Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone!

I’m spending the holidays with Finbar and his family in the City of Light. I actually drove up on the 22nd through a disgusting ice and snow storm that dragged the 3 ½ hour drive out to nearly 7 hours. I would have waited another day, but Finbar had planned an anniversary surprise for the 23rd and 24th and I certainly didn’t want to mess that up. He took me up to Niagara Falls where we stayed in a hotel with a view of the falls and an in-suite Jacuzzi. There was Scharffen-Berger chocolate and champagne, gambling at the new casino, and a pumpkin crème brulee to cap the evening. Then we got up early on the 24th so that we could soak in the Jacuzzi all morning while listening to the NPR Christmas Eve broadcast. I love David Sedaris. And after all that, I felt happy and relaxed for the first time in weeks. This is why I love Finbar. He may not be big on romance, but he takes care of me when I need it.

We drove back to the City of Light just in time to miss a snow storm. Everyone was already there except Elijah, and the house was full of good smells. Finbar and I went to Mass with his parents, which turned out to be a profoundly disappointing experience for me. I grew up in a very religious home—my parents are born again Christian. The current status of my own faith is somewhat in crisis, which is fodder for another philosophical meandering post on another day. Nonetheless, I always look forward to Christmas services. It’s so full of hope and happiness, much more so than the Easter services (which is kind of strange, when you think about the basis of Christianity). People are in a good mood. The words of Luke, telling the story of the Nativity are so beautiful: “Fear not, for behold! I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be unto all people.” (Of course, in my mind, I always hear the voice of Linus reciting them, but that detracts nothing from the poignancy of the moment, as I find that part of A Charlie Brown Christmas to be so moving it makes me cry.) And I LOVE Christmas music. Not cheesy crap like “Rockin Around the Christmas Tree”, but glorious, joyous carols like “Joy to the World” and melancholy, stirring carols like “O Little Town of Bethlehem”.

Christmas Eve Mass at St. Conspicuous Consumption Church of the Holy Designer Sweaters (coincidentally enough, the largest RCC in The City of Light) was none of these things. There were no Christmas carols. None. Zero, Zilch, Nada, Keine. I couldn’t believe it. How, in the name of all that is good, can you have Christmas Eve Mass without the carols?? The church was full of obnoxious children and their pissed-off parents, who were only in church to fulfill their obligation as Catholics or something. I’ve never seen a crankier congregation. The priest did not read any of the Christmas story from either of the Gospels or even really talk about it. Instead, he asked the precious little children what they thought they were going to get for Christmas—and the little angels shouted out (I only wish I were making this up) things like “A laptop!”, “A cellphone with text message capabilities!”, “A Playstation 2!”. Who gives their young children gifts like this for Christmas?

Back at the ranch that night, we ate and drank like fools. It was a little strange, since Finbar’s dad couldn’t drink and Sam (who never drinks) drank like champagne was going out of style. There was a fire crackling merrily away in the fireplace and the snow was coming down in think sheets of white. We bickered over the choice of music (if you can call Mariah Carey vs. Harry Connick, Jr. a choice), opened Christmas crackers, and exchanged our little gifts. Every year, Finbar’s mom buys us all a toy, usually the same toy for each of us, as a little gift. This year, it was wands from “Alivan’s Fine Wandmakers”. Each of the wands had been chosen to match our personalities. Mine is made of yew, which is associated with both death and rebirth and carried the warning “The user of this wand must be extremely careful of it’s innate destructive workings”. Finbar’s mom was thrilled with her Gryffindor scarf (I finally finished it the day before I left for The City of Light and it will be a very long time before I knit another. I am so sick of scarlet and gold yarn!) and we all spent a long time pointing our wands and pretending to hex each other (did I mention that we were several bottles into the champagne by then?).

The next morning, we all struggled out of bed after Finbar’s parents turned on the Mariah Carey Christmas Crap, I mean “song”, and pounded on our doors. At least no bagpipes were involved. We ate breakfast and opened gifts together. Now, here we come to the part where I was a Very Evil Katze. A little background:

Finbar is the oldest of three. Sam is the youngest. In between Finbar and Sam—who are intelligent, motivated, and funny—comes Billy—who is the biggest sack of crap masquerading as a human being that I have ever met. He’s a compulsive liar, he steals, he’s lazy, he’s rude, and he’s personally repulsive. But his parents see none of this. No, I don’t understand it, but there you have it. Now, I love the rest of Finbar’s family as though they were my own, which for all intents and purposes, they are. So to keep the peace, I’ve never excluded Billy from my gift giving before. It’s the only obligation gift I give, and I look at it not as a gift for Billy, but as a gift to Finbar’s parents. At first, they were even real gifts. But year after year went by where Billy not only didn’t get me even a token gift in return, but couldn’t even say thank you. How hard is it to just say thanks? I don’t actually care about not getting a gift from him, but I do care that he never even says thank you.

So I eventually drifted to the Dark Side, taking Finbar with me. When shopping for Billy, the object of the game is to spend the least amount of money while purchasing the gift that Billy will hate the most, but that still looks like you tried to pick out a special gift for him. One year, I bought it at the Dollar Store. Another year, I regifted a free book. This year, I finally reached such a point of revulsion for Billy that I couldn’t even be bothered to buy a joke gift for him. As I’ve told most of you before, I don’t do obligation gifts as a general rule. I give gifts because I enjoy it, because I want to show people how much they mean to me, because I’m thankful for the richness of the friendships we share. Not because I “have to”. Anyway, I jokingly told Julio that I was even going to buy a gift for Elijah, just to make it as pointed as possible that I was not getting Billy a gift. But this is a violation of my gift giving policy, so I decided not to do it.

However, I found out once I got to The City of Light that Elijah had gotten gifts for me. Normally, I wouldn’t rush out and get a gift for someone just for that reason, but this is the first real Christmas he’d had since he was a small child (family issues that aren’t my business to divulge, even under pseudonym). I didn’t want to be the cause of any blight on his day, so I bought him a small gift as a gesture. Which did not escape Billy’s notice—he cried to momma later about how we (Finbar and I) didn’t get him anything. The punch line of this story is that for the very first time in the eight Christmases I’ve spent with his family, Billy got all of us a gift.

The rest of the day was a blur of food and drink. We watched Scrooged, as tradition demands, which always spawns a lot of impressions of the Ghost of Christmas Present, and drank a very excellent bottle of South African cabernet (Kanonkop, 1998, if anyone’s interested).

And that was Christmas. I hope you were all as lucky as I to spend the holiday with loved ones, basking in the reflected glow of joy.