Six years ago, my mother
committed suicide six days before Christmas. Needless to say, the holidays
weren’t exactly jolly.
In my world, Jesus’ birth never
brought anything but broken promises, lumpy gravy, dead pigs, and reindeer sweaters.
Adding funerals to the list didn’t make it any better.
As an anti-commercialist
vegetarian, the month of misery usually serves to strengthen my position.
December forever reminds me of dead family members, despair, and
disillusionment. I know I’m not alone. Thousands of people fear the most
stressful time of year. At every corner you turn, America’s multi-billion
dollar advertising industry gladly reminds you of your inadequacy, lack of
money, family, friends, or love of meat. This time of year, there’s no room for
you inside society’s norms of normalcy. Here’s the season for depression, heart
attacks, suicide, and sorrow.
As a child, I remember
crying desperately outside my mother’s door for hours, hoping she’d come out to
share the Christmas meal with grandma and me. Sometimes she emerged from her
dark cave right before my dad rang the doorbell. Then she rushed back into her
abode of misery. Cursing me for letting the devil in. Other times she stayed in
her room until we went home. I left my neatly decorated and carefully selected
gifts outside her door along with my tears for years.
Until I realized, I make myself
wallow in misery. I don’t have to keep telling myself the same cruel Christmas
carol every year. I hold the power to change. The past remains the past, but
the future’s all mine. This year, I start making new traditions. I’ll immerse
myself in yoga and meditation instead of Macy’s madness. I’ll design cards with
personalized poems for my friends. My marinated Tofurky will make meat lovers
reconsider their dead birds. I’ll even light a candle for my mother, and pray I
can forgive her after six sorrowful years. This year, I reclaim Christmas. Meditation,
creation, forgiveness, and flow. Now if that’s not a proper way to celebrate
Christ, I don’t know what is.
