Reflections

Christmas, Then and Now

• By fannieb
• December 26, 2014
• No Comments

I used to get a call early in the day every Christmas from my good friend, Hope. She couldn’t wait to tell me what she had gotten, excited for the day and its surprises. I remember never wanting Christmas morning to be over; handing out the presents from around the tree and giving them to my mother and brother to open, always leaving a stack of mine to open last in order to extend the magic that was Christmas.

Thirty years later this is no longer my reality. I received no call from Hope and when I called her Christmas evening the words she spoke were laced with an undercurrent of unhappiness – no excitement in her voice and no thank you for my gift, though she had thanked me when she received it. I had yet to receive mine from her and when she said, “You should be getting yours in the mail tomorrow” a tincture of guilt or maybe it was disappointment punctuated her statement.

Now, my desire to prolong Christmas Day has been replaced with a desire to skip it altogether. The hype from Halloween until after the New Year is more an annoyance now than a joy. The forced happiness at the holidays and the loss of reason by normally reasonable people are irritants that exacerbate my solitude during this time of the year. No more trips to visit Mommy for Christmas. No more excursions to NYC with Daddy. Just time to be reminded of how alone I really am even if I don’t feel so alone most of the rest of the year.