Why I Lost My Love of Christmas

Thanksgiving is over and it's time to gear up for Christmas. It's time for the kids (and many adults) to get excited for the "Most Wonderful Time of the Year" and chances are you will be putting your tree up soon unless you are one of those crazy people that put it up the day after Halloween. You're crazy I tell you, crazy!

Christmas, it's the most wonderful time of year! Or that's what everyone, including the song, says anyway.

I used to believe the same thing. I, like most kids, couldn't wait for Christmas each year. I couldn't wait to help put the Christmas tree up, I couldn't wait to watch the presents appear under the tree, I couldn't wait to watch 'Frosty,' 'Rudolph,' and 'Charlie Brown' every year and I really couldn't wait until my aunt and uncle pulled up in their present-filled van on Christmas Eve night because that was our signal that it was time to open presents and toss the wrapping paper to the side.

Christmases at our house were always basically the same. We never went all out for Christmas, it was basic, most years anyway. We never decorated outside, only had a tree and stockings in our living room but that never bothered me, I was more worried about presents than lights and yard decorations. Early on Christmas Eve, we each had the opportunity to open one present, I think I always chose the video game if I knew I was getting one. I always asked for the new Donkey Kong games and always got them, I really didn't care if I got anything else, as long as I was able to rip open a present and find the newest adventures of Donkey Kong, Diddy, Trixie, and the rest of the gang. Then we would wait the rest of the day for my uncle Norbert and aunt Stephanie to arrive. They'd never get to the house until after dark and I would always be waiting on the couch, looking over the back of it, anticipating their arrival. Then the headlights would come around the curve, I'd get excited hoping it was them. It usually always was.

"They're here! They're here," I'd shout and we would run outside and wait for them to park. It was always the same, he'd pull a little past the gate, apply the breaks, then back up to the gate to grant easier access to the back of the van, where the presents sat. We then helped them bring everything in, never knowing what any of the presents were. Once inside, it was coffee time. My grandma, who we lived with, always had coffee ready for their arrival. They'd have their coffee and talk as we waited and begged to start opening presents.

I think we nearly always sat in the same spots. My aunt and uncle were on the couch by our front door, my mom and dad in the recliners, my sister in front of them, me right beside my grandma's chair which sat right beside the door to the kitchen, and my brother, in front of the television. The Christmas tree was always in the same spot too, in the back of the living room, behind the recliners my parents were sitting in.

Then it was finally time!

Looking back there is so much I can remember about Christmas.

Our Christmas tree was always stored in the same spot, at the top of the bathroom closet. We'd take the same, taped up box, down year after year, along with the ornaments, and spend hours taking it all out, straightening the branches, untangling the lights, and sorting out the ornaments. We had a bunch of ornaments, including an ornament each with our baby picture on it. I can still see so many of these ornaments in my mind's eye and can almost feel them after all of these years.

I remember us sitting down and watching all of the Christmas specials, 'Grinch,' 'Frosty,' 'Rudolph,' and 'Charlie Brown.'

I remember us waiting each year for Sears to release their "Wishbook" so we could each take turns flipping through the pages and writing our names by countless toys that we knew we probably wouldn't get.

I remember getting sick for several Christmases in a row. I would be fine, then a couple of days before Christmas I'd get a terrible cold and would have to sit with a box of tissues while opening my presents.

I remember us watching the "Santa Tracker" on our local news trying to see how long it would be before he got to our house.

I remember going outside and believing that the red flashing light, a light from a radio tower, was Rudolph's nose.

I remember that many of our presents consisted of clothes but we always got toys and other things too, including my video games. There was always one gift from my uncle, that we always considered a gag gift, and I think we always complained about it, but now, looking back, I look at receiving the plastic candy cane full of small jars of jelly each year, as a core memory (watch 'Inside Out' if you don't understand this reference.)

To us, well to me at the time, Christmas was never really about anything other than presents. Our parents, nor grandma, ever forced religion on us, we made Christmas about family and (mostly) presents. My aunt was different, she was a devout Catholic and would always wake up every Christmas morning and go to mass, usually alone, unless my sister went with her. It was all about Christmas Eve in my eyes and opening presents. I didn't care that it was considered the birth of Jesus, I didn't care about Christmas dinner, I didn't really care about Thanksgiving or any other holiday for that matter, I just wanted presents and lots of them.

It was always about presents to me. Or so I thought.

My love for Christmas started to take a downward descent after my grandma got diagnosed with lung cancer, I knew it was a matter of time before she was no longer with us. If I recall correctly, we learned of her cancer diagnosis shortly before Christmas 2005. Truthfully, it came as a surprise to no one, she had been smoking since she was around the age of eighteen and was approaching eighty at the time. I had always feared her having cancer, I knew it was almost a sure thing, something made worse when one of my aunts died from lung cancer, who never smoked a day in her life but loved her local casino and encountered a lot of second-hand smoke there. She made it through Christmas 2005 fine but by the time Christmas 2006 came, she was going downhill fast. She eventually went on Hospice care, then to the hospital, and then, because she did not want to die at home, she went into the nursing home.

My grandma passed away on May 24, 2007.

Since her passing, I have lost my love for Christmas. I no longer had her. My aunt and uncle stooped coming over. My grandma was gone, the traditions were gone, my love for Christmas was gone. I still celebrated Christmas with the family but it was never the same, I had fun, I enjoyed it, but my love for it was not there, that died with my grandma.

Since her passing, we have also lost my aunt and uncle that had helped make our Christmases so memorable. The house we grew up in and celebrated all of our Christmases in burnt down. My first wife passed away. So much of what I loved about Christmas is gone.

Although I had lost my love for Christmas I still celebrated it. I thought, after getting married again and her having a son, that I would find my love for Christmas again but that didn't happen. There was no enjoyment in putting up the tree, there was no enjoyment in buying or receiving gifts, it just wasn't the same.

I last celebrated Christmas in 2017. The holiday I once put above all others, including my own birthday, the holiday I looked forward to the most, my, once, favorite day of the year means nothing at all to me anymore. Ten years after my grandma died, I stopped celebrating.

We celebrate Hanukkah now. We haven't tried to replace Christmas, even if we did it still wouldn't be the same. Although I had long since lost my love for Christmas, that's not why we stopped celebrating, our reasons for stopping were religious-based but that isn't important here. I thought giving Christmas up would be hard, despite no longer having the love for it, but it was easy, a lot easier than I thought it would be.

Do I miss Christmas? No. But I do miss having my grandma here, I miss having my aunt and uncle here, I miss our house, I miss sitting there and making memories with my family.

I spent so many years believing that presents were all that mattered but I now know that is untrue, what matters is family and memories. I'd give every single gift I have ever received to have my grandma, aunt, uncle, and our house back

Although I no longer celebrate I have nothing against someone who does, I just encourage them (you) to focus on what matters, family and memories. Kids will forget most toys and gifts by the time the next Christmas comes around but if you focus on making memories with them, they can hold on to them for a very long time, much longer than toys.

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