Welcoming Back the Light

In the dark of night I am awakened by the sounds of harsh voices coming from my parent’s bedroom on the other side of the house. I was just getting used to sleeping in my own room, so it might have been 1970 or 1971. That puts me at about eight or nine years old. The voices quieted for a bit and as I was just drifting back to sleep, I hear what sounds like a bear in the living room. So I naturally cower down deeper into the covers. The sounds abate. Then return. Then abate. Then return. Then I distinctly hear the sound of the front door opening, so I figure that must be the bear leaving the house.

I had to see that.

Just outside my bedroom door, I meet my sister who appears just as curious. Together we creep down the hall to the front room.

That was when we both saw my dad stuffing the Christmas tree out the front door and onto the porch. I start to speak, but my sister stops me. Likewise she starts to speak, and I stop her. My dad closes the door, huffs a little bit and goes back to his bedroom.

Ever-so-carefully, my sister and I (probably eight and nine, respectively) silently restore the Christmas tree to its rightful place in front of the big picture window in the living room.

We would never speak of this.

Special Meaning #2

Same house. Same sister. Same dad. Different tree. The three of us are trying to at least get the old artificial tree up and lit before my sister’s new boyfriend comes to the house for dinner. It’s a big day, as this will be the first meeting of the boyfriend and the family. And we were kind of an odd family to meet.

If you’ve ever assembled an old-timey artificial Christmas tree, you know what a vexing task it is. Color-coded branches that don’t make any sense. The colors have long ago scraped away … so you have to sort the branches by length (a not-fun-at-all guessing game), determine which branches go in which holes … again … NOT FUN.

But we manage.

The tree is up. But the lights are a mess. It seems the more we untangle them the more tangled they become. Then once the strips of lights are carefully laid out (green cords against the green shag carpet … ahem), some of the strings work. Some don’t work at all. And a few only half-work.

The clock is ticking, Zero Hour is approaching. THE BOYFRIEND (later husband), IS ON HIS WAY.

My dad’s solution is to buy new lights. My sister and I dart a knowing look and then assume the former molester of the family Christmas tree has not only reformed, but also pried open a wallet that is so tight it squeaks.

My sister’s solution is to abandon the job altogether. Clean the place up a bit and, “Try to act normal for once.” I remind her that mom is making moussaka, so any sense of normality is pretty much out the window.

My solution? I proclaim, “Fuck it. I say we just start drinking. Maybe we’ll be drunk by the time he gets here.”

And I win.

Special Meaning #3

Just the other day, I told some work friends that this Christmas is memorable, if only for the unusual circumstances. Then I tell them about my favorite holiday movie, The Holly And The Ivy, and how there’s a conversation in that film about the calendar and the end of the year, and how the darkness and the cold are meant for reminiscences. I admit to them that I don’t have a solid Christmas memory between the first Christmas without my parents and the first Christmas with my wife — a period of about five years.

I must have gone home. I might have traveled back and forth between Missoula and Anaconda. I might have been alone on Christmas. The fact is this; I don’t remember much about those five Christmases. But I do remember Christmas 1989, or maybe 1990. (The year is irrelevant.)

I was living in an apartment I had come to refer to as The Bat Cave. It has nothing to do with bats. Or even the fictional Bat Cave. But the floor was super slanty, like the seedy lairs of all the villains on the Bat Man TV show.

I was sinking further and further into the Christmas Blues. (I was probably thinking more about Special Meaning #1 than Special Meaning #2 at the time.) It was a pretty rough patch. Rough and lonely. When a package from my friend Polly showed up. Inside a box from Frederick and Nelson’s department store were three papier mache heart-shaped ornaments, $40 in cash, and a note that read, “Buy a tree. LYS, Polly.”

Here Comes the Sun God

According to the History Channel, “In the Northern hemisphere, the shortest day and longest night of the year falls on December 21 or December 22 and is called the winter solstice. Many ancient people believed that the sun was a god, and that winter came every year because the sun god had become sick and weak. They celebrated the solstice because it meant that at last, the sun god would begin to get well. Evergreen boughs reminded them of all the green plants that would grow again when the sun god was strong, and summer would return.”

Lately, I’ve heard quite a few people lay blame for more than a few misfortunes at the feet of the year 2020. Although I am loathed to admit it, I might have done that more than a couple of times myself. But, as this year winds down like a tired clock, I have to say that I, too, am anxious for the sun god to get well.

While I’ll never “celebrate” the sun (aka bringer of The Cancer, endless reapplications of various lotions and creams, manifester of overly large-brimmed hats), I welcome with little trepidation the return of the light.

But for now, I’ll just continue to admire the view in the darkness.