Wednesday, December 27, 2006

BREAK

Christmas has a way of revealing all the disturbing realities of my extended family. I left my grandma's house christmas eve with a messy combination of guilt, fear, disgust and helplessness. I decided on the way home that I don't want to be a part of the anti-christmas any longer.

Not that I am a religious person. I am not. The holidays were always a time for family, for celebration of being a family. We would drive through the snow in our old 48 chevy to find the best charlie brown tree in the forest. My dad would wrestle the tree into the greenhouse and attempt to fit it into the stand. The snow would fall continuously as we lit the tree and filled the house with the best smell on earth: grand fir (well, this is a bit of an exaggeration, as we usually had a sad pine tree. I always felt compelled to protect the feelings of the tree that I was sure no one wanted). After the tree was lit and decorated, we would build bob sled runs in our front yard between the "big hill" and the driveway. Straw bales would be lined up in front of our potential targets: giant pine trees.

We would sled and crash and run back up the hill as long as we could before we were frozen to our gloves, and couldn't feel our feet. That's when we would go inside and drink hot cocoa in front of the fire before running back out with wet snow clothes to do it all again. I WILL be a professional sledder some day.

But it doesn't snow anymore. And our extended family has gone crazy. We all now refer to relatives as "your aunt ______" or "your cousin ______".

So, this year I look forward to finding snow and silly christmas trees and spending time with the few family members I'm still close to: my mom, dad, sister, nephew, and my aunt and uncle in Utah.

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