Christmas Balance
As I get older I find myself becoming less and less all or nothing. Despite my desire to buck consumerism and the patriarchy of Santa, I find myself once again wrapped in the wiles of Christmas.
Sure, we have our alternative Christmas Eve tradition where we find a tree in the woods to decorate for the animals. In the afternoon we string cranberries and popped corn and cereals o’s and slice oranges and apples to share. Jessey, my kid, adds oats and nuts to the ideas of what I should pack. I bring a thermos of mint tea that usually only I drink and we read Night Tree by Eve Bunting and give the wild animals our blessings.
This afternoon I was in a good mood, feeling like the whole day was a win, getting him off Minecraft and Zoom to string popped corn with me and get outside. When we returned from the woods, we kicked off our muddy boots on the towel by the front door and Jessey got into clean pjs and I got out soup to heat up for dinner and we watched Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. New York — the epitome of Christmas grandeur.
When I lean in, I can feel the imaginary glass of a toy store window cold against my cheek. There’s a giraffe and an oversized stuffed bear with a red bow, a line of wooden nut crackers, and a motorized train chugging through the store, keeping everything running in rhythm. Huge Christmas trees with full skirts of packages makes part of me cringe but another part feels full of abundance, possibility, wonder, and nostalgia for a childhood with fat stacks of presents and an ignorance for what it took my parents to pull off one storybook Christmas after another.
For as much as I stray from the mainstream, as a single parent I still find myself, at times, swept up in the need to prove I can provide for my kid. This year we have an indoor tree decked with ornaments our cats bat down. I’m about to listen to David Sedaris read Santaland Diaries before I go to bed and read more Ibram X. Kendi or another chapter in a biography about a man who lived for 27 years alone in the woods of Maine.
Santa takes a back seat most years. He never made an appearance until Jessey told me he believed in him. Still, our banister is lined with stockings I’ll fill with nuts and toothpaste, chocolate and salves. The twinkly lights make our home feel warm. Our cats keep me company, unraveling the ribbon to tie up the pillowcases I use to wrap more than one present for only one child. He didn’t get everything he asked for but he also got things he doesn’t know will be here, under the tree, as if by magic, when he wakes in the morning.
As much as I miss my extended family this year, Christmas just us, is allowing me to strike a balance with new and old traditions. We read Christmas and winter stories each night this month. I gave up on coercing card making but have left open a station I frequent. There will be no cell phone or Nintendo Switch but I am employing his old metal dump truck to hold a mix of new and used toys, books, and games and a menagerie of wooden animals to climb the terrain like this Christmas is just the right size for their epic journey.
