But Andrew and Nathan went to church, and since I don't have a million dollars and didn't feel in the mood to go and be judged by what I'm wearing at the church the boys are in love with, I opted out. I stuffed my face, as I often do during the holidays. Scratch that, that was a lie, I always stuff my face lately. I digress. I stuffed my face, flipped on my mellow Pandora playlist, and then decided that I'd just say screw it and open the second present too so I could expand my DSi game library. When I finished pulling off the wrapping paper there was a cardboard box with my mom's name addressed, from Best Buy. Score one. But when I opened the box inside there was a cigar box that she had glued these little rhinestones on, and inside that box were four of our Christmas ornaments and a little sand dollar that still had sand in it. So begun the crying.
Christmas is always so hard for me for so many reasons. Those ornaments stayed with us through every single marriage she had. If one thing was constant in my life, it was that damn Christmas box and all of it's glory. We even had this candle made of red wax in the moniker of a family caroling. It had this smell that just filled that entire box, and so every year when we would drag it out and put the ornaments up Christmas had a very distinct smell. Just like mentholatum reminds me of the love my mom always gave when I was sick. I still have the same jar from 1989, covered in remnants of glitter and a thousand moves. You can barely read the label anymore, but even now, after travelling through what feels like a hundred different homes, being sent away from my mom on a train, and then flying back into her arms-the first thing I reach for when I have a stuffy nose is that more than 20 year old jar of mentholatum. Yes, I know there are new ones out there. But they don't have metal caps like this one. They aren't the one my mommy used to work that cold out of my chest. They weren't held by her hands when she loved me.
This Christmas box though, it was a big deal for her and I. Like a secret we could never share, every year we would open this box and stick our heads in and just breathe in Christmas. Until about year 2 or 3 of the Reign of Robert. He decided that Christmas wasn't about presents, so we weren't going to give them anymore. That trees, decorations, anything deemed "Christmasy" other than the Bible and whatever else he chose, were no longer allowed. We didn't celebrate Christmas from that point on. I think I was 9, maybe 10 when he decided to do that. So no more ornaments, no more Christmas box. Just them going shopping every Black Friday to buy gifts to send to his son, because he lived with his mom in Arizona and was therefore exempt from the Christmas ban. The only time we would get to do anything semi-Christmas-y was at my Grandma's house, but even then he would go through my gifts and decide what I could keep.
My mom tried to put up a fight for a minute, but then let it go. You would too if your husband/the man you were going to marry had no qualms about strangling you or forcing you to do things like abandon your child.
The next time we had a Christmas again was after she left Robert, but even then she didn't want me to live with her. Our first real-wake-up-in-the-same-house-and-everything Christmas wasn't until I was 17, after I moved down with her and Frank for Christmas. He hated when we would talk about anything in the past. Anything he wasn't a part of. He was so jealous of all of her that I had that he had missed during the time between when he knew her in the military, to when they got back together. So we couldn't really enjoy the box again. I was shocked it even survived the war, but it had. The candle had melted, but she had been wise enough to put it in a plastic back so we could at least sniff that ball of wax each year. Which is so silly, I know. But geeze if it doesn't make me want to cry.
The following year I was dating Jason and Frank had decided he didn't want to put up all of those ugly old ornaments anyway. As Jason knew my heart, and knew what it would mean to me, he bought a tree and we put all of my memory ornaments on it at his house. I was so hurt over such a silly thing. Christmas ornaments.
So Christmas is the crying season. The time when I usually just feel really crappy and miss my mom the most. And she had to go and take the time to glue little rhinestones on a stupid cigar box and send me pieces of our secret.
Which just makes me cry because she's so little in her heart. She's just someone else's little girl crying because they didn't send her pieces of their private secrets, because they didn't have any. She doesn't know what to do because it was never done to her. I know she loves me, I do. If she had just been worse at it when I was very little I wouldn't even know the difference. So in the end, I am thankful that she taught me to love. I just miss that mommy so very much.
I called her and asked her if she would come visit me this year for more than a weekend, because she spends Christmas in Florida with Kenny for a month now. Expecting a fight, or worse, I called Julia and my mother-in-law asking for advice. They both asked me if it was worth it to me to have hurt feelings if she said no. Things have been good with us for a while, and I didn't want to ruin it. I have this knack for just telling her how much she's hurt me over the years every single time things start to be good between us. I just can't seem to let go of it, and she just can't seem to experience it right along with me, so I always end up trying to rub her nose in it like a dog that pooped in the living room. But I was feeling especially bold that day and called anyway.
She asked me what month works for me.
So when I say I know that she loves me, I know that she does without a shadow of a doubt. I just keep crossing my fingers that somehow we'll find a way to meet in the middle and not live thousands of miles away from each other sometime in the future. So we can bake together, and play together, and slam doors in each others faces, but then still be close enough to make up. I just miss her. I miss her the most at Christmas. So I cry.
And that's about it.
