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The Meaning of Christmas
It’s Christmas again. Just another day. I have no major
plans. I don’t know why there’s so much hype about a holiday like this. It’s so
much work, and for what? To have it dwindle away to nothing for the remainder
of the year?
Susan became my inspiration for Christmas. Motherhood was so
rich to me. When Susan would get excited, it was as though the golden flecks in
her brown eyes would glow brighter. My Susan, she used to love Christmas. She
would idolize me at Christmas time. I became her knight in shining armour, the
star she’d wish upon at night. For one week, I was priority over the
neighbourhood children. We baked cookies. We built snowmen. We decorated. It
was a great time of year.
Christmas became my project. Many of my projects – the wool
pants I knitted, the jars of jam I attempted to sell at the farmer’s markets,
the parent’s committee I formed – all floundered. Christmas stayed. I created
traditions. I built that foundation that continued for a lifetime. Two days
spent on shortbread cookies, colouring dough with food dye, and using our hands
to mold cookies like playdough for what cookie cutters couldn’t handle –
fireplaces, snowshoes, and igloos. An affectionately named “snow day”, building
snowmen, making snow angels, tobogganing, making tire d'érable, and
sipping hot chocolate. Staying up late Christmas Eve, trying
to shoo Susan to bed, so that Santa could make his appearance. Long after Susan stopped believing in Santa, I continued
to take a bite off a cookie and leave a note for her to find in the morning. It
was her favourite part, even at eighteen years old. It was our little
tradition.
Susan started dating at 16. Her boyfriends always liked my
traditions more than their own family Christmases. They started to become a
part of our celebration. One boyfriend, when Sus…my daughter turned eighteen, they
became serious. He would help my husband Ron chop down a beautiful evergreen
for the Christmas tree. He’d go on the ladder to hang the lights. I became fond
of that boyfriend.
Sus… my daughter, she started to get busy. She got married
to that boyfriend who helped chop down the trees, and moved out to the country
side. There was still Christmas and birthdays. “Mom, I’ll come to bake
shortbread”, she’d say, and we’d bake shortbread over her four day visit. One
winter, we got silly and made snow angels in the back yard. She bought me
flowers for my birthdays. A tradition she started. Christmas stayed more or
less the same. It kept its foundation from all those years ago.
My daughter had her own daughter one day. Maddie was such a
joy. My traditions were appreciated twice as much – albeit it with more
presents under the tree thoseyears. My daughter started to miss my birthdays. I
could make do without the flowers. Christmas stayed. Those traditions were
exciting for Mad. “For the grandchild”, my daughter would say. “We’ll make a
visit for that girl with the curly blonde hair.” I only saw them once a year,
but it was the best time of the year.
Ron died. We had been married for 62 years. I decided to
downsize to an apartment. I didn’t need the nurses on sight, but my daughter
told me it would be good for later. A frame of Ron’s vows from our wedding day
stays above my bed. “I’ll always support you and your projects”, he had said.
Christmas became harder. I didn’t have a stove, and there
wasn’t anywhere for a tree. There wouldn’t be room for presents. That woman
with the golden flecks in her brown eyes brought me to her house to see the
child with the curly blonde hair. She’d try to get me to make shapes out of
coloured dough for something called shortbread. “It’s like playdough!” The
child would tell me. I didn’t like that tradition.
Last winter, a woman called and said “I don’t think I can
bring you over this weekend. The highway driving is terrible.” I told her I
thought she had the wrong number. That woman with the golden flecks in her
brown eyes never came on Christmas morning. I wonder if she got lost. I ate
turkey with my friends here at my home instead.
“No visitors today?” Nurse Rickman asked this morning during
breakfast.
“I never have any.”
I don’t know who would have visited me today. Was I
expecting somebody? Why would she ask me that?
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