Several years ago, December started to be my least favorite month of the year. It crept up on me like that... over a few years, it just became the month I wanted to sleep through, hoping to awake sometime mid January. Why, I'm not 100% sure.
When we were kids, for my brothers and me, Christmas was the beginning and the end of everything. First came the Sears-Roebuck catalogue, with all the goodies any little tyke could possibly dream of. We would scour that thing, dog-earring pages that had especially fine gift ideas, circling the Incredible Edible set, MatchBox Car racetracks, and the always popular Walkie-Talkies. We wanted bikes, we wanted kid size kitchens, we wanted microscopes, we wanted huge stuffed animals, we wanted table top football and pinball sets... we wanted, wanted, wanted. For the most part, we received most of the things we asked for, thanks to our parents, grandparents and various aunts and uncles. It was the 60's, and all was good in our little kid world. What we didn't receive at Christmas, we would work for, instilling an awesome work ethic into each of us.
On Christmas Eve, neighbors and relatives would gather at our house, passing around gifts and eggnog. The parents would spike it with, what? Brandy? Something....and we kids would be bouncing off the walls from eating cookies and chocolates. Plus the unbearable anticipation of the Big Guy coming down the chimney. The night would be like magic, all colored lights and presents waiting under the tree. Cookies and milk for Santa at the ready.
Then, just as everyone was about to conk out, or pass out, we would get in the car and head down to midnight mass. Catholics, you know. It was tough, man. All the little old ladies dressed to the nines, and heady with too much perfume, parents starting to nod out, kids barely hanging on...can't we just GET TO THE POINT?!?!! Always seemed like the longest mass ever.
My poor parents would then have to try to get us home and to sleep, put together whatever big gifts needed putting together, get the stockings stuffed with little goodies, drag out whatever gifts were hiding away in closets... Saints on Earth. The final touch was the wrapping paper taped across the hallway entrance, so we couldn't sneak into the living room and see "Christmas" before they woke up. Now I know this was because they only had an hour or two of sleep, and needed all the minutes they could get, before we became crazy with the wanting.
On their mark, we would come busting out and through the paper, Dad filming it all on 8mm. I remember being blinded by those lights on the camera-and that overwhelming happiness at seeing that yes, you did get a kid sized kitchen. I loved that freaking kitchen, all pink and made of, well, cardboard, really. But it rocked my little world. Just my size. My other favorite gift was the "Horrible Hamilton" toy I got one year. It was this green plastic monster/bug thing that walked on it's 6 legs when you pulled his long string. Even way back then, I loved my monsters. The wooden circus wagon filled with all the cool wooden circus animals lasted for years. Loved by all of us kiddles.
As we got older, it was all about record players, reel to reel tape players, guitars, drums, and record albums,(6th grade it was Neil Young's "After The Goldrush") and, of course, cash. Sweet thing was, even into our adult years, we still got a stocking filled with fun little gifts...tiny mustards and cheeses, funny pencils, bags of chocolate "coins", silly wind-up toys...and always, always, always walnuts & tangerines. Good times, good times.
Some years, we would have all the family, cousins and grandparents, for the sit down dinner of 25 or so. Honestly, to this day I do not know how my Mother did it. She, a professional working woman, would not only bake several types of cookies, but shop, wrap, cook, write and send cards, etc., etc., etc. In earlier years, we would all be at my Mom's parents, Grandma & Grandpa Dottie's house. They lived next door, and our L.A. family would be there, too. All us cousins would play ourselves silly in the yard, trying out our new toys. Grandma Dottie had a silver tinsel table - top tree with a little village in the snow underneath- trees, deer and everything. It enchanted us all. Grandma Bea had a big silver tinsel tree with one of those slow turning round lights on the floor that made the tree change color every few seconds. Oooo. Love the Grandmas.
Then there were the years we would drive down to my cousin's house for Christmas day. It was so cool because the house had this great space to hide in. We were awkward pre-teens in those days, so having a place to escape to was the bomb. Also, there was the boa constrictor.... Being a kid is such a trip. So many sweet and fractured memories of family.
And that's what's so odd about my rather gloomy feelings on December. True, it's also my birthday month, but I would rather that just slides by under cover. Just not into the birthday thing. (And yet, I do try to honor other's birthdays...hmmmm.) For some reason, December just makes me kind of sad. And overwhelmed. And full of anxiety. And cynical. And so f-ing tired. Like most people, no doubt. I start feeling dread right after Thanksgiving, and it smolders. This year it tipped into hellishness for a few days, but I'm getting better at fighting it back. It is exhausting trying to maintain. Making biscotti every year saves me, that's for sure.
The shining, sparkling, warm and cozy light at the end of the tunnel is knowing that I will see my Mom & Dad, have a special evening out, play some dominoes, drink some wine... share some family time. It may not be the big scene it was back in the day, but these couple of days with them will make all of the December doom and gloom vanish in a good, tight hug.
