Thursday, December 21, 2006
Winter Solstice
I observe a (very) few of this season's niceties & rituals & leave it at that. I have no church, no grown children or grandchildren, no gathering of extended family. Solstice is my moment, & that's mainly an astronomical observation & a poet's acknowledgement of solar Spring beginning a journey northward. Add Persephone for flavoring, or throw a virgin into a volcano if you consider it absolutely necessary.
For many years, Christmas was a big pain-in-the-Blitzen. My father & his second wife hosted a pleasant gathering every year some time within a week of the 25th, they had the authority to command all to attend, & their house in Mendham was crowded with the spawn of two families & three generations. Santa Claus made an appearance. One year Santa so freaked out my niece that she began crying for her older brother to rescue her, not realizing he was the guy in the Santa outfit. Nearly everything else was nuts. My sister's two kids had 7 grandparents, she had to deal with them plus assorted relatives, some of whom she liked. She finally gave up trying to please everyone & rightly insisted on holding one big event, & everyone should get along or just shut the hell up & stay away. After her retirement, my mom persisted for some years in having a Christmas dinner, refusing to acknowledge the complexities involved & demanding that her kids come no matter what else we had on our plates for that day. Slowly, she became possessed by the spirit of Medea. Eventually, she couldn't even bake potatoes, & Christmas became an unnecesarily bitter season for her. This was in contrast to the safe, secure & happy nuclear family Christmases of my childhood that no doubt she remembered all too well.
I was living with a woman whose family sat down to Christmas dinner before sunset on Christmas Eve & had apparently been doing it that way since the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a very difficult adjustment for me as it meant giving up my afternoon coffee time at Dunkin' Donuts. Nobody in her strait-laced family ever loosened up to the point of telling a good joke or expressing an opinion worth disputing - athough some of their passive-aggressive maneuvering was fascinating. But it was her Christmas, they had rituals & traditions.
Christmas Eve was much improved in the late 70's when our friends & neighbors in the next apartment began hosting a late party for everyone who needed to relax after dysfunctional family events. The presents were better, too. It happened annually for over a decade. I still fondly remember the year the hostess, emboldened by cheap chablis, greeted me with an open mouth kiss as I walked in.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
For many years, Christmas was a big pain-in-the-Blitzen. My father & his second wife hosted a pleasant gathering every year some time within a week of the 25th, they had the authority to command all to attend, & their house in Mendham was crowded with the spawn of two families & three generations. Santa Claus made an appearance. One year Santa so freaked out my niece that she began crying for her older brother to rescue her, not realizing he was the guy in the Santa outfit. Nearly everything else was nuts. My sister's two kids had 7 grandparents, she had to deal with them plus assorted relatives, some of whom she liked. She finally gave up trying to please everyone & rightly insisted on holding one big event, & everyone should get along or just shut the hell up & stay away. After her retirement, my mom persisted for some years in having a Christmas dinner, refusing to acknowledge the complexities involved & demanding that her kids come no matter what else we had on our plates for that day. Slowly, she became possessed by the spirit of Medea. Eventually, she couldn't even bake potatoes, & Christmas became an unnecesarily bitter season for her. This was in contrast to the safe, secure & happy nuclear family Christmases of my childhood that no doubt she remembered all too well.
I was living with a woman whose family sat down to Christmas dinner before sunset on Christmas Eve & had apparently been doing it that way since the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a very difficult adjustment for me as it meant giving up my afternoon coffee time at Dunkin' Donuts. Nobody in her strait-laced family ever loosened up to the point of telling a good joke or expressing an opinion worth disputing - athough some of their passive-aggressive maneuvering was fascinating. But it was her Christmas, they had rituals & traditions.
Christmas Eve was much improved in the late 70's when our friends & neighbors in the next apartment began hosting a late party for everyone who needed to relax after dysfunctional family events. The presents were better, too. It happened annually for over a decade. I still fondly remember the year the hostess, emboldened by cheap chablis, greeted me with an open mouth kiss as I walked in.
Labels: growing up, holidays
