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ghosts of christmas past and present

December 14, 2005

fgm: i'm sorry about this. i've been trying to write, and it's what came out. i don't want you to feel bad. the past is the past. what i feel today is not on who you are today. i know that, and i hope you understand that, too. i would have come to feel like this eventually, anyway, and it will change if and when.. you know, lightning and all...

for close to fifteen years, without variation or fail, my parents and i would load up and visit my grandparents in dallas at thanksgiving and christmas. we would return to austin, and driving down the expressway, we could see the giant christmas tree in zilker park, strands of newly lit lights sweeping down from one of the city's moonlight towers.

it was another one of the stops or trips my family never made. it was like the mysterious inner space caverns just outside of austin, that tempted me with an endless stream of billboards advertising zero-gravity rooms and sabre-toothed tigers. i never understood how we could possibly not go, how anyone at any age could resist the lure of zero-gravity rooms and prehistoric beasts. maybe even prehistoric beasts in zero-gravity rooms.

no, i still haven't been, though i consider every time i drive back from dallas. the nike outlet store in hillsboro, the czech stop in west for kolaches, but the inner space caverns, no. i think i know that it's too late, that i'll just be disappointed by ragged, animatronic mastodons and spinning chambers with disorienting interior design and the comingled odors of vomit and cheap industrial cleaner.

then there was the mysterious crop of fighter planes and missiles peaking over the trees just off of the mopac expressway. for a good deal of my life, i was firmly committed to being a fighter pilot, earning an engineering degree, then getting into the astronaut program. this was a plan that eminently pleased my parents, far more than the plans that followed the disappointment of becoming more nearsighted than a fighter pilot should be: automotive designer; professional cyclist (before lance made it cool); journalist. yet, they would never make the quick stop to let me clamber around on the decommissioned jets that i could name and tell the history and specifications of.

there was six flags. astroworld. but i understood that those trips would require more money, time and effort. but airplanes and the christmas tree in zilker park seemed easy enough.

i finally went once, in college. then, again, a time later, with my girlfriend at the time, and some of our friends. i don't remember what year it was, or who was there. i remember standing with her and everyone else at the giant yule log. at the time, no one was supposed to know about what was happening between us. so we stood close, but not too close. people sang, santa held audience, my friends and i drank cheap powdered hot chocolate from styrofoam cups, and it all seemed sort of hollow, because in another few days, i knew she would be leaving, going home to her hometown, her family, and the boyfriend everyone knew about.

i know there are other factors that make me feel the way i do about this time of year. growing up, the slightest scent of the holiday season caused the dreaded resurrection and around-the-clock playing of the barbara streisand christmas album, first on 8-track, then on a cassette tape that would not die the way my genesis and prince tapes seemed to. finally, of course, the album was played enough that, like repeating "bloody mary" in front of a mirror enough times, the music was reincarnated in the eternal, indestructible, and evilly pure digital format of the compact disc, where it joined forces with the richard clayderman christmas album to make christmas a fearsome and loathsome thing for me.

as i entered my late teens, i also noted the trend of people lightening up on being careless or numb or outright assholes for a day or two, if that, only to immediately pick up where they left off as soon as they slept off the turkey and eggnog and began hitting the after-christmas sales. nothing ensures having the spirit of christmas all year long like a guy in a bright red sweater with reindeer on it, flipping you off on the highway.

but as i became an adult, i learned something else that made christmas unwelcome and not a little bitter. the trips to dallas stopped when my grandfather died, and we moved my grandmother to austin. then, a few years later, she grew weaker, and died. increasingly, my friends were people i went to college with, who went home for christmas, leaving me to spend awkward and strained time with my parents. and eventually, goodbyes at the airport became another christmas tradition for a few years.

so, for years now, when the season rolls in like a fast-intruding cold front that cuts the temperature in half, i find it a little funny to scowl at decorations. i honestly cringe with annoyance and some embarassment on humanity's behalf at mechanically-animated mock deer heads that sing christmas carols, the cutesy advertisements, and all of that.

i'm even annoyed at the annual surge of stories about "the holiday blues." how stupid and sad and pathetic is that? to be haunted by the ghosts of lonely christmases past and present, and to fear the ghosts of untold christmases future.

10 shopping days left until christmas. 10 days, each of which i am increasingly stupid and sad and pathetic and a little angry, because the songs are grating, and the sentiments are hollow, and for some reason, no other day is lonelier than christmas.

Posted by Rob at December 14, 2005 11:14 PM

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Posted by: Steph at December 16, 2005 05:07 PM

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