When I was a kid, Christmas was always a really big deal. We started decorating early – usually by the first week of December the farm house was all decked out in tacky holiday glory. My dad kept every single bullshit kindergarten painting I did, and up on the walls with masking tape went my blue snowflakes, bonhommes de neige, fat ugly reindeer and mangers.
Yes, mangers. Because I’m Catholic. Well, sort of. I kind of feel like God himself will strike me dead with a lightning bolt every time I tell someone I’m Catholic, because I figure he’s probably pretty pissed that I would dare call myself that. I haven’t stepped foot in a confessional since I was thirteen years old, I had a brief dalliance with paganism inspired by a teenage crush on Neve Campbell, and since my early twenties have laughingly suggested to likeminded thinkers and shocked churchgoers alike that I’d rather believe in Santa than God because I’ve never gotten a My Little Pony doll from the big man upstairs.
But I digress. Where was I? Right, Christmas.
Growing up on the farm in Northern Ontario, Christmas was very much a family affair. Grandma and Grandpa lived next door, and none of the aunts, uncles and cousins were more than a half hour away, so we spent every holiday together. We’d have supper at Grandma’s, then play upstairs with our cousins (more on our naughty shenanigans another day), and around eleven at night, everyone piled into their cars and a convoy of Styleses went to midnight mass.
What was midnight mass like? Don’t ask me, little girls like me were never able to stay awake. I expect it was worse in my church, too… it being French-Canadian and Catholic, there was actually quite a bit of Latin prayer and hymns. Kids who can’t understand what’s going on can’t pay attention. They either misbehave or fall asleep, and since corporal punishment in church wasn’t really unusual, I was one of the latter.
When my dad carried us into the house after mass, we sleepily had a bedtime snack while my parents set out the cookies and milk for Santa, and the carrots and bowl of sugar for the reindeer. Then we went off to bed. For us, there was never any of that can’t-sleep Christmas Eve anticipation.
Hey, parents: want your kids to stop driving you crazy Christmas Eve with their inability and/or unwillingness to shut up and go to sleep already so you can have one goddamn drink to stave off the complete festive bullshit your life has become? Dudes, make them go to church at midnight. For serious.
Christmas is different now. My ex was allergic to tack, so I’ve really had to rein in my wild trailer park decorating ways. Gone are the multicoloured lights, plastic Santa Clauses, snowman candles, red and green doilies, paper chain steamers, pre-lit lawn ornaments, four-foot musical trumpeting angel, and sentinel front door candy canes of my childhood, and heaven help me should anyone catch me listening to Christmas carols on the radio. While our current, grown-up holiday decor is understated, classy and quite beautiful, I do long for the trailer trashy days of yore.
Well, sometimes I long for them. Otherwise I remember how truly tacky and hideous it all looked and am glad for my classy 7′ slim Tuscan pine decorated in a simple and elegant red-and-gold scheme and clear twinkle lights, my beautiful poinsetta arrangements, and my lovely collection of vintage Christmas cocktail napkins from the 60′s.
Still, though, I wonder if I’d still be the only one in the house with an ounce of Christmas spirit if things weren’t just a little… in your face.
