I always feel Christmassy in July. I don’t know why. I was thinking about this as I walked through my nieghbourhood last night. When I passed by a Jewelry shop on the Main Street with a banner hung across it’s front window that read “Christmas In July Sale.” I decided I was not the only one who might feel this way.
As a kid I loved Christmas. I mean LOVED Christmas. It was by my favorite time of the year. School became more fun as we got to practice singing carols and rehearsing lines for the Christmas pageant. In the sixth grade I even got to play the Virgin Mary in the French version of the birth of Jesus while my bald Cabbage Patch doll Christian Rudolf played the role of the baby J.
I looked forward to watching Christmas TV specials airing themes of well being and honouring those less fortunate. People everywhere seemed nicer to one another and that left an impression on me. It’s amazing how you think everything about Christmas is so great when you are a kid.
While I strolled down Main Street on this particularly hot July night I also took a walk back in time, caught up in thoughts of my childhood Christmases. I think about their evolution and how I perceive Christmas today. Its amazing how radically different I find the month of December and the days leading up to Christmas. I am now traumatized by Christmas in all its commercialism, false friendliness and pressure. My family has become so over tired fighting crowds in malls for presents, grocery stores for food, rushed into and out of time to prepare for family visits that Christmas has just become a huge stress I would rather avoid. And did a number of years ago without missing it at all. My boyfriend Steve and I were in Costa Rica, Dad was in Australia and except for the two “merry Christmas phone calls to dad and my sister – we had escaped Chirstmas – or so we thought until my dad’s girlfriend decided to have a very Brady Family Christmas on January 22nd. But that is a story for another time.
As a child by the end of November I was beyond elated to see the holiday season kick off by watching the men of the households on my block begin the ritual of hanging Christmas lights. Precariously perched on ladders, hands bare, stiff and pink from the cold, holding onto the end of a hockey stick used to push and pull the stings of lights coaxing them onto tree branches.
Mini lights were draped over fences, tree branches, and hung carefully on the eves of each household transforming my little rural nieghbourhood. It was a welcomed sight – coming out of bleak November nights into a white December where the twinkling Christmas lights reflected colours all over the snow and sky.
My house was no different. We had Christmas lights too. They were hung by my dad, who generally didn’t arrive home from work until nearly 7pm, begin in the dark to decorate the nighbourhood with a string of expletives while decorating the large fur tree on our lawn with lights, while his adoring daughters watched from the glowing warmth of the living room window.
As an aside:
It was advisable not “Help” dad with such endeavors. This would include washing the car – he sprayed me till I cried once – which was fair - I sprayed him first trying to playfully pull him into a water fight – I lost. Never ever help dad while he is packing the car for vacation, or trying to fix something. Just stay far away, very far away. But, if you wanted to stay within ear -shot, you could listen to the indelible string of wild words that you probably should never ever repeat or play on a scrabble board but should sock away in the old mental dictionary to pull out at such times when warranted like for instance when I too become frustrated.
Although, there was an exception once when I was 20. I was asked to help Dad carry a prefab shower stall into the house, up to the second floor, then try to get it through the bedroom door. It didn’t fit – no way in hell was it ever gonna fit and we could tell this by eyeballing it before we even tried to move it. But we did try. We lifted it high over the stair’s railing, then on an angle, bottom end first, top end next, back down the stairs, then up the stairs again and finally dad gave in opting to return the stall to the store for a smaller one, but, not before I wrenched my neck and ended up attending physiotherapy for a month – which I of course had to pay for out of pocket. The only perk was some muscle relaxants that had me dancing down the stairs feeling no pain at all. Hence, don’t help dad unless you can help him while he is not around, or, you are assured of getting painkillers, which since that time, I have learned are a lot of fun recreationally.
Back to Christmas:
When we were young before the “secret” was out, my dad and mom would tell us they could see Santa’s elves. All grown ups can- they would say. The elves are Santa’s eyes and ears they help the parents and Santa with the naughty and nice lists. Long before the Christmas lights indicated Christmas was around the corner my mom and dad would use Santa and his elves as a way of bribing us into good behaviour. Santa Clause’s naughty and nice list was yearlong leverage for the management of behaviour of children in our household.
Dad: Oh I just saw Santa’s elf. He’s watching you Michelle.
Michelle: Where?
Dad: Over there on the kitchen window.
Michelle: I don’t see them.
Dad: Only good grown ups can. You had better be a good girl and clean up those crayons and put away the paper then come and help your mother by setting the table or the elf will report to Santa that you are naughty.
Mom: Susan! Stop eating out of the bird feeder, put your clothes back on and get in the house before you catch a cold! I guess since you are not listening I will have to dial up the big guy…
My mother headed for the phone on the kitchen wall – dialed some numbers and proceeded to conduct a very loud one -sided conversation with Santa Clause’s wife about how Susan likes to run around naked in November and surely this would be a check on the naughty list.
Then she would ask Mrs. Clause to put Santa on the phone for a word. At this Susan dropped the moldy bread left out for the birds, collected her clothes to run up the stairs toward the back door of our house. Susan, running, the back steps and door were never a good combination.
On a regular day without the threat of Santa’s Naughty list Sue could be found trying to right herself after losing her balance falling backward into my mother’s rose garden. It always occurred to me that my mother must have derived some kind of masochistic pleasure from having children topple into her rose garden – why otherwise would she plant Thorne bushes beside a set of stairs with no railing?
Since Sue’s hands were filled with articles of clothing, and Santa was on his way to the phone, Sue made haste. The rose garden and a naked Susan seemed doomed to meet. She had a hard time with the door. Losing her balance she fell into the garden but this time she did not cry she didn’t have time. Santa was on his way to the phone. She picked herself up navigated the stairs with a little more caution entered the house to get dressed in a real hurry. Incidentally, Sue was never hungry for a home cooked meal following the bird feeder buffet and another phone call would be made to Santa.
Since Santa was on speed dial and the elves lived on our windowsills year round you can imagine how paranoid I was in the days leading up to the 24th of December. Even after the tree was raised and decorated and the stockings were hung I would sneak into the living room each morning to make sure they were all still there. I was terrified the elves would come in the night to take them away as this year might just be the year Santa was skipping past our house.
I don’t think my folks ever equated my anticipation of Christmas morning with the shear dread I had that Christmas was just not going to happen at all. They had just assumed it was excitement. “Oh Look at Michelle she is bouncing off the walls.”
Dad, who had seen a sketch on either SCTV or SNL starring Martin Short playing an over excited child the night before Christmas, had dissolved into fits of laughter at how representative this sketch was of my behaviour. He reenacted it for me the next day and each subsequent year until I too finally saw the sketch and had to admit – the producers of SNL or SCTV must have been watching me – that or the elves really had reported me and in the off season must have been in the business of making comedic television. Was Martin Short just excited about gifts from Santa? Or had he been brainwashed into thinking he may have more strikes on the naughty side of the page than the good side and that the jolly fat man in the suit was likely passing by his house too? I will never know.
By Christmas Eve I was dying to slip into the living room to see if any treasures were left under the tree. Each year I was truly amazed at what would be there waiting, not just for me but for my whole family. Each year the set up was different, the crumbs left by Santa were in a different place, the carrots left out for the reindeer strategically placed by an exterior window were gone, and it never occurred to us that it was my parents who discovered these things and pointed them out to us…
My usual MO was to wake up around 4:30 AM to go on a recognizance mission up the hall of our bungalow past my parent’s and sister’s bedroom doors toward the living room just to have a peek to see what might be there. Completely unaware, I held my breath, my hands clenched into tiny fists and I pause just a moment before I peer around the half wall into the living room. There before me stands the Christmas tree sparkling and beautiful. There are presents everywhere! The cookies we laid out for Santa are gone! All faith in my behaviour is restored. He was here! I am good! I am good.
I gravitate toward the stocking, which is and has always been my favorite part of Christmas presents. And then I hear;
“ Get back to your room before I call Santa and have him come back here to pick up all these presents! Do you know what time it is?”
I whip around to face my Mother.
Michelle: He was here already mom!
Mom: Yes, I heard him leaving, he was very noisy, must have woke you up.
My hands still behind my back carefully take an item from the top of my sock, hide it in my hand to take back to bed with me - this small item was the evidence that I had been good all year. Despite all the threats that the elves were watching me and would report back to Santa if I didn’t eat my lima beans – the big man had come.
A giant sigh of relief heaved my tiny chest as I settled back into my pillow – I could go back to sleep until 7 AM - at which time I would announce confidently to my whole family it was time to get up to enjoy the delights of Christmas by crowing like a rooster. A rooster. Martin Short never did that.
I laugh when I think about that. What an odd kid. Who crows like a rooster but a rooster? Me - I did.
I was taught to believe in the magic of Christmas even once the giant lie of Christmas was out of the bag. If you can’t believe in the magic of Christmas, then Christmas will never be the same, was my mother’s explanation. So, I believed.
To this day stockings are my favorite part of Christmas and lucky for me my sister Sue has inherited my mother’s gift for creating the perfect sock. This is great news as one year stocking duty had fallen in the hands of my father. Not that this was a bad thing it actually proved to be the shining bright spot in the first of a string of rather dark Christmases.
To back fill a bit - I need to describe to you the physical attributes of the Shipley women. I have and under developed bosom, where my sister has an over developed bosom, and my mother had one bosom – the other removed in an attempt to eradicate breast cancer.
It was tradition now for me to crow like a rooster to wake the family to gather for Christmas morning festivities. But on this particular Christmas morning I did not crow to call the family to Christmas. It just did not seem appropriate. Mom had been in the hospital undergoing another round of Christmas Chemo so she was feeling pretty punchy. We the Shipley’s are quietly nestled in the living room opening our stockings well past the 7 AM usual time in fact it was erring on 11 am before Christmas morning was underway. Sue and I were feasting on a Christmas tradition of the Christmas Eve party’s left over chips and dip for breakfast while drinking coffee and Bailey’s. Christmas stockings were being passed around and we were all feeling less than jovial.
Taking the lead I dove into my stocking and pulled out a pair of socks and a magazine then my sister says:
Sue: A lime?
Dad: Put your hand back in there.
Sue: Another Lime?
Dad: Shell what have you got.
Michelle: A grapfruit?
Dad: And?
Michelle: Another grape fruit!
Dad: Carolyn what’s in your sock?
Carolyn: A Florida Orange?
Sue: Dad what’s going on?
Dad just sits there with a straight face. We all exchange glances and then look back at Dad. His face contorts, he grunts and then erupts into laughter. We all stare at the crazy person who is clearly breaking down in the strain of the holidays and the hospital visits in the past month. Finally he regains his composure long enough to say:
Dad: Well Santa thought you could all use a little help to fill your brassieres!
Then dad bursts out laughing again. The kind of laughter that turns his whole face red, the kind of laughter that takes his breathe away and makes him have to leave the room to blow his nose making the off key highschool symphony trumpets section sound, the kind of laughter that no one in their right mind could hear and not join in on. But before he leaves the room in search of a Kleenex he fires his hand into his own stocking drawing back to reveal two lumps of coal and a banana. And just like that normalcy is restored to the Shipley Family Christmas.
