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Christmas Eve is bittersweet for me. Not Christmas--the night before.
I lived in the same town for almost all of my childhood. I moved away just before high school, and then moved again for college. For the entirety of that time, every Christmas Eve was spent at my Aunt Annie and Uncle Frank's. See, my mom's family all lives in that same little town, where most of us would get together on weekends after church and generally be a big clan.
(I grew up Mexi-Catholic, it's a whole thing.)
Even after I moved, Christmas Eve was spent with them, with my sister spending the night at my little cousin's and me staying the night with my parents, and after brunch tamales we'd drive two hours back home, usually with my little cousin in tow. But for me, Christmas Eve was the important part. My family isn't the biggest as Mexican-American families go, but that house was always packed for Christmas Eve. Aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, even the parish priest would drop by at some point.
Uncle Frank always sat his spot at the table, chair turned backwards, bullshitting with everyone. At nine o'clock or so, everyone would quiet down and we'd gather in and around the living room while Uncle Tony read the same passage from the Bible every year, and then the same copy of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." Aunt Annie would pass out the laminated carol sheets, and when we got to "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," Santa would bust in the front door--really my uncle Ruben, and it took me years before I realized that not everyone thinks Santa is dark-skinned with a heavy Texas Valley accent. And everyone opens presents, people drift off to go to midnight mass or just to go home, etc.
It's been eight years tonight since my last real Hometown Christmas.
Seven years ago tonight was the last time I spoke to Uncle Frank. I told him I wished I could be there. A few weeks later, he was dead.
There's an Amanda Palmer song I heard a few years later that's stuck with me. I know, Amanda Palmer is Problematic, but "Lost" was my lifeline for a while: "No one's ever lost forever, they are stuck inside your heart/If you garden them and water them, they make you what you are." I go back to Uncle Frank's memory constantly. The sound of his voice teasing me, the old-cigarette smell of him. The joy of his presence. How that last Christmas he was constantly good-naturedly needling Father Paul, the priest who had married me and my spouse a few years prior, and who is also now gone.
Every Christmas Eve since 2011, I spend a while grieving what feels like the true loss of home. There are no more Real Christmases there. We tried the year after, and it wasn't the same. My aunt Annie locked herself in her room for the night like Miss Havisham, and the next morning put on a happy face and made us breakfast, but the seat at the end of the table was still empty.
I haven't been a believer in religion for a long, long time. There's no specific reason; I just don't think I was born with a belief button, as it were. I tried, it didn't work, and that's okay. I found comfort in the presence of my family, and in the comfort of tradition. I'm still grieving all that was lost, but we've been slowly but surely making new traditions, my family and I. My spouse and I.
It's okay to grieve. It's okay to move on.
It's okay to eat Christmas Eve pizza on the couch and watch Rare Exports instead of watching small children attempt to try their hand at the same Nativity play the church has put on for 30 years and see how their spin on it goes hilariously wrong.
It's okay.
I lived in the same town for almost all of my childhood. I moved away just before high school, and then moved again for college. For the entirety of that time, every Christmas Eve was spent at my Aunt Annie and Uncle Frank's. See, my mom's family all lives in that same little town, where most of us would get together on weekends after church and generally be a big clan.
(I grew up Mexi-Catholic, it's a whole thing.)
Even after I moved, Christmas Eve was spent with them, with my sister spending the night at my little cousin's and me staying the night with my parents, and after brunch tamales we'd drive two hours back home, usually with my little cousin in tow. But for me, Christmas Eve was the important part. My family isn't the biggest as Mexican-American families go, but that house was always packed for Christmas Eve. Aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, even the parish priest would drop by at some point.
Uncle Frank always sat his spot at the table, chair turned backwards, bullshitting with everyone. At nine o'clock or so, everyone would quiet down and we'd gather in and around the living room while Uncle Tony read the same passage from the Bible every year, and then the same copy of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas." Aunt Annie would pass out the laminated carol sheets, and when we got to "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," Santa would bust in the front door--really my uncle Ruben, and it took me years before I realized that not everyone thinks Santa is dark-skinned with a heavy Texas Valley accent. And everyone opens presents, people drift off to go to midnight mass or just to go home, etc.
It's been eight years tonight since my last real Hometown Christmas.
Seven years ago tonight was the last time I spoke to Uncle Frank. I told him I wished I could be there. A few weeks later, he was dead.
There's an Amanda Palmer song I heard a few years later that's stuck with me. I know, Amanda Palmer is Problematic, but "Lost" was my lifeline for a while: "No one's ever lost forever, they are stuck inside your heart/If you garden them and water them, they make you what you are." I go back to Uncle Frank's memory constantly. The sound of his voice teasing me, the old-cigarette smell of him. The joy of his presence. How that last Christmas he was constantly good-naturedly needling Father Paul, the priest who had married me and my spouse a few years prior, and who is also now gone.
Every Christmas Eve since 2011, I spend a while grieving what feels like the true loss of home. There are no more Real Christmases there. We tried the year after, and it wasn't the same. My aunt Annie locked herself in her room for the night like Miss Havisham, and the next morning put on a happy face and made us breakfast, but the seat at the end of the table was still empty.
I haven't been a believer in religion for a long, long time. There's no specific reason; I just don't think I was born with a belief button, as it were. I tried, it didn't work, and that's okay. I found comfort in the presence of my family, and in the comfort of tradition. I'm still grieving all that was lost, but we've been slowly but surely making new traditions, my family and I. My spouse and I.
It's okay to grieve. It's okay to move on.
It's okay to eat Christmas Eve pizza on the couch and watch Rare Exports instead of watching small children attempt to try their hand at the same Nativity play the church has put on for 30 years and see how their spin on it goes hilariously wrong.
It's okay.