Fa-la-la-la-la-la

 So it’s December 18^th and I’m trying to make it a great Christmas for my boy.  Ok, that’s a pretty lie I tell myself.  I’m coasting at best.  My socks are neither too tight, nor is my heart too small however I loathe this time of year with a smoldering, tinsel encrusted passion.  I’ll say it.  I freaking hate Christmas.  Bah Humbug!

The first Holiday Season after my mother passed away I realized something fundamental about myself.  I have no Christmas spirit to speak of. 

Now my Mom, she was a right jolly elf.  She’d start playing Christmas songs in June.  Her shopping was done by August 15^th and the month of December was dedicated for decorating, cookie baking, hand painting ornaments and mailing out 1,672 personalized Christmas cards.

It’s hard to be Grinchy in the face of such enthusiasm so naturally, I assumed that I had the Christmas bug as well. Then she died and I spent the next 10 years volunteering to work Christmas day, just so I could avoid the whole thing. Rum sodden egg nog and the movie where the kid wants a Red Rider BB gun: those were the parts of Christmas that I liked.

Enter Gabriel. 

I was already day dreaming of his first Christmas the day I brought him home from the hospital.  I was going to fill the apartment with fairy lights, put up the biggest Christmas tree I could fit through the door and indoctrinate him, early into Jimmy Stewart’s Wonderful Life.  I had plans, man.

And then we went to Columbia and found out that his eyes were irreparably damaged.  It was the beginning of December and the streets of Bogotá were decorated with gloriously cheerful garland that my baby would never see. Every one of those icicle lights pierced my heart.  On the plane ride home, with unshed tears burning my eyes, I knew I couldn’t do it.  I knew I couldn’t make a Christmas that year.  My baby’s first and I barely acknowledged it.  Well, I had some eggnog. Fa la la la la.

Seven years later here we are again.  Christmastime.  And I’m trying to try.  Christmas is a very visual holiday, if you really think about it so I work with what I’ve got.  The house smells of our Christmas tree and cranberry scented candles.  Nat King Cole is singing about Frosty the Snowman and I’m thinking about actually stringing popcorn by hand, although I’m not sure there’s enough Rum in the Caribbean to fuel that particular activity.

Gabriel is incredibly smart and asks too many intelligent questions…this whole Santa Clause thing is falling apart at a rapid clip.  It doesn’t help that I hate to lie to him and have never really felt too good about the while Chris Cringle thing.  I answer his questions as abstractly as possible in the following fashion:

Gabriel:  Mom, we don’t have a chimney.  How will Santa get in the House?

Me:  Ummm…..well he’s Santa.  He probably knows where we keep the hide-a-key.

Gabriel:  How can the elves really make all those presents? They’re so small.

Me:  Couple of years ago Santa started outsourcing some of the work to Mordor.  They have an Orc reform program, so those guys do the heavy lifting.

Gabriel:  Orcs do not work in Santa’s workshop!

Me: Course not.  They’re allergic to Candy Canes.

Gabriel:  How does Santa know if I’m being good?

Me:  I rat you out.  There’s a hotline parents can call when their kids have been naughty.

Gabriel: Oh, yeah? What’s the number?

Me: 1-800-Snow-bal

Gabriel:  Can I see your phone.

Me: No.  Want a cookie?

 

This is the last year that he’ll believe in Santa but that’s not really what it’s about anyway.  I’ve been teaching him about brotherhood.  I teach him that Christmas is a time of year where you go out of your way to let the people you love know how special they are to you.  When you help people who have less than you, when you put aside your fears and worries for a little while and celebrate what you have at the moment. 

In teaching him this, I relearned it myself and some of my hatred for the season seems to have waned.  I’m taking time to count my many blessings and eagerly anticipating the beginning of a new year.  I’ve found some joy in my heart that is unrelated to rum or BB guns and I can’t wait to see the look on my Little Dude’s face when he finds the Xbox that Santa’s Orcs whipped him up this year.

All the Christmas lights he'll never see still cause me a modicum of dismay but every year it gets easier. And, hey...if I'm sneaky enough, I can Christmas shop for him, right in front of him.

I hope all of you reading this, whatever your beliefs, whatever you celebrate have a wonderful Holiday Season.  Have an eggnog for me.