One of my strongest Xmas memories (aside
from listening to Truman Capote recite his Xmas Memory—as a child, I thought it
was a woman speaking) is picking out a Xmas tree with my mother. It always seemed like we chose the coldest
night possible for this, but that was undoubtedly a matter of perception. In my OCD way, I would have to examine every
tree of suitable height on the lot before narrowing it down to the top contenders
and finally making that important decision.
I never thought about the cost but I realise now it was significant to
my mother. The tree lot guys would come
out of their warming trailer, smelling of beer, and offer to tie the tree to
our non-existent car. We'd each hoist an
end and carry it however many blocks (the lots moved around from year to year) home,
and up the stairs to our third floor apartment.
In my memory, there is always snow.
In reality, there would likely not have been.
One year, my mother decided she wanted a
train to go around the tree. She bought
a large square board with a track nailed to it, in the centre of which we
placed the tree stand, and began to collect Dept. 56 village components. It was to be a Victorian English village,
although the only train she could find from the period was American. This was an anachronism only we would
notice. Amongst the minute plastic
figures that one could purchase to people the village were, to our surprise, a
set of nudes meant to be artist models.
Of course, we bought this & reposed them on balconies and in
doorways. You'd have to look closely at
the village to notice them so I expect most guests never knew what a debauched
little town it was.
After I moved away, my mother stopped
celebrating Xmas. But I didn't. I had to be creative when I was away from the
rituals and traditions, and especially the decorations, of my childhood, but I
have managed to honour the facets of the season that resonate with me wherever
I have lived.
Food is a crucial element. In
some countries, I have not been able to make the same treats I made at home
(marshmallow fluff for fudge was not to be had in Russia or Italy or even the
UK), but I learned to make saffron buns in Sweden, mince pies in Edinburgh, and
king cakes in Paris. I became a devotee
of Chocolate Kimberleys in Ireland and panettone in Florence.
Music is equally as important, and I have been lucky to find live Xmas
music most places I have lived. I've
been to midnight mass at Notre Dame on Xmas Eve, and seen the Nutcracker performed
by a Russian ballet. At first, I had
tapes of the Xmas albums I listened to as a child. Later, I got them on CD. Now, I can stream endless Xmas music online. My most rigid Xmas rule is that I listen only
to Xmas music from Thanksgiving to Epiphany.
Each year, I have difficulty letting go of it come January 7th. Like finishing up the last of the eggnog (I
write this on January 18th with enough for one more eggnog latte,
two if I skimp, and don't ask me how much eggnog ice cream I have stashed in the
freezer), I have to make the music last a bit longer, knowing I won't get to
enjoy it again until next Thanksgiving.
I've yet to be able to go cold turkey; I usually start to gradually
incorporate non-Xmas music into my listening until I've weaned myself off it entirely. When I was a kid singing in choir, we'd start
rehearsing Xmas music in November, giving me an early taste that I felt
privileged to have. I realise it
wouldn't be special if one listened to it all year, but it's hard to confine my
favourite music to such a short period of time, one reason I am so rigid about not
listening to any other type of music during that Thanksgiving-Epiphany
interval. My ex, who was Jewish, hated
this ritual, but that's what headphones are for. The big point of contention was in the
car. He'd want to listen to the Ramones,
I'd want Bach's Xmas Oratorio, and we'd fight.
Next partner is going to have to acquiesce or fuck off; this is not
negotiable.
Light is another reason Xmas is my favourite time of year. Holiday lights are so heartening. My family has a genetic tendency to
depression and the dark, cold winter days are challenging. Sun and exercise and warmth work brain
chemical magic to lift my mood and they are absent in winter. I always think Xmas comes too early. The lights cheer me – I take them in greedily
like vital nourishment – but most people take them down after New Year's. Of course I know the history of why Xmas is
celebrated near the winter solstice, but this is just the beginning of winter
in the northern hemisphere, with 2-3 months of cold, dark misery to endure
after the Xmas lights are packed away.
We need to move Xmas to sometime around the end of February, to give us
something to look forward to. I call my
lights "winter lights" rather than "holiday lights", and
leave them up for the duration. It
helps—a little.
Wherever I have lived, I have made a point
of buying Xmas lights. In Russia, it
turned out the lights available were not made for Russian outlets but a friend
had her husband, an electrician, adapt them.
Of course I gave them to her when I left. I love celebrating Xmas in Sweden because
they take the lights very seriously.
Every street, every window, is cosily lit, warm and inviting. It cheers me up just to think about it.
Decorations are the final component of Xmas.
Once I left home, I had to improvise what I could not afford to
buy. As a student, I strung my dorm room
with lights (and illegal cranberry and pine-scented candles), and decorated my
door wreath with juniper, holly, roses, and white sprigs of baby's breath
standing in for snow. Now I have all of
the family ornaments and decorations, which have the most sentimental value of
all my possessions. I care for them
lovingly, and treasure each antique ornament.
My favourite are the wax ornaments purchased from an Austrian bakery on
the Northwest side of Chicago. I also
love the garlands, made from glass beads salvaged from a Czech factory
destroyed in WWII. I could go on but
realise no-one else is likely to share my passionate love affair with my Xmas
decorations. Oh, but there is one more
thing I have to mention: I have an
envelope full of Xmas cards I received or purchased years ago that I tape to
the walls. My favourite is a card from
my friend Fred, a classmate in Italy, and I have some Swedish ones I also
adore. They're all outdoor scenes, with
animals or gnomes, but not kitschy. I
also have some with renaissance or Pre-Raph angels and illuminated
manuscripts. They have no monetary value
but they are significant treasures.
This is the first time I have lived in a
house, extending my decorating sphere to the outdoors, with lights for the
porch and a garland wrapped with lights for the mailbox post. (The latter met with an accident last year
about a month before I would have taken them down. I hope this year's have better luck.) I am limited by a lack of outdoor outlets to
lights that are battery-operated, which are weaker and require a safe, dry
place to stash the battery packs. There
is a house down the street that employs the see-them-from-orbit style of
outdoor lights. That's not my
taste. Across the street is a house with
New England window candles and white lights on their porch and wreath. Much classier. If I had outlets to work with, that's more
what I'd be going for.
Of course the decorating centrepiece is the
tree. I felt very grown-up the first
year I had my own tree. I didn't yet
have the family ornaments, and had to improvise with straw ornaments from
Sweden and pine cones and more baby's breath.
I even made a popcorn-and-cranberry garland once. Candy canes and decorated cookies, with holes
poked in the top before baking, can also be pressed into service for the tree.
At first, I got trees from a lot, albeit
now tying them on top of the car for the trip home. These were perfect, symmetrical, elegant
trees, as if they were drawn by an artist for an idyllic Xmas scene. I had one some years ago that will go down in
history at the Best Tree Ever. But, as a
city girl now living in the country, I was naturally drawn to the opportunity
to cut my own fresh tree. So, I started
going to a tree farm. It is
unfortunately situated on the side of a hill, so all the trees have a bad side,
but they are all balsams, my traditional type from childhood, and the nice
family that owns it uses a sustainable stump culture method. It's also a lovely drive to get there. In recent years this farm has started to
bring fresh cut trees down to my local co-op on the first Saturday in
December. For practical reasons, I have
started to get my tree there rather than making the journey to cut one on my
own. The selection is poor. I'm surrounded here by many lots with perfect
trees, cut before Thanksgiving, shipped down from Canada, and sold at a premium. I tell myself I can't afford those trees,
that they're not as fresh, they're not local, but it's really become a question
of loyalty. The woman from the tree farm
expects me each year, has trees in mind for me, and appreciates that I always
show her a photo of last year's decorated tree.
This year, I almost had to tell her I couldn't find one that would
do. It was the sorriest selection of
Charlie Brown trees I had ever seen.
Each year I tell myself that once it's decorated, it will look fine, but
this year I wasn't so sure. You can be
the judge:
You might have noticed that my rundown of
Xmas necessities did not mention people.
Each year my parents ask me to come home for Xmas or, when I was with my
ex, he wanted me to go with him to visit his (Jewish) family. I feel guilty, but I've had to turn them both
down. No-one else's Xmas is Xmas-y
enough for me. I need the lights, the
music, the food, the eggnog, the warmth, above all the control of the Xmas environment.
I prefer to host Xmas rather than visit.
&, this is where I have to take an unpopular stand: I'd rather spend Xmas alone, in my warm
house, watching Rankin-Bass Xmas specials and curling up on the sofa in front
of the tree for my annual reading of "A Xmas Carol" than be with
family or friends in their cold, non-Xmasy homes.
I'm sorry; this is what Xmas is about to
me. If people want to come visit, I love to have people to cook for and play
games and music with. Most years, no-one
sees my tree but me. Most years, I make
a traditional Xmas feast, with all the trimmings, for myself. I have many pet
peeves but the peeviest, the one that makes me apoplectic with rage (ok, I
guess that takes it beyond pet peeve status) is when people, and this happens every fucking year, tell me I shouldn't
bother to have a tree if I am the only one to see it nor spend all of Xmas day
cooking a feast just for myself. There
seems to be some unspoken obligation not to do much for the holidays if one is alone. I don't understand that. Never have, never will. I love to have guests during the holiday
season. When I have enough local friends
available, I host a Xmas party to decorate anatomically-correct gingerbread
people. I make fondue and mulled wine
and bake lots of cookies. But if everyone's
busy with their own families and it happens that I am the only one to see my
tree or taste the Xmas turkey and cranberry sauce, why the hell should I have
less or do without because I am alone? I
don't get it, and I annually tell people who express surprise that I would have
something outrageous like my own fucking Xmas tree or actual Xmas dinner to go
fuck themselves.
Now January proceeds apace. I can leave the lights up, I can still cue up
Purcell's "Behold, I Bring You Glad Tidings" on Spotify, but I have
to face the fact that it is now time to take down the tree and put away the
decorations. I'll do it this weekend. I always dread it, but with the inauguration
and Bishop leaving, it's already going to be a depressing weekend. The holiday season has this buoyant
the-usual-rules-are-suspended feel to it that can't last long by its very
nature but leaves me bereft, always wondering how I will drag myself through
the rest of winter. I don't know what
other people do. How do they keep their
spirits up? I love the silence of snow,
and the cosiness of winter, curling up on the sofa with knitting and a mug of
tea or hot chocolate or mulled wine, but I also find it in many ways
interminable and dispiriting. I always
need something to look forward to, and winter, once the holidays are over, does
not provide that. It's a time for
discipline, New Year's resolutions for self-improvement that always involve diets
and exercise and sacrifice, a time to get back to work. Now you see why Xmas needs to be moved to the
end of February. I can't be the only one
who needs something to look forward to other than mud and tax season.
