he opted to just decorate the den; a room between the kitchen and the living room that we used to store my toys and my mom’s sewing machine and some books. Dad didn’t install outside lights around the porch that ran two sides of the house, something he did every year.
In recent years, we had added a four-foot Christmas tree in the den. We always had artificial Christmas trees because mom thought it was safer and she was scared to death the house would burn down. The den was a reading room for dad and a playroom for me. It had a lazy boy in one corner, a couch against another wall and a wooden folding rocking chair. There was also a 13-inch Kenmore color TV. There were two vertical windows that looked out onto the porch and driveway. Mom placed her singer sewing machine between the two windows, bookended by the rocking chair and lazy boy.
About a week before Christmas, dad ordered that the small tree be installed and decorated. This was very uncharacteristic for our house since the outdoor lights went up around the first of December and all other decorations were usually up by the tenth, to include the seven-foot artificial tree. I was excited that we were finally getting the tree up. Dad pulled the tree out of long vertical box and adjusted the branches. Unlike the tree that was normally in the living room, this tree’s branches were permanently attached with heavy-gauge metal wires and simply needed to be straightened out.
Mom was having difficulty untangling the mini lights that had been hastily stored in a box of Christmas stuff for the last year. Her heart was just not in it.
“If it wasn’t for you, there would be no Christmas at all,” she said to me in an accusatory tone as if I was personally responsible for ruining her opportunity at being even more miserable. I felt nothing but anger and hatred from her. She was cold. After the tree was done and the den was sufficiently adorned with garlands, an image of Santa and some random reindeer, mom went to her room and shut the door. I sat on the couch in the den. I felt confused. I was guilty because of Christmas.
At our house, Christmas Eve was the night we celebrated Christmas by eating chicken stew and opening our gifts. In past years, it was an all-night affair lasting until 4 AM to included attending Midnight Mass for the adults. This year, the stew was eaten at 6 PM and we opened our gifts at 8 o’clock. This was a shocking break with tradition.
We all crammed into the den to open gifts. We were all there except for Nancy. Her husband Norman showed up and delivered some gifts for the family. After the initial Christmassy greetings, there was an awkward silence and he didn’t linger for long, made an excuse about joining his parents and siblings and left.
We opened all our gifts, but no one was happy. When I looked into the living room, it was black as night. There was no light and it even felt a little scary. By ten o’clock it was all over. Dad went to bed; I went to my room and I didn’t pay attention to what mom or my sister Karen did. My aunt Lottie went home, my brother Dick went to his girlfriend’s house and Rennette, the lady who rented our upstairs apartment, went back upstairs.
At about a quarter to midnight I ventured out of my room and into the kitchen. All the lights were out except for the glow of the Christmas tree in the den. I looked through the doorway to the den and saw mom sitting on the couch, flanked by Karen and Rennette. They were all crying.
I knew why they were all crying but I was numb. After Nancy died that August, I had cried what seemed to be a billion tears and the center of my chest ached so bad that I was now hollowed out and felt no emotions.
Mom cried because she lost her daughter. Karen cried because she lost her sister. Rennette cried because her husband left her for a man in Montreal. It seems she married a hairdresser named Emory who resembled a mustachioed Freddy Mercury with John Travolta’s hair in the movie Saturday Night Fever. Why her “gay alarm” didn’t go off with a name like “Emory” plus “hairdresser” is beyond me but then again, he was living in denial in a small town in an era that was not accepting of homosexuality.
Rather than join the weeping Christmas chorus I returned to my room. That was the only year we celebrated Christmas in the den. The next year it went back to normal in the living room and decorations everywhere. But it was never the same for me. As I grew into my teen and adult years, Christmas became an unpleasant chore complete with fake smiles and simulated appreciation for gifts that meant nothing to me.
