Christmas 1984

Christmas, she said, begins in January with clearance sales. Preparations begin in February when all the decorations find their designated boxes. Every June, the Ceramics Emporium threw a summer sale. Mother whistled Silent Night as she picked out her figurines for the up and coming Christmas. I remember her, standing in the dark aisles surrounded by the powdery ceramic dust that looked like snow on the floor. She admired the simplicity of the little ice-skaters, the mitten adorned children frolicking, the clumps of carolers. She held up each one, pondered their joy, and imagined them coming to life, dancing, singing, warding off the chill of snowy death, a hearth holding back the void of winter. She dragged the tiny paint brush across their little eyebrows, careful to not make them look angry, sad was okay, but she wanted them to hold her wonder in their faces. She painted them with the colors of summer, a hopeful brightness. One of the ice skaters got a layer of glitter, she imagined him taking center stage on her mirror meant to be a frozen lake.

When the leaves fell, before the turkey was cooked, she began the set up. The nativity set went on the table by the front window. She used the animals from three or four different sets. It looked more like a scene from Noah and his arc than the birth. On the kitchen table, cotton was stretched to resemble snow. The ceramic post office, church, town hall, and half a dozen frosted homes took their places. Mother arranged the citizens of her Christmas town so that none of them were alone. Even the snowman near the town square had a dog barking at him. This year, a snowball fight broke out between a rosy cheeked postman and three small children hiding behind lamp posts.

The rest of the house became a shrine, bedecked in tinsel, mesmerizing lights, and snowflakes cut from construction paper. The center piece was a beaming, almost magical, six-foot Douglas fir. Each year, every member of the family was responsible for creating a new ornament. Since it was just the two of us, we often made a few dozen. Some were made of felt, velvet, pipe-cleaners; my personal favorite at the time was the glue-gunned walnut shells with the wild googly eyes. All the while the air smelled like cinnamon candles and the little drummer boy a-rumpa-pump-pumped his way to the heart of it all.

We made cookies on Christmas Eve, a sacrifice to the altar of the toy god. With the atmosphere beaming cheer, all she could do was wait, anticipating that cold morning when children with slippery footed pajamas descended stairs like hyperventilating avalanches. I remember her satisfying grin erupt as I tore into a mound of gift-wrapped possibilities. So anti-climactic, she thought. This was the last year it would feel this magical. This was the last year of illusion. The last year where I didn’t know she ate the cookies. I didn’t know that she worked overtime to afford the gifts that never lasted past the New Year. January is the month of broken toys, broken dreams, and broke mothers. That is why she hated Christmas. It took so much, to make it right. There is nothing left for the other 364 days. In her heart, she begged for every day to be Christmas, or none at all.

Cinnamon candles burned.