Childhood Christmas Memories

For at least the first 16 years of my life, I was not home on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.  My parents, brother, and I were the only ones in our extended family who didn't live in Virginia.  Therefore, Christmas was in Virginia. 😀

Each December, we'd wait for my dad to come home from an annual conference the first week of the month.  Once he returned, it was time to put up the tree and decorate, officially beginning our Christmas celebration.  Mom would put on a stack of records while we decorated, including Brenda Lee, Elvis, and Alvin & the Chipmunks.  We didn't do outside decorations, but let me tell you - we had Pringles cans that housed miniature Christmas scenes, so we lacked for nothing.

Usually the last weekend before Christmas, we'd exchange family gifts (gifts from Mom and Dad, not Santa). Once school was out, we'd head to Virginia.  Somehow, my folks would pack all our unwrapped Santa gifts along with 4 people's luggage into the trunk of the Caprice Classic without us seeing them.  My brother and I had an invisible line halfway across the back seat, where neither dared to extend their belongings or body into the other's territory.  Again, we'd listen to Brenda Lee, Elvis, and the Chipmunks - this time via 8-track tape.  Mom and Dad would pump my brother full of Dramamine and he'd sleep most of the trip with his mouth slung open, and I would read voraciously (this was before I developed car sickness that now makes me want to hurl after simply reading a text or glancing at a map when in a car).  At times I would gaze out the car window, taking in the decorations of those who decorated outside their homes, or gazing into the passing cars (we got passed a lot), wondering where those folks were going and if they had a family as wonderful as mine.  And as the years progressed into adolescence, sometimes I'd fantasize about catching the eye of some cute boy who would demand his parents stop the car because he was sure he'd found the perfect girl for him riding alongside them in the car with Ohio plates.

Eventually, we'd arrive at a winding gravel driveway that led up a hill to my Mema's house.  The excitement and anticipation was bursting in my heart!!!  We'd made it to MeMa's!!

Soon the "exhale" of arrival was replaced with bustling, unpacking the car (yet somehow not seeing the Santa gifts), remarking on anything that had changed in the house since our summer visit, playing with dogs, plugging in MeMa's hideous green Christmas candles in each of her many windows, and getting all caught up on the gossip of a small town - whether we wanted to or not.

When our cousins arrived, we'd spend the first 15 minutes feeling awkward and unsure, but would quickly find our groove as our parents shouted at us to "Settle down!" and "Stop running!" and "Close the door - we're not trying to heat the outside!" 

When we'd head over to Granny and PaPa's house, the same phenomenon occurred with the cousins.  Soon those boys would be dragging me through briar patches in a skirt, lighting fire to my shoelaces, and showing me all the wonderful nuances of country living.  At Granny's we'd patiently wait for sightings of the neighbors we'd affectionately nicknamed "Stringbean" and "Butterbean" - a tall thin man, and a short, less thin woman who'd make their way up the road to explore the dumpster and return with whatever treasures they'd found.

My cousins were at the forefront of my mind as I selected clothes to take on the trip.  It was important that I demonstrated that I had fashion sense and was hip.

I cannot impress upon you how vivid my memories are of climbing the creaky steps at MeMa's each Christmas Eve with my brother, where we'd lie awake by the wood-burning stove for what seemed like hours, discerning what sounded like hooves on the tin roof.

When it was time to head back to Ohio, MeMa sent us off with warm ham biscuits to eat in the car, saving time and precious money on our 495 mile trip home.  I consistently felt irritated because she was interfering with the likelihood of me getting a rare fast food meal.  Now, I'd choose those ham biscuits every day and twice on Sunday instead of a fast food meal.  Some things only come with time, maturity, and perspective.

I hope you've been somewhat entertained with my Christmas childhood memories.  If not, no worries, I really wrote this for myself to capture and record the magic of Christmas in Virginia.

Merry Christmas!

The Inverse of Love

Last night I found myself thinking back on the loves of my life.  I've been fortunate to be in love before, though I haven't been in love in quite some time (but that's a different blog).  I engaged in a silly exercise, comparing loves and thinking about who I had loved "the most" (speaking of romantic love here, not the love I have for my children, family, and friends).  I can recall the deep, endless, self-sacrificing love I felt.  How I would have done anything to bring him happiness, and how feeling his love was one of the greatest feelings I'd ever felt.

I began to think how I feel for him now...if I feel anything at all.  My feelings for him epitomize ambivalence.  Not hatred, not longing, not regret....just....neutral, nothing.

In my experience, when a person whom I immensely love begins to mistreat me, disrespect me, neglect me, tear me down, and otherwise treat me like shit, I go through somewhat of a grief cycle.  Initially, I am deeply wounded.  I long for the sunnier times when love was reciprocal.  I examine myself to see what I may have done to cause this change, to become unlovable.  Then I feel anger, disdain, and disbelief at how things have changed.  And in time, I feel numb towards that person.

People always say love is a powerful thing, and it is.  What I've come to realize is that the inverse of love is perhaps equally powerful.  But instead, its power is in its ability to diminish and eradicate love.  It's a slow and painful process, to be sure, but it's a thorough process.  I stand in awe of the realization that the person I once loved so completely is now someone I feel nothing for.  Not because I lost interest, strayed, outgrew him, etc.  But because he treated me in such a way that my love began to evaporate.  Then again, maybe my love just changed direction.  Instead of pouring into him, it began pouring into me.  I began to love myself enough to stop exposing myself to the inverse of love.

How Firm Thy Friendship

I attended calling hours tonight for a childhood friend who died unexpectedly this week.  Not surprisingly, I was overcome with memories as I sat with my two closest friends from my childhood and watched the video montage.  There are memories of countless sleepovers and birthday parties, riding bikes, prank calling, and spending nearly every day of summer at the neighborhood pool, longing to grow up quickly as we'd read Seventeen magazine and figure out the best hairstyles and makeup applications.

With hindsight and perspective, I've realized that my childhood was privileged.  Of course, I didn't realize it at the time.  I thought everyone grew up with friends like mine, in a neighborhood like mine, etc.  It's not that nothing bad happened - one of those friends lost a parent at a very young age, while another friend's parents divorced while she was young.  And it's not that we had a lot of material things.  It's that we had QUALITY.  I grew up with loving parents who are still together with 51 years of marriage under their belts.  I also grew up with some really quality friends. in quality families - good, kind, warm, welcoming people.  Just the other night my best high school friend's mom showed up with food and flowers - she'd learned I'd been sick and my friend sent her mom to bless me since she lives too far away to do so in person.  And today, whether it had been a few months or multiple decades since I saw some of these folks, that same genuine core of kindness and warmth was there, even amidst grief and suffering.  It really struck me how blessed my childhood was and how blessed I am.  That I could put my arms around two women who were once the girls I played tag with and tell them that I love them and mean it, even though we seldom see each other or talk.

Within the line of people who'd come to the visitation tonight, a group of boy scouts filed through.  As those boys each paid their respects to the family, they approached one of my friend's sons who was not in the receiving line.  And though the awkwardness was palpable, most of them gave that boy a hug and told him how sorry they were that he lost his mom.  It reminded me yet again of the power of friendships in those formative years, and how they really can last a lifetime.  I hope it's the same for her two sons.

"Waitin' at a stop light yesterday
As a funeral procession made its way through the gates
I watched it roll up a winding road
Through a field of green with white headstones all in a row.
And it made me think about where I'm at
On my not so straight and narrow path,
All the generous and mostly undeserved blessings that I've had...

I had an all-American Mom and Dad,
Some of the coolest friends you could ever have....."

~Jason Aldean, "Good to Go"