Moving On
I once bargained with co-workers and juggled vacation days to get as much time off as possible before Christmas. Even when I lived in Hawaii, I braved the 6,000 miles across four time zones to land in my hometown of White Plains, New York, in time to join in the frenetic contagious energy I loved that filled my modest working-class home weeks before the holidays.
We followed old traditions and created new ones. We baked a ton of Italian Christmas cookies to share as we traveled around the county visiting great aunts and uncles, cousins, and family friends. I helped my dad string lights and I helped my mom decorate the house. We always got a real Christmas tree. I was surprised every year by the bottles of liquor that lined the floor of my parents’ closet, lost loves of Christmases long-ago past. Even though my dad didn’t drink, the bottles kept coming, tokens of his men’s appreciation of him as a union official. We always had extra plates and extra food ready for the people who would show up uninvited yet so welcome into our home.
What I loved most about Christmastime on Archer Avenue was the food. When my Italian grandma was alive, she directed the dinner of seven fishes on Christmas Eve that included her making stuffed baccala (cod) only my dad would eat. Our Christmas seven-course dinners began at noon with antipasto and cocktails, usually Manhattans for the women and martinis for the men. No one ever got tipsy because we ate vast amounts of food that obliterated any remnants of ethanol deriving from the cocktails.
Our Christmas dinner lasted for hours. After antipasto, we had homemade chicken soup, then homemade pasta and tomato sauce, then turkey, gravy, and stuffing. The next course was an assortment of nuts and fruit and liquors I was told would help us digest better. I especially enjoyed the amaretto and anisette. The grand meal ended about 5:00 p.m. with a table crowded with baked pies, cakes, and serving plates jammed with miniature napoleons, cream puffs, eclairs, and assorted pastries from Pellegrino’s, the Italian bakery down the street.
Friends and relatives called to ask, “What course are you at?” They each had their favorites. Later that evening my father often relaxed (a rare sight) in his living room chair, listening to Christmas music by Frank, Dean, Doris, or Bing, played on the cherished stereo console. I felt secure, happy, and a part of something very special. Even though during the rest of the year there could be arguments, yelling, and discontent, the holidays were always a magical time for my family.
Christmas as I knew it ended on December 26, 1984. My father had a massive fatal heart attack at Kennedy Airport. He was 59.
For the next couple years my mother, brother, and I tried to replicate the meal. With just three of us, it wasn’t the same. I even attempted a real tree in my 750-square foot home. It towered over the sparse space, providing a gigantic toy for my cats.
I forgot how to enjoy that time of the year. After my mom died, I just gave up. The holiday season became a time to take a deep breath and pray for it to be over soon. I became the afterthought or what I called the ‘pity invitation’ when some friends discovered me entrenched in my own pity party at home alone. My brother had gotten married and had created a ‘new’ family into which I didn’t fit. My memories of the joy Christmastime once brought me got swallowed up by the grief that stuck to me like sap from a tree. No matter how much I scrubbed it still lingered.
What I didn’t realize was that trying to replicate my family traditions was impossible. Eventually, I began to see that I needed to create how I felt, not what I did. Joni Mitchell’s words from “The Circle Game” inspired me: “We can’t return, we can only look behind from where we came.”
I had been trying to replicate the actions, instead of remembering the feelings and emotions those actions evoked within me.
I missed acceptance, excitement, joy, inclusion, and love. I missed feeling important and welcome.
This year for the first time since 1990 I put up a Christmas tree. It’s nothing like my trees of the past but I like it. In fact, I like it so much I bought a second one, a five-foot skinny artificial green-and-red gaudy tree that folds into a tiny square cardboard box and lights up. A clouded lens seems to have dissolved from my vision this year.
My brother’s coming and I’m not sure how we will celebrate. But I know my mourning days are finally over. I’m moving on. ▼
Pattie Cinelli is a writer and fitness professional who loves her age. She focuses on ways to stay healthy, get fit, and get well. Please email her with questions or column suggestions at: fitmiss44@aol.com.
Photo: Morgane Le Breton on Unsplash