
By Cynthia Bigrigg
My first Christmas away from my family. I’m not sure how I imagined it. I’m not sure that I imagined it at all. I probably told myself that I would deal with it when the time came, every time the thought popped into the foreground of my mind. Or I may have thought “What family? I have a lot of relatives, but do I really have a family?”. Well, ’tis the season, the time has come, and I’m dealing with it. And I’m dealing with more.
Out of the five of us who comprised my original family, my father and my youngest sister are the only two who live under the same roof. My mom, middle sister and I are scattered. When my parents got a divorce, my father got a new girlfriend and a new family. Apparently we weren’t good enough for him, so he traded us in for another model. My dad and I haven’t spoken since July. I know it’s Christmas and everyone should be all warm and willing to get along, and I’m SURE somewhere it is written that it is the season of forgiveness, but I am SCARED. Quite frankly, I don’t want to give him another chance to lie to me, to let me down, to turn the tables, to fail me, to tell me how selfish and ungrateful I am because I didn’t give him his way. I don’t want to give him a chance to be mean. I am not one of those people who thinks that their father is perfect. I know he is human. And there have certainly been many times where he has been an excellent father. But there have been at least as many times where he has been deceitful and manipulative, where he has guilted and said terrible things, where he has threatened and thrown things across the room. I know that in another life, if I had gone to him and told him that a boyfriend, or anyone really, had been treating me that way, he would have said to me, “You know what to do, Cynthia.”. And I would. And I do. My parents raised me to respect myself and to have standards, and I do. But it hurts like hell that my Dad can’t be my Dad anymore.
And then there’s Mom. Mom was like the Christmas glue in our family. She would spend hours in her bedroom wrapping our presents, and then hiding them in her walk-in closet in an attempt to stop my sisters and I from snooping. She would haul the Christmas tree up from our basement and help us sort through the ornaments. She would decorate the top of the tree where we couldn’t reach. She would make cookies, “spiders” and “bark.” When I was about nine, she told us about how she and her brothers would wake up at five in the morning to open their stockings on Christmas day. This sparked a tradition with my sisters and I that would last until this year. When I was old enough to know “the truth” but my sisters still asked “Mom, do you believe in Santa Claus?” she would reply truthfully and elusively, “I believe in the magic of Christmas.” I thought hearing her say that was the most beautiful thing. Now she says all of the meaning has gone out of it. It holds nothing special for her anymore and she really dislikes it. Hearing that, it’s like the magic is gone.
I think about what my Christmas at home this year would have been like, and I can sum it up in two words: awkward and uncomfortable. Everywhere I would go, something would be wrong, someone would be missing and there would be no magic.
I am reclaiming the magic. (Again, I think there was a “bigger reason” for me coming out here).
I wasn’t expecting any Christmas cards until after Christmas. Really. The mail moves very slowly here. And yet somehow I received parcels from my mom, sisters and grandparents this week! I ripped them open with complete abandon, entirely missing the note on the back of the envelope from my sisters, which sternly warned “not to be opened until Christmas Day.” I grinned as I tore the paper and laughed as I read the messages inside. I didn’t care that to the other pedestrians I looked like a crazy person. I felt great. I felt childish. I felt the magic. When the parcel came from my grandparents (stellar wrapping job, Grandma, I know you’re reading this!) I skipped around my apartment singing “Frosty the Snowman.” I destroyed the brown paper that hid the box and made happy gasps as I pulled out the cheese, fruitcake, chocolate, earrings and the most adorable pair of pajamas, as per tradition. I thought it was the next best thing to being home. But now I think it was supposed to happen like this.
My plans to visit family in British Columbia have been thwarted. Instead, a few friends and I are gathering to make our own Christmas dinner. It won’t be like I imagined, but things rarely ever are. I know we will eat, drink and be merry, and like my Christmas parcels, there will be tidings of comfort and joy.