Last January, I made a New-Year's resolution of sorts: I promised my husband that we would celebrate every holiday this year. One (just one) of the reasons I did that was that I wasn't at all sure there would be all that many opportunities to do anything of the sort in the future. I am a pessimist, and pessimism has a sovereign benefit: if you always expect the worst, all your surprises are pleasant ones. In this case, I was wrong. There weren't anywhere near as many opportunities to celebrate holidays as I suspected, even though I suspected the opportunities were limited. The Spousal-Unit is dead now, but that hardly voids a promise. I keep promises.
So... a long time ago, back when Ken could still type and think, he had a blog. He wrote a sappy Christmas piece for it. The blog languished and died, just as Ken's ability to type and think died. I made it my habit to repost the thing. To put it very mildly, I've never been fond of Christmas. Ken, somehow, was very sentimental about the whole thing.
The tree is up, the teddy bears have their Santa hats on, I have my M&Ms, and it's a Rats in Rice Christmas.
Editor's
Note: Warning! Unvarnished, seasonally induced sentimentalism
follows. Use in moderation, and please, don't drink and drive.
Charlie
Brown [yelling]: Isn’t there anyone... who can tell me... what
Christmas is all about?
Linus:
Sure, Charlie Brown. [walks to center stage] Lights, please....
I
don’t believe in God. And if I did believe in a God, it certainly
wouldn’t be this Jesus/Yahweh character that gets so much press. I
do, however, celebrate ‘Christmas’ properly pronounced ‘Kissmass’
at our house, and I’ll tell you why.
My
husband/partner/boyfriend and I both grew up as some manner of brat:
him with the Army; me with a certain newspaper corporation possessed
of great evil. Between us, in the course of our lives (82 years, in
sum), we’ve moved house 78 times. Our meeting and marriage didn’t
break the habits of a lifetime: 12 of those moves have been in our
(almost) 19 years together.
A
very long time ago, we came separately to the same conclusion: that
one place is everyplace, and everyplace is the same place. But if
you’re not from anyplace, where exactly is home?
Concomitant
with the still-potent impulse to wander, both of us likewise still
occasionally get an unreasoning urge to ‘go home,’ even knowing
that there’s really no place on a map that reasonably fits that
description.
The
schmaltz and ardency that powers an American Christmas only serves to
exacerbate such notions. But thence is also where I find the truth of
the matter. It’s a Capra-esque, corny truth, perhaps, but hey, if
you want bloody Proust, you’ll have to look elsewhere.
Happily,
I don’t have to look that far afield or suffer through 40 pages
describing exactly how a Frenchman falls asleep to stumble upon my
home. You see, there’s a former Army brat who loves me; and I love
him. As the years pile on top of each other, we come to realize that
we’ve been together and loved each other for nearly half our lives.
So
then, in effort to curb my rampaging, slightly embarrassing, inner
Jimmy Stewart, I’ll just end with this: when I feel that need to go
home, I need only look to the left on the couch where he sits,
swigging strong coffee, and chomping on M&Ms... and see where it
is.
That’s
what Kissmass is all about, Charlie Brown.
Thank
you for your patience. We now return you to our regular, snide
programming, already in progress.
