Home For the Holidays

This week I sent my daughter the Christmas angel that sat upon the tree all through her childhood.  I had named him Michael as he reminded me of the Arch Angel and really looked more masculine than frilly.

Of course this started me thinking about past holidays starting from my childhood.  As an adult I can peer within these scenes and view them with a very different filter.  Holidays were a big deal to my mother.  I think it appealed to the artist within her and allowed her to be expressive in the beauty of decorating the tree and the house. 

Looking back I often wonder about all the things that weren't there for the holiday.  Despite the fact that my mother was usually high or drunk the appearances were all in place.  It was far from normal under the pretty lights.  I remember one holiday where my mother had a falling out with some of her friends.  While I patiently waited for the lasagna to be done  her friends spent what seemed like hours banging on the door.  Not only didn't my mother answer the door, but I wasn't allowed to make any noise.  As if they couldn't smell the lasagna baking?  As if they didn't know my agoraphobic mother was in the apartment?  What often passed for normal, I now know was far from that. 

When I was 14 I went from Far Rockaway to the Bronx for Christmas.  I hadn't been home since moving out in May.  I had a horrible cold.  I sat huddled in my Far Rockaway high school coat, with my name, Laura Joy, embroidered over my heart....nodding in and out of a fever that had started just as I sat down for the long subway ride up to my mother's.  Every time the train came to a stop and the doors opened, I would look up, shivering as the icy cold wind blasted in from outside.  I would take in the people that had arrived as well as those that had left.  Always being aware of those around you is a suvival technique of any big city dweller. 

At one point I opened my eyes to notice a man standing across from me.  In his arms he had two huge bouquets of gladiolas.  Summer flowers in December?  Not only did this look out of place......he might as well have been holding two martian babies.  Typical New York protocol was that no one made eye contact and no one commented on these hot house beauties laying in his arms.

A little while later the train came to a stop and I felt something on my lap.  Startled I looked down and there was a bouquet of the gladiolas.  As I was taking this in, the man said, Merry Christmas Laura Joy.....and walked off as the doors opened.  Gone before I could say anything.  A gift from a stranger carrying something that looked so out of place at a time where nothing grew.  I looked around, no one had batted an eyelash.  I looked within the paper wrapped stems....there were only more stems, nothing else.

What did that man see on my fever flushed face?  What prompted him to gift me those obviously expensive flowers?  When I got to my mother's and told her what had happened she lashed out at me.  Not only didn't she believe me but she acted as if I had performed some sexual deviant act for the flowers. 

That was the last time I went home for the holidays.  My mother signed me over to the state of New York after that and moved to Los Angeles.  I never again had her lasagna, although I made my own and made it without all the drama of my childhood.  When I was an adult and my mother came to visit me what I realized most of all was just how afraid of everything she really was.  The things she asked me about not only would I never worry about, they hadn't even concerned me as a child. 

The Christmas Angel Michael that i sent to my daughter represented for me all the ways of making a holiday normal.  It meant to me that I did things because I wanted to, because it filled my heart and fed my soul.  The holiday meant making sure that those around me would be nurtured through my gift of cooking and the perfect orchestration of a well timed meal.  I had not only recreated those early memories in my life without the sordid inappropriatness of my parents but with a confidence and love that I never saw growing up.  I tried so hard because I never saw anyone go outside of their selfish needs for anyone but themself growing up.  It mattered so much to me to create something of beauty and depth that wasn't about just going through the motions.  With every ornament, every layer of lasagna prepared, and the final topping of the tree, I wanted to surpass the strangeness of my childhood.

I hope that Michael brings to Samantha, my daughter all of that energy and so much more.  I hope that she is surrounded in her life by people that give as well as receive her love and beauty.  I hope that she finds herself encompassed by souls that grow and develop themselves as individuals as well as her.  I hope that when she tops her tree with that angel, he crowns her holiday with peace, love, and joy.