BAD MEMORIES OF CHRISTMASES PAST

I didn't like Christmas much growing up.

The presents were always fun, and I liked all the Christmas caroling and shopping and preparing treats beforehand.

But Christmas day almost always turned out to be horrible.

Or perhaps the awful ones simply block out the  memory of any good ones which may have happened.

I do remember going over to my oldest sister's house almost every Christmas.

Her house was always the sort you see in Better Homes and Gardens magazines - gorgeous array of lights, huge decorated tree, festival boughs, red red ribbons, scents of cinnamon and apple (years before they had candles with those scents) as well as turkey and freshly baked bread.

But even as a child, I could feel all the tension that played along with this lovely scenery.

I know my mother's concepts of Christmas were always larger than life - she wanted to outdo my sister by a couple of miles - and her frustration at not being able to achieve this ideal seemed to send dangerous sparks into all those tinder-filled emotional dark corners.

She deliberately overdosed on sleeping pills on one particular Christmas (I think I was in high school), and yet insisted on 'doing' Christmas like nothing had happened.


I may have gone a bit overboard on having NON-tense Christmas - even when my kids were little, I would never allow it to become that huge overpowering monster. The children usually got one "big" present, and a lot of little ones. Dinner was relaxed (always Chinese on Christmas Eve) with just us - sometimes local friends.

I'm just babbling here - playing Psych 101 and trying to get some of the bad memories out on paper and out of my mind.

Tomorrow will be cheerier, I promise.