Saturday, December 5, 2009

The First Christmas...


There are a few things these days that make you want to get a bottle of wine called Serenity - a sweet white table wine with little color - and just sit down and try and figure out where that sinking feeling is coming from - Bovril - the perfect advertisement for right now - unfortunately I have a funny feeling that a meat paste is not going to take away the awkwardness of this Christmas - this is essentially the first time I have been a single person since about 1992 or so - there have been Christmas's in St.Louis, and Kansas City, and Shreveport, and Jacksonville, and Orlando over the past 17 years - married young couple, married young couple with children, middle aged couple with children - there have been parties at houses throughout the Country, there have been fake trees and real ones - but this year, I don't know what there will be at the "other house" but I do know that in the apartment, there is a cheap pink tree with Princess ornaments, a cheap fiber optic tree with sports ornaments, and a cheap family tree with colored lights - I was never allowed to do colored lights - Christmas became a chore, because everything had to be white and pristine - it was silly really to get to that point- that I hated to do the Christmas tree because I had to do white lights.  I remember times when I would put an ornament on the tree, and Christy (she was born on Christmas) would move the ornament to a more proper location - I suppose a more proper location.  I was given a box of ornaments, and of course the expensive, dainty ornaments were not in the box - I mostly got the sports related ones, or the chintzy ones that did not fit into Christy's grand scheme of Christmas - but there were a few nice ones included - mostly the ones my parents gave to us - you know - The White House annual Christmas Ornaments - brass, gold, shiny intricate -they are beautiful, and every one of them reminds me of Christmas Past - and I look forward to a new one that signifies Chrismas future -

I remember the first Christmas with Gabe and Gray, I remember the second Christmas, buying a ring wrap for the engagement ring (a piece of advice - buy diamonds from the pawn shop - selling them there as well isnot a bad idea...) I remember the Christmas Eve parties and the hectic rush of going to six different houses and then changing into pajamas and putting out carrots and cookies - Christy in her new Christmas pajamas - me in boxers - struggling to put some toy together with stickers and more parts than an artificial heart -

It is a tough time of the year - you get that sinking feeling - this was the time of the year that we were actually closest - where there was hope that the things that had happened in the past year were gone - I think that is why I am feeling what I am feeling - I cannot be with Cadence on Christmas morning, but I do get to see the kids faces light up when they come out and see their gifts - I look forward to that - I look forward to the Orlando trip and seeing my brother, I look forward to Disneyworld and dinner and having somewhere that I can be with family -

I don't think that feeling is going to go away anytime soon - asking myself if I made the right decision for me, for my kids, for Christy, well - when you are hanging ornaments that basically cover the only life you know - you ask those questions - and you do miss those good times.  I miss them now - probably only temporarily, I am sure that something will be said that will piss me off, the house will be renegotiated (Christy actually asked if I would "split" the debt with her so she could qualify for a mortgage - I guess I could do that if I could "split" the child support...), that will answer the question if I made the right decision - holding hands with my kids, or Cadence, that let's me know the decision that was made was the right one- but still, there is the reminder that at one point in time, I had a nuclear family, I had a house, in the words of my best friend, I was living the dream.

It was good to put up the tree- it was good to be reminded -

George

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