Underneath the Perfect
Christmas this year was perfect.
My two daughters and I spent nearly a week celebrating the holidays at my one daughter’s tiny one-room apartment, with one double bed, no couch, no comfy armchair, and a mattress on the floor.
After a year of struggles, financial and mental health issues, we managed to come together, put up a real Christmas tree, decorate it with past memories, and exchange small but quaint gifts. I received gift cards for Starbucks, which is always a win for me. The girls loved their little ceramic light-up houses, packaged in unique dollar-store boxes with pointed-roof lids.
We slept in, more or less on top of each other, fed the neighbourhood birds, and the cats of the family who went home to Missouri for Christmas, donned red lipstick (I added a touch of silver shadow to my eyelids) to go for a walk in the snow, and piled onto the one bed to watch nostalgic movies projected onto the wall at the end of the bed.
After using PC Optimum points I’d saved up all year towards a huge grocery haul, we planned a feast for kings (fresh salmon, baked Brussels, and, yes, Yorkshire puddings), and scheduled who would make what, but I ended up making the whole thing because one daughter came down with a bad cold and the other had a toothache and was too tired when her new medication kicked in.
I made a marzipan cake with a cup of sugar borrowed from a neighbour and we had that for dessert with coffee ice cream and half a glass of Zinfandel.
Some time in the late afternoon, I drove across the side of the city’s mountain, past the old stately stone mansions on The Boulevard and into the suburbs to visit my son, his pregnant wife (due on New Year’s Day), and my adorable, huggable two- and four-year-old grandsons, who couldn’t wait to get their hands on Grandmummy’s homemade pink and green Christmas cookies and open not only their own presents but those I brought for their parents too.
At the end of the day, as the dark sky blushed deep scarlet among the naked trees, the girls and I hugged each other and rated our Christmas a ten out of ten.
We did our best to avoid talking about how bad 2024 was.
“I lost my soul,” he said, confessing his sin.
How one daughter has to go to court in the new year for moving out of her rat-infested apartment before the lease was up, after months of harassment by her landlord.
How the other daughter landed a new job for January, but it’s the overnight shift.
How I face a trial in April because my ghostwriting client breached our contract and stiffed me out of five figures when she changed her mind about the book after all and decided not to pay for work done to date, ignoring the terms of termination.
How my girls’ father decided to ignore them this Christmas.
How my daughters aren’t really talking to their brother because of his behaviour during the pandemic.
How my little brother, adopted by my family when he was a baby, was caught by the police after going into hiding, and was found guilty at trial and given a life sentence for murder. “I lost my soul,” he said, confessing his sin. I’ve thought about writing to him, but haven’t figured out what to say yet.
It was indeed a perfect Christmas
How my sister, after decades of shunning me because her husband didn’t like me (and maybe she didn’t like me either), decided to renew our relationship following her divorce, but then decided I wasn’t worth it because I was a despicable toxic lying cheating stealing evil narcissist (her words) and then sent me a Christmas message about “unsafe” people. This all had something to do with the fact that her abundance is a result of hard work and my financial struggle is because of my poverty mentality and not related to the fact that I raised three children alone and lost a lot of my work when journalism took a hit.
How we all have a sense of dread and doom, or at the very least doubt, about 2025, with everything that is going on around the world and with our southern neighbour, the divided United States.
It was indeed a perfect Christmas because we sat gratefully on the smooth surface, ignoring the broiling churning life beneath us.
I still remember the most important gift I ever got for Christmas. It wasn't anything on a list I made or something circled in a catalog. It was a race car track with missing pieces. One car that had no top but my mom had nothing and some how found a way to put a present out for Christmas.
Merry Christmas, Susan. So many mixed emotions reading this but I am grateful that others share as openly as I do. We need to normalize life troubles and broken relationships - because they are there to teach and guide us. But oh, how can they hurt the heart? This is especially true at this time of year. Wishing you a more peaceful 2025 - It is a 9 year astrologically so we have that in our favor!