Expectations of Christmas Past

I grew up in a small town on the Missouri River, as did my parents, and their parents before them. Every Christmas Eve my mom would clean the house and my dad would go out to the store for food. The house was ready, Jack and I waiting with barely containable excitement, and a spread had been laid out for the guests:  cold cuts, wonder bread, Ruffles potato chips, beer, pop, and lots of homemade sweets. The relatives would descend on our house, grandmas, aunts, uncles, cousins, sometimes from both my mom's and my dad's side of the family.

After opening presents the kids would watch television or play games and the adults would stay at the kitchen table drinking and playing poker. We would sneak back into the kitchen for cookies and to hang out if we were bored and tried to join the adult conversation. If my Uncle Ricky was winning he would lean over to me, smelling of beer with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, and he would hand me a twenty. He's still a cash kind of gifter, when he's got any cash to give.

It was a loud, raucous time and we kids ran wild. I didn't know anything else and I thought it was great!

That was my expectation of Christmas when I went out to make my own way in the world and, as Buddha said, expectations create suffering. We live in California, we have one child, our closest relative is a thousand miles away, and I am estranged from my mother. For years a melancholy would descend on me come Christmas time, but not this year.

I have been sensing a shift deep within me for some time, but it was so intangible that it was hard to know if it was real. I think (with my ever lingering self-doubt I wouldn't want to be too emphatic), but I really think I'm actually happy exactly where I am. So tomorrow the three of us will get up and unwrap gifts thoughtfully purchased based on knowing one another intimately, the dogs will tear up the boxes and shred the wrapping paper, we will eat cinnamon rolls fresh from the oven, and it will be good. I think this shift has been about appreciating what's right in front of me and letting go of expectations of Christmas past.

Wishing you all  peace and the ability to appreciate exactly what you have today. Now I'm being pulled back to the television by the soft glow of electric sex gleaming in the window.