Skip to main content

Have Yourself A Merry Christmas

It's that time of year that I dread. I honestly have no idea from year to year how I'll react. In the 19 years since my mother's death, it's been more smiles than tears, that I'm can thankfully say. Regardless, I hope you have yourself a Merry Christmas.

I remember talking to my girlfriend about that pivotal Christmas in 1997. The memory is so surrealistic that it's almost palpable in my mind. Our family tradition is to have a rotating Santa Claus to distribute the gifts. As you can imagine this was the last task on our minds. I volunteered to do it.

Again, last thing I wanted to do but knew Mom would want us to keep digging. Ironically, we didn't have much time or money to purchase gifts for one another with cancer treatments being draining in both aspects.

Which meant it was a short task to say the least! Regardless, it still felt like we were all at ground zero for a ginormous bomb that detonated on our house. We were some accustomed to checking in on her every hour, around the clock. Now we're servants without someone to serve. The sleep depravation washed over us like a tsunami of fatigue.

Here we were... floating in a sea of hopelessness and uselessness. I stared at my gifts in front of me for a solid several minutes. I thought, "How long will it take to return to the child-like glee of loving Christmas?"

Apparently the answer is 19 years.

The conclusion of the discussion with my girlfriend was that I should start new traditions in the house with the family I have left here in the States. I decided to post a Facebook poll on the first tradition: a plastic Christmas tree or real Christmas tree.

Of course, I knew I would be purchasing a real tree. I wanted to see what the temperature was on this debate. The consensus was a real tree. Below is the video of our adventure!


Now you've gotta understand we haven't had a conscious effort in decorating a tree for damn near two decades. I was hoping that by starting new traditions that it'll heal old wounds. For me it did wonders.

I'm confident our mother would be proud of us starting new traditions instead of dredging up painful old memories. This year will be a merry Christmas for the first time in a long time.

With that said, Seattle and Spaceship Earth, have yourself a Merry Christmas! Until next time we drop, be good like you should and if you can't be good, be good at what you do!

Mic drop *bOoM*
'los; out

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Let's Dance

The other week, I was driving to my 2 nd job at Malarky’s Sports Grill. Wednesday to be exact. I noticed a man standing at a bus sign waiting for a bus. I recognized the man right away. It was Kenny, The Dancing Wild Man of Factoria. It’d been a minute since I’ve seen him on the streets of Issaquah, I was growing concerned that something awful happened to him. I was thankful to find him once again, and within the same area I “met” him the first time… hilarious story. I remember distinctively. It was my first summer I spent in Issaquah. The sun was out, so relatively warm. I was bombing around in the Sapphire Sled [an arctic blue, 2004 Acura RSX Type S] with the windows down, the tunes up. I was stopped at the traffic light on the corner of Front Street and NW Gilman Blvd; the busiest intersection. From out-the-cuts, I heard someone screaming! I pull off my shades immediately. I whip my head around trying to seek out the source of the noise. I turn down the radio as I desper...

Manic Monday, Terrible Tuesday, Wonderful Wednesday, Throwback Thursday, and Finally Friday

What a roller coaster week I have had! To start off the week was a manic Monday. After work on Monday , I did a WinCo run with WCP. Always entertaining. Tuesday was terrible. Started off by being tardy for work, so I treated myself to Tully's before posting up. And... in my experience, when you start off a day like that, any attempt to speed up or make up that half-step, half-tick, never happens. For inexplicable reason, you are now out-of-step with the Universe, and like fucking hell you're gonna make it back up. Never. Fails. I was late to meetings, I was late to a gym class I'm regularly early for, and the list goes on. In fact, I decided on that day instead of seeking out my dream girl of a svelte body, superior intelligence, endless energy, and with a litany of characteristics to make any fairy godmother proud I made the wide-sweeping declaration that I wanted this instead. A 2-ton, yoga pants wearing, 45 year old, bitter, divorcee that is one more named cat f...

Cinematic Carlos - Seattle International Film Festival 2014

Last night started the 2nd year of my annual tradition (?) of screening several movies during the Seattle International Film Festival. I've known about for years, even a short stint in managing travel during the 2001 SIFF (that's even a longer story!) However, I had zero to little interest in it. I had no good reason either way. Last year, my dear friend, Cindy, invited me to be her movie buddy for SIFF. I accepted because I had no honestly good reason to refuse. We ran around the city tracking down movies that we wanted to watch, others were forgettable but that's the point! Some of these films will hit the mainstream. Most do not. Through the movies, misadventures, and mischief, we had a blast. So, it goes without saying, she invited me to repeat the feat. It continues to teach me: Despite how 'busy' you are - slow down and cherish the time with friends, family, and loved ones That as you grow older - invites should bear more weight than when you were y...