“It is Christmas in the heart that puts Christmas in the air.”
I used to be a Christmas-loving maniac. It never bothered me that stores had Christmas stuff out before Halloween was over because I was already decorating my own house by then. There wasn’t a Christmas *day* for me, there was a Christmas season. The boxes of decorations were hauled out at the same time the Halloween decorations were hauled in. My tree went up the first week of November, the radio was tuned to the all christmas music, all the time station. I hummed and I sang and I draped gaudy strings of lights and garland over every window, both in and out, every door frame, every shelf.
I’m an aetheist yet I set up a manger scene just because. Because it’s Christmas! Other than the 3 main figures, baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I have no idea where the rest of the figurines are supposed to be placed. I change them just about daily; it’s like having a dollhouse.
As a child Christmas wasn’t a spectacular gift-giving event. Jeez, there were 9 kids in the family and by the time I was even old enough to start remembering Christmases, there were already a passel of grandkids as well. So you can imagine that even buying 2 or 3 presents for each of us totalled up to a lot of presents and a lot of money that my parents just didn’t have.
But somehow they still managed to make Christmas special and fun. My mom baked everything imaginable. She made crack candy and peanut brittle and egg nog. Sometimes they made things for gifts. I remember one year I got a wooden kiss-shaped coat rack for my room that my dad carved out and painted, another time my mom wrote and framed a poem that she’d written especially for me. It was during that awful period of my teen years when I was pretty convinced that life would never be anything but a bleak and useless venture. I still have it. It still makes me cry. It goes like this:
If Love Alone
If love alone could mend your heart of all the hurt inside-
If love alone could fill it with hope which somehow in time has died-
If love alone could rid your mind of the dark and evil things-
And fill it instead with wonderful thoughts of love and magical things-
If love alone could give you the will to live and want to greet each day-
If love alone could do these things we’d have no need to pray-
For both of us love you very much, more than these words can say-
And our special gift to you this year on this quiet Christmas day-
Is all the love we have inside, nothing to see or touch or smell-
But if love alone can do all things, use our love to make you well.
All our love this Christmas and hope for Christmases to come,
Love, Mom and Dad.
Another year, as an adult and on my own, my dad made me a knife – a really sharp and dangerous knife – that he told me to stick under my pillow or under my carseat so I could protect myself if I needed to. I didn’t stick it either of those places because I could just picture myself stabbing my own hand. But I did treasure the thought in which it had been crafted.
Just a couple of years ago, they made us this.
I erased the names though I suppose I probably didn’t have to. Anyway, my dad carved it, my mom painted it. The matching star ornament has a poem on the back, a poem about God and snow, but still, I think this is just about the neatest thing since sliced bread.
We were poor, me and the kids. I mean really really poor. The kind of poor where often times my dinner consisted of what was left on their plates when they were done (course I was a lot skinnier then too. I might do well to be that poor again.) Keeping the lights turned on came at the expense of letting the cable get shut off or hoping the gas company would hold off another month.
At one time, the kids were going to a daycare and while I never was on welfare, I did qualify for and get accepted into a program designed to help low income families pay for daycare so that they could go to work and NOT end up on welfare. I remember that my babysitter, through this program, was getting paid more an hour to watch my 3 kids than I was getting paid per hour at work.
I’m not nearly as crafty or artistic as my parents are, but I still dived into the Christmas spirit with my own kids. I would move heaven and earth to make Christmas magical and special for them. I would pick up hours at work, I’d take out one of those ridiculously high interest short term loans that would take me six months to pay off; I’d beg, borrow – but not steal. But I made sure they always had a terrific Christmas.
Christmas day was the one day of the year when I made sure they didn’t feel poor. They didn’t feel left out or forgotten. Good ol’ Santa, stepping in where mommy couldn’t. Even my own mother, who thinks my kids poop gold and deserve life handed to them with a pretty bow would tell me I did too much. But all year long I had to deny my kids things. All year I’d have to watch their faces light up over commercials and watch them wander the toy aisle, all wistful and sad.
And really, I’m only talking about $300, *maybe*, per kid. It was only extravagant because I really couldn’t afford even that much. It’s a paltry amount though. I mean, it really is. I know parents who buy cars for their kids for Christmas, who spend a grand or more per kid. But for my kids, after a year of not getting anything, $300 worth of toys was a windfall. A magical dream of a day.
It was worth every single extra hour of wiping old people’s asses to watch them on Christmas morning.
This year though.
I don’t have it in me. Not the money and not the magic. I can’t even listen to the Christmas music that I used to love.
I don’t have any decorations up. No tree, no snowman family. Not a single gaudy light.
I know I’m cheating them and I know it’s not fair. I told them that we might have to skip the Christmas hoopla this year. My kids, those rotten, spoiled, selfish heathens of mine? They comforted ME.
It’s not the presents. Although there is certainly more to be careful of money-wise, considering what we’re facing, it’s the spirit that I’m missing. None of us are so materialistic that we’re upset over the “stuff” of it. But the magic… I wish I knew how to recapture that.
I mentioned that maybe we should put up a tree, and I think probably we will. We’re still a family, one that’s intent on healing somehow, someway– someday. I don’t think a Christmas tree is quite the bandaid we need but it can’t hurt, right?
Maybe it’ll spark a little magic anyway.
~Tess
Uncategorized | kaya | 
Thursday December 4th, 2008 9:57am
wow, sounds like your parents had it ALL right – what is important about Xmas … and perhaps, just perhaps, putting up a few things will help? Will reaffirm that there is that promise of joy to come… if not this Xmas, other Xmases…I’ve been there myself – 2 out of the last 5 have been perhaps not quite as brutal as what you are now experiencing, but very very close – I went through the motions and it was hard …. but it helped too – to do those things I do – the things that cement and reaffirm the bond between you and your children … I wish I had more to offer in terms of advice .. just I care.
I think sometimes that doing these things can be healing. My boyfriend’s family was very not-Christmas-y. He hates Christmas because of it. He was the kid always left out, the one that wasn’t important – he got beaten up by his brother and his parents yelled at him for calling for help. But this year, THIS year, he quietly told me that he’d be disappointed if all of the ornaments were on the tree before he got home from work, because he wanted to put some up.
There’s always hope, Tess, of healing. Always hope for it to be okay. And sometimes, silly things like Christmas trees and lights can represent far more than we ever thought.
I’d come over with cookies and Muppets Christmas and dance with you if I could.
As John posted a few times, he was sending me money. Quite alot actually to help pay bills. My pay covers bills but not groceries, gas, haircuts, etc. When I mentioned looking for another job, he always said no. We would be together soon so why bother. It was “our money”.
Well when he broke up with me, he took his money with him. As I expected he would. And now, I have no idea how to buy groceries this week, let along christmas. 5 of the 6 kids birthdays are in November and December and I have already told them that this year they will get nothing.
Hard thing to say.
I am sorry for all you are going through and parts of it I can relate to.
Stay strong and if you need to talk to whatever, you know where I am.
hugs, Sable
Hi Tess,
Start a list of things you are grateful for, like your own personal 12 days of Christmas. Even during the hardest times of grief, there are things to be grateful for. Maybe you and the kids could buy a small gift for a needy family, a family who really doesn’t have anythng. It helps. When it bacame clear that my nephew was a schizophrenic and would never be the same at the same time my mother had Alzheimers and my brother was clinically depressed Christmas was pretty bleak. No amount of money spent on presents mattered. But we ate together and celebrated anyway and just being together helped.
Hang in,
Latebloomer
I cried when I read the poem you’re Mom wrote – what a wonderful gift!
Kids are just amazing aren’t they? My incredibly self-centered, snotty attitude teenager (yanno, completely normal), turns into my dream child whenever we go through anything serious, especially when she sees Mamma hurting. I’m sure yours are the same and I’m sure they will amaze you with their maturity, love, and devotion.
Hang in there – we love you too.
junebug
Sometimes the most valuable things you give your kids aren’t things, but rather, the example and strength they can gain from you.
You are much stronger than you give yourself credit for.
zin
Dear Tess,
I so identified with your post! I too have spent my life loving the Christmas season, and feeling happier and more joyous the month of December.
A few years ago my Master and I parted. While I was still feeling fragile I met another Dom. I then went through a very bad break up with him. Not only was I lied to, but rejected in a very public, shaming way. My friends witnessed much of it and were very supportive, but the horror of it killed something inside of me. (You have been so good for me, this is the first time I have ever admitted this, it feels good to get it out and realize I survived – and I know you will come through this too!).
I could not find it in me the past few years to feel the same hope and joy as I had in prior years. I think the loss of hope is what hurts our spirit the most.
I did not write this to make you feel sorry for me, but to tell you that this year I do feel hope and excitement about Christmas (even though I am all alone and there is no Dom even distantly on the horizon). I also want to encourage you to keep as many Christmas traditions as you can, even if you have to “fake it for the kids.”
I wish you a very Merry Christmas and the all the hope a New Year brings. Hugs to you and your family.
As for christmas, fake it until you feel it. Its advice that is often given regarding careers, public speaking, awkward social situations and i think it may be helpful at the holidays.
Put up the tree, put some decorations out, and put some christmas music. It may help, and couldn’t hurt.
Hope things get better.
One more voice to the chorus, Tess. Please don’t stop writing.
I’ve been reading you for years, now, always anonymously but always with interest and pleasure. Your blog was never about the specifics for me, but rather about the writing and the emotion of it all. You’re very gifted.
This post was one of the most powerful I’ve ever read from you. I have tears in my eyes. Sometimes, when there’s no hope in your heart, others can collectively have it for you; please allow me to be one of those out there with hope in her heart for your Christmas.
hugs.
I agree with the above sentiments. As hard as it is, my plan this year is to fake it ’til i feel it. As soon as I clear a spot for the tree and get my hands on it, it’s going up.
Never give up hope, smile ’til it hurts. That’s where you have to be sometimes. And even tho I am far from religious I still believe that ‘We are never given more than we can handle.’ Sometimes it just means leaning a little harder on our friends.
:) Wishing you all the Xmas spirit you can muster, and some of mine if it helps.
Just wanted to say that I missed you over the weekend, and want to wish you all the very best, whatever you decide you want to do.
xxx
Beautiful, intense writing. I sit here and sigh and wish I could reply in kind. All I have to give are my best wishes and blessings.
Dinora3228
Sometimes the smallest of gifts are the best..the gifts we cant see or touch but can only feel. I’m going thur a hard time with my Master, afraid it will end soon..I wish I could just sleep from now until January until I read your mother’s poem. The simplest of words that mean the world. You have the greatest gift of all, your children and most of all still your parents..put all you wishes and faith in them..and things will look stronger the next day..they give us the purpose to get up each morning. Together we will all get though this period of time. Must love and thoughts for you and your’s..
We all have our stories and I know what you mean on the do anything to make it magical for your kids…I’ve been in the same boat and this year it isn’t much different. It is that way for many people and I have some ideas to create the magic – put up the tree and turn on the music, the smiles will come eventually.
It’s so good that you appreciate what you had in the past – that will be of great help in getting through the future, as will those wonderful kids. They can amaze you when the going gets tough can’t they? Do try to put up a tree, do few of your special Christmas traditions if you can. Your sadness will not disappear, but letting this steal Christmas altogether while it goes on all around you will only make you feel emptier. Thinking of you…
well ya know kaya… all of the above advice is very good advice…and i am not sure i have much to offer..
but reading your blog today and the comments made me remember a December… 8 years ago today actually…. i moved out of my Dominant’s house and into my lil townhouse. i was so scared.. i had never ever in my entire life lived on my own… and i had no idea how i was gonna manage…….
For Christmas (two weeks after i moved in) i remember buying a lil white stick tree.. hard to describe.. with sparkles on it… stuck in a pot with some cement… i remember dragging it home and sticking it in the living room… throwing up a garland around the mantel.. putting on some Christmas music.. pasting a smile on my face.. and having my youngest daughter come for dinner on the 24th. Truthfully i don’t know how i did it that year….
Now 8 years later i have a ‘real’ Christmas tree.. a houseful of family coming..and more peace than i ever thought possible.
It is amazing what we can get through if we try……..
i know you will get through this holiday season.. this bump in the road.. this hurt… cause girl you are strong !! and you CAN do this… one way or another.
morningstar (owned by Warren)
Silly girl, haven’t you already given the kids their gift early this year? Think about it for a minute. It may not be anything material but its about the most giving thing a parent can do.
I think you may find that a lot of us are wishing there was more we could do for you than just comment.
Have You hung it up yet? It seems to me that that the question of which came first could be the unanserable question. So… go find those snowmen and welcome them, put them onto your wall. The first step has to begin somewere but it doesn’t have to be a big one.
God we are cut from the same cloth. I was always the same way about Christmas, right down to the whitetrash family Christmas decorating.
The year my son left, well you know the circumstances. I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t even put up a tree. Christmas Eve day I was so depressed I took a nap in the middle of the day. While I was asleep, my other two wonderful kids got into the attic, found all the stuff, & put up a Christmas tree. For years I did it for them. That year they did it for me.
Some years it’s just a hard candy Christmas.
Why not suggest to the kids that they take over the Christmas decorations this year? You sit back and enjoy (or scrounge up some energy for Christmas baking and cooking) and let them cover the house in lights and decorations. Did your boxes of Christmas stuff move with you? In that case, just hand it all over to them. I know as a kid I loved decorating the house, and if I’m home with my family at Christmas time, I take it over from my mom and do it with my sister, or all by myself.
You’ve had a hard year. Let yourself be pampered!
Maybe it’ll spark a little magic anyway.
I hope so. But if not… There is always Easter. Maybe, in some ways, there is more magic in resurrection than there is in birth. :)
(I’m still rooting for Christmas magic… Just not ruling out any other kinds.)
*hugs*
A tree can’t hurt at all. And it might help you get into the Christmas spirit, even if it’s only a little.
Your entries have really been moving me lately. I think about you a lot and hope that things start to get better.
My sister and I took over decorating when we were 10 & 13 and mom would bake ith us in the evening after long days in an adult day school training to be an accounting clerk and cleaned other peoples houses on Saturdays. We were poor and I never knew unil we moved and I went to school with some reallyyyyyy rich kids.
All holidays lost their magic when my husband left me and I cannot remember exactly but I’m pretty sure it came back as a result of helping make it special for other people. I delivered food baskets and helped cook Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners given free an our community. It still took about ten years before it was magic for me. These days I give gifts all yea long because I don’t have a guarantee anybody will still be here at Christmas or a birthday for that matter.
I have a friend that spends Christmas Eve visiting nursing homes and a childrens hospital. Maybe doing something very different for someone else might help you to take you mind off your own troubles
Many hugss to you and yours
This year the holidays at Casa de BuzzCzar are different. My wonderful J was taking chemo-therapy Thanksgiving week and will be in chemo Christmas week. We had decided that we would just call off the holidays this year. Sort of last minute I decided that fuck it, we were going to celebrate at least some. I did cancel all the family gathering here and told them we’d get back to normal next year.I couldn’t let them tire her out even more with well-meaning trips to our bedroom. I cooked all our traditional Thanksgiving dishes and she, the two boys(OK, young men since the baby turned 21 this year.) and I had a Thanksgiving that while short on family gathering quantity was long on meaning.
I’m planning on doing something similar for Christmas as we treasure these days. Having the kids here means a lot too. I’m going to decorate this weekend so we’ll have that to look at despite my feeling a hell of a lot less than “Christmasy”. It isn’t about me. It’s about us,a family and what we’re hopefully teaching those young men.
Now, what needs to happen is for the chemo to buy us a couple of years while science works to find us a permanent answer.
The short version: its the kids, it’s always about the kids and imprinting memories with lives that are all too short.
Hey kaya,
I love Christmas too. I only had a real tree one year in my whole life cause I hate the way the street is lined with sad, left-out Christmas trees Jan. 2 (or worse, Dec. 26) and the fact that you couldn’t put them up November 1 like you can with a fake tree. I maintain Christmas can stay until the first of February before you start to look looney-tunes. But, I feel like it’s perfectly reasonable that you keep the taint of these trying times away from your love of Christmas. The holidays are all about memories, so if you want to keep them all good, it makes sense to me.
Just one question.
How do you make a knife?
Hey Tess:
I have to say your post made me teary-eyed. I could feel the love your parents had for you bursting from my internet screen and I think its amazing how much families can pull together for the holidays.
I’m glad your kids are being supportive of you during this difficult time.
And I wish you all the magic I can muster in the hopes you get a little spark back.
Usually my family goes hog wild in the Christmas decorations, but not this year. No one in my family is in a real Christmas mood this year. We have too much worry about two very ill loved ones to be in the happy, happy joy, joy of the season. We’d all kind of agreed to not do anything, not even to put up a tree.
Then tonight I went to the hardware store to pick up a few things. They were having ladies night and having some contests. So I thought what the hell and I signed up for them. Half an hour later my name was called. You’ll never guess what I won.
A Charile Brown Christmas tree.
It made me laugh that of all the damn things I could have won, that was the prize that found me. And what did I end up doing? Buying some tiny little snow globes to hang on those few branches, one for each member of my family, which the globes had their names written on. And right now, that poor ugly pitiful Charile Brown tree is decorated in the corner and each time I look at it I find myself smiling.
So that’s my sappy but true story. I wasn’t in the spirit of the season but tonight the spirit kind of forced itself on me. Kind of glad it did.
During my worst year financially & emotionally, I too rejected the habits of Christmastime, and just couldn’t even begin to do something like decorating. Right before an early closing on Christmas Eve, I went to Target to get some unrelated necessary item. Since the regular counters were so crowded, I went to check out through the garden section, now bleak and vacant of most of their trees. A sign was posted on the poor 2 or 3 left as 50% off, and though I hesitated, I just grabbed one and brought it to the counter with my other purchase.
The young kid, redhaired & freckled, had no clue of my deep distress and was clearly wanting to get home to start his holidays. He rang up my other purchase, then looked straight at me and said, “please—just take the tree.” I thanked him, but it was all I could do to not start sobbing from that simple gesture.
I took my treasure home, hunted down my old stand, put it on my balcony (completely visible from my living room, but had to be there as cat chews on branches & lights,)strung it with several strings on lights and the comforts of Christmases past flowed over me for many, many nights.
It turned out to be the hardiest tree I had ever had. It lasted so long, still looking completely bright with plump needles the day I finally had to recycle it into local erosion control (its second life!) I will never forget it nor the gesture of that young man, and I believe in the power of both.
Are you staying up there during the holidays? Either way, try with all your strength to decorate, cook, do as many of those holiday things as you can, even if your heart is not in it, because it will be when it’s done.
Love you, Tess.
Suze
I know those feelings all to well. Eventually they do pass. Might not be this Christmas but maybe the next. Two years I didn’t put a tree up or anything else for that matter. My reasons I won’t get into, but lets just say not much to celebrate. Finally my Christmas spirit came back.
It will for you too. There is nothing wrong with a little comfort from your children. They are young adults and can start to understand. I was that way with my mom. Sometimes they know mom needs a hug too.
Big HUGS
If I had the money I’d buy you Trans-Siberian Orchestra tickets. It’s what always boosts my Christmas spirit. We’re going Sunday and I’m actually hoping it boosts my spirit this year. No idea why I can’t get into it. Probably cause we’re broke.
I’m so sorry you guys are going through this. I wish there was something I could say or do to make it easier on all of you.
On a happier note, Zedd (that’s what Master named the new bird) is doing pretty good. Yesterday I left the cage open right next to me figuring he was still too skittish to climb out with me sitting right in front of the door. Next thing I know, I look up and he’s sitting on top of the cage.
This morning, I sat down with my breakfast (a bagel with butter on it) and he started screaming at me. I couldn’t figure out what he wanted at first. But I ripped off a piece of bagel and took the butter off. When I held it out to him he started chowing down. And then screamed at me when I took the piece away because it was about to fall apart. Spoiled bird.
Hugs and stuff
Tess,
Do you know why Christmas is on Dec. 25th? It’s not because Christ was born on that day (he was probably born in mid Sept., we Christians just stole the holiday). It’s because the 25th is the first day that the ancient world people could tell that the days were getting longer again, that the cycle of the seasons was truly repeating itself and we were not to be condemned to a life of unending darkness. They didn’t wait until the promise of spring was fulfilled, they celebrated at the first sign of the promise being made.
That’s why I think it’s not just a good idea to do all those Christmassy things, it’s important for you and your kids to do so. Make the promise to yourselves that you WILL come through this hard time intact and better for it. Promise yourselves that in this winter of your lives, there WILL be a spring and summer. Have faith that life will get better, someday. Remember, faith is the assurance of things not seen.
I know you’re an atheist, and I can respect that. But, you got two messages from the universe that were just what you needed at just the right time. It’s as if someone or something out there knew just what YOU needed and sent it to you. Whether it was God, fate, the force or karma, there’s someone or something “out there” that cared enough to send you those messages. Have faith that whatever “it” was/is, it’s still there, watching, caring, for you. And if you can’t find the faith in whatever it was, have faith that all of us care for you. If there’s anything any of us can do, let us know. We’ll find a way.
Dave
Kaya (Tess). I normally look at writers as “private performers”. I don’t like to comment or interfere. However, My little one and I wanted to say how much your writings have meant to us, and continue to mean to us. Your writings reflect back to us parts of ourselves and make it easier to understand. During this time, our hearts have gone out to you and as I we sat here today talking about it, thought maybe we have something that might give back to you what you have given to us.
BDSM, S/M, ANY relationship is not defined by a community or community ideas. It is personal and needs not to make any sense, or follow any other prescribed norms.
Balance is the key. A balance in all aspects of our life are necessary. While My little one is My slave all of the time, we must also make sure that she maintains all of the other aspects of her life. Being a mother to her children, maintaining friendships, and doing her part financially. She is not JUST my slave. All of those parts must be maintained for her to serve me fully.
When you find it… let me know… my Christmas magic went away awhile ago.
2 weeks Christmas not a single gift bought.. no decorations up.. no tree.. no nothing.
If it was just me i would not even bother…..
We all go through bad times. Last year, this time my mother-in-law was slumped over in a wheelchair u tip the doctors (and it took months) figured out she had water on the. Rain. I watched my normally confident husband turn into a withrawn, depressed surly man. We were a out to put her in a nursing home when things turned around.
My kids being Jewish and all – dream of the day when Santa will come. Instead we take them for Chinese and a movie – or they go into babysitting at the Casino – more fun than sounds. My husband is from Europe – so no 8 days of presents – just doughnuts instead. On top of it, most of their relatives are Christian so we buy them presents. They hate Christmas.
But having said all that – we watched a Christmas Story the other night. Do yourself a favor and rent it. It is probably the closest thing I could find to teach my kids what Christmas felt like. I miss Xmas. It’s the only thing I miss about my previous religion. It always feels so weird on Xmas Day sitting next to a couple of Asians and G-d’s chosen people waiting for 21 instead of a turkey dinner.