Daddy: "What's going on with you?"
Isobel: "What do you mean?"
Daddy: "You're acting crazy. One minute you're running around out of control, the next you're crying. What is the matter with you?"
Isobel:(changing subject) "Daddy, does Santa see everything?"
Daddy: "That's what I hear."
Isobel: "How?"
Daddy: "Magic, I think. Magic snowball or something. That's what I heard on the TV."
Isobel: "So if I was bad and acting crazy he would see it?"
Daddy: "Definitely."
Isobel: "And if I was really sad, he would see that too? And that might make him forget I was bad?"
Daddy: "I don't think it works that way..."
Isobel: "Yes!"
Christmas is a family time, that's what they say. Time to reflect on the year that's been and time to ponder the future that lies ahead. Time to bask in the warmth of home and hearth and time to watch the joy and delight in the eyes of your children as they unwrap those special little somethings that they had been hoping for all year.
Maybe your family gets to enjoy that Jimmy Stewart saccharin and I hope somebody does but around here, Christmas has an altogether different aura about it...When I was a kid I don't remember going to anyone's house for Christmas. I'm sure we did at some point but I have no memory of it. I remember New Year parties at our house and at my Grandparents house that have left a ring of excess and drunken revelry around the ozone layer like a ring of dirt around a bathtub. But Christmas I think we stayed at home. Destroyed the sparkly packages with reckless abandon and burnt the paper in the backyard. We didn't have a fire place, we were poor...After my parents split up Christmas became mobile and has remained so ever since.
I went from Mother's house to Father's house. By this time my sister had moved out on her own and so it was off to her place first, from my Mother's apartment, to my Father's house. There was a time, when my parents were still together but not getting on very well that they sent me to live with my Grandmother(one of the most important and influential people in my life but that is another story) and so had to go see her for presents and tea and biscuits. Naturally this meant that we had to also visit with my Mother's mother...thank god we brought her home with us. By this time it was Boxing Day and we had a dinner with my Mother's ex in laws. Thy were after all, still my Sister's relatives and it was quite a tolerant and progressive thing for us to do, considering the social morays of the time.
As I grew older, I met friends and girlfriends alike and managed to squeeze some sort of holiday interaction in with all of them...I swore that if I had a family of my own, the holidays would be on OUR terms and not based on someone else's dinner schedule.
Oh some where the world is a perfect place, where children are well behaved and appreciate all that they have and fathers are listened to (and heeded) and nobody does anything but spend time with their own on Christmas day and laze about enjoying each other's company at a leisurely pace. The smell of turkey and contentment hangs in the air and all is good and right and pure...somewhere...not here.
As a general rule I love the holidays I just wish we'd get to see more of them....So stop watches at the ready? Here we go. Christmas eve we begin the festive season at my sister in law's house. Her and her partner put on an excellent spread that The Boy and I (and Izzy now too) stuff ourselves on plate after plate, year after year. There are cocktails and nog and finger foods and cocktails and the main course and cocktails and a trip to the dessert cart and more cocktails and some tea and then the prezzies and more drinkies and occasionally, even a nice bottle of malt for me! O.K. so there isn't that much booze but the revelry and merriment flow freely there and we all leave full and content and happy. It is the kick off of the season for all of us and it wouldn't feel right if it didn't happen.
Next is the BIG day, the morning after the night before, the Fat Man's visit come to pass! Christmas is great when you are single or even at the beginning of a relationship when all is sunshine and roses up the yin yang but to really appreciate Christmas, to truly get what it's all about I think you need to have kids...or at least ready access to them. There is no shame in their unabashed joy. It's my favourite bit, watching them lose their minds. One of my fondest memories is of a Christmas morning a couple of years ago, when she first started to get what it was all about, Izzy opened a gift and exclaimed with glee "I didn't even know I wanted this!"
Then the clock begins and we are on a deadline. My father's by around lunch time so we can get to her parent's for supper and still give both a decent visit. With getting everybody focused enough to get ready to leave as well as he actual getting ready part of that equation it leaves the kids with about six and a half minutes to play with their new loot.
It's off to my Father's then for some single malt and prezzies followed by belittling conversation and finger pointing and then it's a short hop and skip to Mrs. Narrator's folks place for the traditional German/Dutch Christmas. Knockwurst and sauerkraut served in a wooden shoe, accompanied by a hearty round of belittling conversation and finger pointing followed by eventual surrender and complete collapse. And presents, lots and lots of presents. Like the Sudetenland. Isobel is beginning to cut quite a striking figure in the her spiked helmet...I might be exaggerating a tad.
We get home at least an hour past the two hours past the kids bedtime that we swore we wouldn't stay beyond. But who's keeping track? We arrive full and tired and laden with gifties for all. It's off to bed for the next day is boxing day and it ain't over yet.
My sister is a lot like Mrs. Narrator's sister. An unbelievable amount of food packed into a minuscule amount of time. Too much time to fill the plate and not enough time to empty it generally equals indigestion...every year. I almost always have to work the following day so our visits are generally cut short...this is not a bad thing, three days of solid eating has worn on me by the end and I start to get comatose about an hour after we eat...
By the end of it all the kids have managed to play with there new stuff very little. All because we constantly have somewhere to go. If we got The Boy a video game, we had to monitor how much he could play before we left. If he got really into it, became focused on it, it would be nearly impossible to get him away from it and why shouldn't he play with it? It got to a point when we put our foot down, sort of. We spent more time running around to be with other people than we did with the four of us. So we started trying to get my folks to come over to our house and we didn't adhere quite so strictly to the times we needed to be at the Grandparent's house. It has worked out well for the most part. My sister and Mrs. Narrator's sister are both chronically late so were hardly in a position to enforce holiday times.
I'm certain there are people who travel farther than we do and who's schedules are more hectic than ours during the holidays and I feel their pain, really I do but if I there is a point to this, if I can say anything important for this time of year it's this-don't forget what it's really about, your kids...your partners or spouses (as the case may be)...and if you're a little better off than the next group...maybe help them a bit too. It's once a year, try to be nice to each other...and thank christ my Mother lives in Florida for the winter and doesn't celebrate Christmas until July. We'd really be screwed for time otherwise...
I have had many theological discussions with my children. Izzy in particular. Thy usually begin with the easy stuff...What is god? Who was jesus? Do you believe in god? Standard questions I'm guessing.
I have always tried to be honest with these sorts of questions without forcing what I believe down their throats. Though that is my right as a parent isn't it?
Izzy and I were watching some show on the T.V. and I and I made a flippant comment about the baby jesus.
"A cross is the sign of Jesus Christ" she said.
"In most circles." I replied.
"Is Jesus Christ god?" she asked
"Well that depends what you believe," I said "there are those who believe that he was the son of..."
"What do you believe Daddy?" she interrupted.
I thought about this one for a bit. I knew there are kids she goes to school with that go to church and follow all the
teachings and trappings therein and I know Isobel wants to fit in and be liked so the way I answered this could be much more important that just an off the cuff answer."Because I believe...you know in god." she said before I had a chance to answer.
"Oh yeah?" I asked
"Yep," she said. I talk to the sky sometimes. You know talking to god and all that."
"Oh yeah?" I said.
"Yep, I looked up to the sky and asked for an apple. I came in the house and opened the fridge and there were some apples." She said matter of factly.
And who says miracles don't happen anymore?
From all of us at Fuzzy Blue Chair to all of you, The very Best of the Season to you. No matter what you call it. Be safe, be happy, be together
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