Black Christmas

Christmas.  Expectations.  It all comes down to expectations.

I grew up with the idea that Christmas was magic.  I believed in Santa Claus until I was 8, at which time my mother burst my bubble by telling me I was stupid to still believe when I clearly SHOULD know Santa was she and my father.  I remember the wave of terror that washed over me at her pronouncement.  The possibility of magic had just been completely stripped from me.  After two continuous years of traveling the world and seeing the possible horrors of life, after eight years of fairly constant abuse at the hands of my parents, and after being abandoned by the one person who purported to love me (my sister) four years earlier, I was suddenly and utterly bereft of hope that there was a beneficent being at The North Pole dedicated to my happiness. Instead, I was suddenly and utterly under the power of my Mad Mother and my Enabler Father who had his own brutish issues.  And as my father believed all child-rearing decisions should be left to the woman, I knew that any Christmas joy I might henceforth have must be gleaned by cozening the favour of my pathologically narcissistic and exceedingly capricious mother.  With her words "Oh come on...you're not stupid...you know your father and I give you the presents. There's no Santa Claus" I knew, in the twinkle of an eye and nod of her head that I was truly and royally SCREWED.

Christmas, as with all things at my parent's house, was fraught with rules.  We decorated the tree together; Bing Crosby and Perry Como on the stereo, my father wiring the lights on the tree and the angel on top, my mother placing the very old and delicate ornaments on the uppermost branches, the three of us adding the rest of the ornaments, and then turning off all the lights and just sitting and looking at it every night.   There was no touching of presents - let alone hefting or shaking, no sneaking peeks at the clearly announced hiding places - if caught, the gift would be taken away forever, no being alone in the room with the tree and gifts - ever, one gift of my mother's choosing was to be opened on Christmas Eve (always a robe or slippers), Lionel Barrymore's performance of A Christmas Carol - complete with truly terrifying sound effects - was played on the record player just before bed. Christmas morning, no entering the room with the tree until the parents were up (they were to be allowed to sleep in) and breakfast was carried in on a tray, and on and on and on. There were rules about the order and manner of  package opening, about noting the giver and item so thank you notes could be written, about how one expressed proper appreciation, etc.  And compounding the insanity, there were always piles, mounds, veritable MOUNTAINS of presents, driving my lust and desire up and up and up.  I used to get so intensely anxious that by the time Christmas Day arrived, I'd throw up, over and over, until the afternoon.

I took all these rules VERY seriously.  Again, because I knew if they were violated, I would have Christmas taken away.  With my mother, the bottom line was 'something you care about can be always taken away from you, forever.'  I credit that cruelty, in part, with my propensity for hoarding any treasure I can get my hands on.  My need to control adds up to an enourmous hoard that overwhelms me and weighs me down.

In terms of Christmas expectations, all those rules set up a situation that no one else in my life could or would ever manage to match.  And although I really do understand on an intellectual level that I neither need nor really even want mountains of gifts or all the structured false glitter my mother created, emotionally I crave it.  And because it almost never even comes close, I am emotionally crushed by the disappointment. A strange Stockholm Syndrome of sorts - please give me the overwhelming intensity of the very thing that essentially destroys me.  Really twisted.

Yesterday was especially bleak.  Because of the family project the Christmas Tree represents to me, I expect my partner to join in.  But V grew up in a house where he wasn't allowed to touch the ornaments or lights, etc. - it was a job his mother did alone, and then V was married to someone who didn't want anyone else to participate in the decorating, thus cementing his total exclusion and closing the door on any possibility of pleasure he might gain from the process. And if HE's not really into the tree and all the decorations, it's simply too much work to just do for myself.  Maybe if I lived alone, I would, but since I have someone to share it with, and he doesn't care, why bother?

And then there was the present he gave me.  He made me a bag to carry my knitting in, something I asked him if he could do about a month or so ago, giving him a design for features and size, etc..  It's a good size and shape, is a lovely cream canvas colour with hunter green trim, has some of the features I was hoping to include (pockets on the inside of the bag to hold various textile tools, an attached inner bag with drawstring to hold the yarn and project, a smooth grommet in the drawstring bag allowing the yarn to feed through so it won't get dirty or tangled), and it has a good reinforced bottom and an extra coloured layer so that any dirt will show less.  We need to create some different handles and a closure method, too, but all in all, it's really terrific.  Still, I KNEW he was making it, and even had seen the cloth.  So on Christmas morning, when I gave him my meager pile of wrapped packages, he handed me the bag he'd made.  Unwrapped and wrinkled, he just handed it to me.  That was the sum total of his gifts.  Now I KNOW we're beyond strapped for money.  I KNOW that. But I also know that I managed to come up with presents for him over the course of the year...including spending the little lump of money I've been scraping together over the past months on a new pair of good shoes and a pair of work pants that are due to arrive on Jan 4.

I don't mean to sound so ungrateful about the effort V put into the bag. I really do like it a lot, and look forward to using it. I feel so selfish and childish to be upset about not receiving presents, but the truth is, it feels as though he doesn't care about me.  The truth is, V does care about me, but he doesn't care about Christmas or presents or any of it, and because of that, it feels as though he's neglecting me, which is not good at all.   I don't really blame him, per se, I just feel hurt, really, really hurt.   I guess I've always hoped my mother would be proved wrong, that there really IS a Santa Claus, but at this point I feel as though I should just throw all my Christmas decorations away and turn my back on one more piece of Life, and that's a final possibility of Magic destroyed.

I hate Christmas.