Column - Christmas gone awry- 1

Christmas gone awry

Christmas. This single word can evoke many emotions ranging from joy to nausea. With me it’s a lot of both. My family still has those huge-bulbed 1970’s outside lights. These strands of lights are nothing but a box of 8-track tapes to me. Oh, and don’t even think of throwing them out. “They’re still good, don’t throw out that strand.” “Dad! There’s only two working lights on the whole damn thing and they don’t make the replacement bulbs anymore.”
“I can’t see getting rid of it. Maybe they’ll make them again.”
So then I roll my eyes. Now if I did that at eight years of age he’d remark that I was about to get a good smack. At which point I’d push my luck and say, “As opposed to a bad smack?” I was a rotten child. Ahh, but he can’t do anything now because I’m an adult so I’m told.
Ever notice how everyone is a professional on how to hang lights but nobody wants to actually get on the ladder with the staple gun to do it? So all of us direct my father who’s on the ladder.
“No, Ron, it’s got to go higher on the left side of Rudolph’s nose.” “Dad, if you put it that way all the red bulbs will be clumped together and it’s gonna look stupid.” “Honey, that last part just fell back down.” “Dad, when you’re done with that can you put this wreath up, ‘cause the sap is getting on my fingers and it won’t go right.” About this point my father wants to staple our foreheads and starts muttering that in about two damn minutes we can do it our damn selves. At which point we all mumble “What the hell is his problem?” and go back inside.
I hate those little twinkling lights because if one goes the whole thing goes, or worse - half of it goes. If half of it goes you think you can actually find the defiant little bulb screwing up the whole thing but after 20 minutes you curse it and throw it out. This makes the next family member come along and give it a shot until they get pissed and pass it to the next person and so on until we’re all snapping at each other and hitting the egg nog early.
The tree. Ahhh, the tree. What a tradition that is, huh? Whose idea was it to bring the forest into the house anyways? With my family we would always chop down our own tree. All six of us would trek out through the fields for our family tree. After three hours of arguing about which one to get we would begin the ordeal of chopping it down and almost taking a leg off in the process. After a few years of that my father came home with a tree that he got from the gas station. The gas fumes from the tree were so bad we had to have all the windows open to keep from passing out. The poor thing lost all it’s needles in two days and by Christmas looked like a hat rack. I took out the .22 and shot it to put it out of it’s misery. Another joke gone sour that I was grounded for. The decorating of said tree was always a blast. When we were small the tree consisted of hand-made pasty oatmeal ornaments that looked like the art class rejects along with those garland strands of chained construction paper. For years I thought it was a Nelson family tradition to decorate the tree on Christmas Eve. As an adult I realized the rest of the world would call this procrastination. When we were kids we all argued about who got more ornaments to put on and how unfair my parents were. As teenagers my mother would threaten us to put the ornaments on. “Damn it, if you kids don’t start decorating this tree I’m bringing everything back to the mall. Now I want each of you to get over here right now and put on 10 ornaments each. I mean it!”
Who thought of the idea of a fat man with a limited wardrobe, a binging “cookie and milk” eating disorder, and a fetish for having kids sit on his lap swearing they were “good”? Think about this - doesn’t anybody think that a strange person breaking into your house late at night via the friggin’ chimney, for God’s sake, isn’t the slightest bit scary and peculiar? And we actually tell our kids this load of crap?!! When I was a kid I was so confused - one minute you’re told not to talk to strangers yet some guy was sneaking into the house once a year in his long johns! What’s wrong with this picture? And people wonder why kids cry on santa’s lap at the mall. And unfortunately for my parents that line about getting coal if you’re bad didn’t work on me and my siblings. You see - we heated our house with wood in pot bellied stoves and had to constantly split wood and lug it in - coal would have been easier to carry and burned longer. “Santa will bring you coal, Carol Ann, if you don’t start behaving!” “Good, it sure would make things a helluva alot easier.” I got a good smack for that one. If my parents really wanted to scare me they only had to say I was getting nothing but socks and underwear.
“Parking.” There’s a horror in itself. “Mall.” That’s it’s twin. The parking at a mall at Christmas is cut-throat --- every car for themselves. The only way you get one is to follow someone to theirs and then they just put the packages in, lock it, and go back into the mall. Ohh noo, they couldn’t have told you that’s what they were doing as you were trailing them for 2 miles to the outskirts of the whole parking lot. What’s really stupid is that you finally park and in the process of walking TO the mall you have three cars stop and ask you if you’re going to your car. “Yes, that’s right, I’m walking to my car backwards.”
You know it’s not really Christmas until your Uncle Frank starts hittin’ the bourbon. Things start getting pretty lively after that, the language gets very colorful, and the women start swearing that they’re ruining Christmas. By this time, to change the subject, your mother makes you go put on some choking, ghastly sweater that Aunt Edna just bought you. Twenty years later Frank still hits the bourbon but instead of being forced to try on a choking sweater they just choke me to death in a more bludgeoning way. “You meet anybody yet?” “Wouldn’t hurt you to wear a little make-up once in awhile.” “Have you gained weight?” “So I guess you’re not going to have anybody to kiss on New Years Eve again, huh?” “Did I mention your cousin just had another baby?” “I sure would like to have more grandchildren myself – not that I’m pushing – you still have what- one, maybe two years, left to have children? Plenty of time…. really….” Happy flippin’ holidays to me. I start wishing for salmonella poisoning from the egg nog. Then just when you think it can’t get any worse: “Where’s everybody sleeping?” I’m always on the floor in a sleeping bag, no pillow, and next to someone that snores with a bladder problem. Ahh… but in the end…know what? I wouldn’t change any of it. I joke and kid and poke fun but honestly, I have the most loving and wonderful family and I am so incredibly blessed to have them. Have a safe and happy holiday this season and God bless.