The Green Room
Why do I suddenly like Xmas?
by Richard Lett
Y’know – Xmas is coming, and I’m not dreading it!
That’s a nice change. Usually I cringe at the sound
of Silver Bells. The recession has made me bitch about prices
(gas in Europe is 8 bucks a gallon), and media-driven grappling
for tickle-me-cabbage-patch glimpses of plastic love. And
many trees died. Hey we all have our issues. Mine are around
Christmas.
But this year? I don’t know. Maybe cause there’s a sweetheart in my life, or my six year-old daughter still believes in Santa. But I think it’something else.
It’s that this year, I’m glad we get to. For now.
The have-nots will not stop coming and taking from the haves, but for now, the decadent delight that is the Yule will happen again this year.
My mother’s cookies will arrive in a huge box, it will remind me not of dysfunctional relationships, but of how we get to live. My wonderful mother, baker extraordinaire, raised four bright healthy children with her husband of fifty odd years.
My father never had to go to war. He was allowed to work for many years and never carry a weapon, or be threatened by violence at all. Bringing home a living that put four kids through university, and some. And all four of us have traveled, schooled and lived without the encroaching grip of fear. Fear that the police might take one of us away and disappear us. Or a bomb would explode in the pub we headed to. Or that we are forced to labor at a pre-destined task without reward. Or imprisoned without cause.
Across the globe, boys my age would die in armed conflict. Throwing rocks, that until recently, were the walls their home. My sister’s counterparts? Forget about it. While my teenage sisters were bawling because my father (a high school principal) would not allow them to wear jeans to school, young women all over Asia were sold and enslaved, crushed and killed.
My mother’s struggle to feed her family involved clipping coupons.
Food, shelter, clothing? – a gimme. I’m forty one – and I have slept outside perhaps fives nights. Gone, at most, two days without food. I studied what I chose. Worshipped the god of my choice. Associated with whom I chose. Wrote, sang, read, said, laughed at and decried whatever I wanted. And I have hated Christmas, for about ten years - as was my right.
No one has approached expressing his or her concern that I have strayed. With a casual shrug My Society said, "whatever – it’s a phase". It’s got me covered.
"Fine, buy Voodoo dolls – who cares?" I’m lucky that way. Well, it’s not luck. There is a price. There are people, right now, paying the price. Some 60,000 Canadians who have died to keep this wacky old life on track. I’m gonna thank them, by appreciating what I’ve got. Just not be so glib about it all. Freedom to do what I want, everyday.
Now I’m gonna get some cool lights for my deck from the dollar store, and download the best version of Oh Holy Night, spoil my daughter and my sweetheart and remember what a goddamn privilege it is, to live this life.
Why haven't those cookies arrived yet? Damn post office. Merry Christmas Everyone.
December 2, 2001 – Richard Lett
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