Other than a couple of over-the-top Christmas celebrations when my dad was on a good hustle and thought that Care Bears and Nintendos would make everything better, we didn’t celebrate Christmas when I was growing up. It was a combination of religion and poverty.
Other than those Christmases, whatever rental house or apartment or trailer that we found ourselves in during the holiday season always stood alone in the pitch black. I hated Christmas because all the warm twinkling lights illuminated all that was dark and cold in my life.
Given my lack of Christmas experience, my first one with my in-laws was a breathing-into-a-paper-bag type of event. Their house was adorned, inside and out, with the most beautiful decorations that I had ever seen outside of a magazine. When Tony and I pulled up to his childhood home, I gawked and sputtered, “Are there two trees?”
He smiled and shrugged as if living in a beautiful brick home with two giant trees glowing in the windows was just normal life – because it was his normal life.
“Well, I can’t go in there,” I said, my mouth still hanging open.
“Sure you can! Everyone can’t wait to see you,” he replied.
It was at that moment when I realized how hopelessly in love I was with him because I unbuckled my seat belt, gathered the measly gift I had gotten for his mother, the one that I had to get Tony to wrap because I had not the foggiest idea as to how to wrap a present, and went inside to Grand Christmas Station.
Viewing the two trees from the outside was a lot to take in, but it was mere child’s play for what awaited me on the other side of the door. There were approximately 342 beautiful, slightly wine-drunk Italians gathered for Christmas Eve dinner. They all talked, all the time, all at once.
After dinner it was time for the gift exchange. It took 96 hours to complete.
After the festivities were over, Tony and I escaped to his bedroom to exchange presents. His room was more a small apartment, it had a huge bed, a couch, a large chair, it’s own bathroom and a huge fireplace. We had a bottle of white zinfandel and a sixer of Bud Light – a Christmas splurge for our college budgets. To add to the evenings ambiance, Tony built a fire.
We cuddled up on the blanket he had spread out and exchanged our gifts.
Suddenly, a smoking ball of fur comes screeching out of the fireplace and begins to run wildly around the room. We are shocked into stunned silence for a moment, but then we notice that not only do we have a crazed, smoking squirrel, but that the room is also filling up with smoke.
In moments, the smoke detectors were blaring.
My now father-in-law, Lenny, came barreling down the stairs in his Christmas boxers and a striped robe and started looking wildly around the house for the source of the fire. He yelled for everyone to evacuate the house because it is surely going to burn to the ground at any moment.
Tony excitedly explained to his dad that he had built a fire in his room and that the flue must be stuck. Lenny calmed down and said, “Oh hell son, flying squirrels kept getting in the chimney and since we never use it, I stuffed the damn thing full of cardboard and newspaper.”
We informed him that we just met one of the flying squirrels and that he was still downstairs, fur singed and mad as…well, as mad as a fiery flying squirrel. Lenny told everyone to start opening the windows. When his daughters started whining about how cold it was he told them to get on a jacket because being cold was better than dying in their sleep due to asphyxiation from toxic fumes. He is an alarmist and an extremist.
It was at this moment that I knew that despite the two trees, the perfect dinner, and the thousands of gifts, that I had found not only my people, but my light.
However, despite learning to embrace Christmas, it took having a child before I started decorating. Much to my mother-in-law Mary’s dismay, when we were childless, Tony and I plunked a Charlie Brown Christmas tree down and called it a season and I paid my college-aged sister-in-law a fifth of vodka to wrap my gifts.
Therefore, I had to laugh when I informed him that, given the plain ick of 2020, we needed all the joy that glowing lights could bring and therefore I was putting up two trees. He shook his head and said, “It’s official! You’ve gone full Mary Lew!”
It was one of the best compliments that I have ever been given.
I told her about her son’s comment when we celebrated Christmas yesterday – with Little Caesars pizza at a rest stop between my in-law’s house and ours. It looked absolutely nothing like our normal raucous, crowded, joyful Christmas dinners. We sat at a picnic table with our festive face masks being the only holiday garnish to be found.
I was so happy to see my in-laws and I take solace in that, so far, we have all stayed safe and healthy throughout these past hellacious months. I am proud of us for making the extremely hard decision to not gather together in that warm, glowing house I was scared to go into so many years ago, but that doesn’t mean that it didn’t absolutely shatter my heart to drive away from them.
And, I have to fight so hard to not allow the negligence, flippancy and blatant disregard of others to make me bitter. The logical side of me understands that in the grand scheme, missing one Christmas, especially if it ensures many more Christmases to come, is not that big of a deal. I’ve certainly lived through worse and I am fully aware that there are so many dealing with unfathomable grief and life-altering hardships. I am not comparing having to stay in my nice, warm, decorated home celebrating Christmas with my family to those going through a very literal hell. But, it does make me sad (and, more than a little mad).
However, I know that I cannot control the overall situation at hand. I can only control how I react to the situation. Although we won’t get to enjoy some of our cherished traditions, I am still going to cling to joy and to peace and to happiness. I will hold my memories tight and be thankful that I was brough in out of the cold 24 years ago and am still basking in the warm glow of those loud, beautiful, slightly wine-drunk Italians.
I will forever be thankful for them and that little girl who convinced herself she hated Christmas, now gets to live a two Christmas tree life.
Soshally Awkward
Sosha Lewis is a writer whose work has been featured in The Washington Post, Huffington Post, MUTHA Magazine and The Charlotte Observer. She writes about her sometimes wild, sometimes hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking past filled with free-lunches, a grimy sports bar, a six foot tall Albino woman who tried to save her teenage soul, felonious, drug addicted parents, an imaginary friend named Blueberry and growing up nestled in the coal-dusted mountains of West Virginia.
