Hating Xmas (standard:other, 553 words)
Author: A.E. Sadler	Added: Aug 17 2001	Views/Reads: 3319/1	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Christmas can be hell.

HATING XMAS By A.E. Sadler 

God, I hate Christmas.  I'm still recovering from it.  And it's March. 
I guess that's un-Christian or un-American or un-something to say, huh? 
Maybe if you had my family you'd understand. 

Like crazy Aunt Linda who blasts Chanukah music and then gets mad at us
for not knowing the words.  As if it isn't Christmas that we've 
traditionally celebrated all of our lives.  How are we supposed to know 
about Chanukah, for Chrissake? 

Like my brother and sister, who both deplore Aunt Linda and are always
trying to kick her dog when she's not looking.  My brother hates 
Christmas.  "It's Christmas and fuck you," says the seasonal greeting 
he leaves on his answering machine. 

See, in my family everyone wants a piece of you.  I'm not talking
extremities here.  I'm talking vital organs.  I spent Christmas with 
strangers last year.  Which, if you knew my crazy family, you'd 
probably say was a blessing. 

Except that it got a little more geographic than I'd had in mind.  It
had me driving through the deserts of Arizona and California, into the 
mountains, through a snow blizzard, into the barrios of Los Angeles, 
staying in cheap motels where the desk clerk checked me into a room 
that was already occupied. 

All to please everybody.  For Christmas.  Or Chanukah.  Or whatever. 
Helluva Christmas, huh?  But actually, it wasn't so bad.  I know that 
must sound hard to believe.  But.... 

Last Christmas I was in love.  He gave me...he gave me this really
beautiful moment. 

I was standing in the store window, looking at him.  Bing Crosby was
singing "White Christmas" from some invisible speakers, and in my 
living room at home there were Christmas lights and sparkling red taper 
candles and hidden away the stocking I was making with his name 
embroidered on it.  I was still deciding what to stuff it with, and 
here we were on this one night.  He on one side of the glass, outside, 
finishing his cigarette, and me on the other.  Sailing on each other's 
smile.  Sailing and smiling and smiling and...looking like a couple of 
dopes probably, until finally I think maybe one of us had better stop 
before the whole thing dissolved into something too embarrassing to be 
romantic any more. 

So I turn away distracting myself with the first object that catches my
eye, a glass ball with flakes of gold inside.  You know, like the kind 
you used to shake when you were a kid to see it snow.  Only this one 
snowed flakes of gold.  Fourteen carat gold.  I pick it up, holding it 
to the light and watching the gold glimmers drift to the bottom. 

This was before the Tempe desert and the Coachella Valley and central
California and the snow storm and the barrios and the funky motel room 
that was already occupied.  The tour of duty exhausted us but somehow 
we managed to be home in time to open our gifts together on Christmas 
morning.  He complained about how impossible I am to buy for.  "You 
don't collect anything.  You aren't materialistic.  You don’t want 
anything...." 

I unwrap his gift and suddenly I see it again.  It's the little glass
ball with the golden snowflakes, floating around as if in a dream.  And 
sparkling all the way. 

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