One Christmas, my
youngest son packed his torn-down Volkswagen into our two-car garage. Its motor
took up one-fourth of one parking space, and the body took up the whole other
half of the garage. To fit everything into the limited space, he had to push it
all up against the storage boxes that lined the front wall.
As Christmas neared, I
was able to get to the Christmas tree and the Nativity set I always used but
not the boxes and boxes of decorations. I complained to both the husband and
the son, but neither had the time nor the inclination to move all that metal so
I could get to my things.
We were going to have Christmas
that year with presents around a bare tree, so two days before Christmas, I
gave up on them and went in search of more decorations. Everything was half-priced but it was also
picked over. I bought lights and odds and ends, just enough to cover the tree
and call it a go.
Nothing was going to stop
me from celebrating Christmas.
*
* *
My husband and I sat in the living room
watching the weather station. It was
going to be a very cold Christmas. He had his phone on the arm of his sofa
chair because he had made his business partner promise to call him every thirty
minutes as she drove home to North Texas.
It was Christmas Eve, and
instead of the two of us enjoying our empty nest, his thoughts were with
someone else. When I asked him to shut off his phone and talk to me, he yelled
at me, called me cruel and unfeeling, and I took it as my cue to be quiet, so I
went to bed and left him to his phone calls.
The next morning the kids
came over to open presents and he handed me a professionally wrapped
present. It was the merino shawl I wanted. I smiled and thanked him but then he said she
had helped choose it. She had wrapped it for me.
*
* *
The divorce had taken six
months and it came through on a Thursday, one week before Christmas. I hadn’t felt very holiday-ish but now it was
time to look forward and count my blessings.
I dragged out the old
Christmas tree and ALL the decorations.
My ex was very picky and always dictated how I dressed the tree, so this
was my declaration of freedom. I opened
every box, placed every sphere on the dining table, and decided every single
one was going on the tree (with the exception of anything that had belonged to
him – bad juju and all that).
Once done, I celebrated by
going outside and starting a huge, roaring fire of thanksgiving in the barbeque
grill. I celebrated with a glass of wine
and a Pop Tart and I burned a very expensive Merino shawl in offering.
Merry Christmas to me.
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