The Christmas Orphan
I was at a Christmas party last night and as we sat and stood around the heavily ladened festive food table, the host asked us to share Christmas stories of good cheer. He told his story and another friend told hers. He then prompted me and another guest to tell ours.
I really like my host and had started to think of a good story as soon as he had suggested a tale. But to my dismay, I could not find a Christmas story that was positive. Indeed all my stories were bitter-sweet. More bitter than sweet. I assumed I was alone in this sentiment however the guest from the Netherlands told our host that his Christmas memories was of his mother, stressed. I looked empathically in his direction. I knew his pain. I whispered about how Christmas could bring up family conflicts rather than family harmony. He nodded. Our host then realized not all Christmases were remembered as moments of celebration and changed the topic.
I want to share my Christmas stories here. As a tribute to real family Christmases that have hopes of looking like those store advertisements we see on television but in reality could be filled with conflicts and emotional challenges which come with this intense end of year season. May my Christmas cheer and tears help you as you navigate this precious season of life.
Tales of Great Gifts
My best memory of a gift was when my cousin and I were 12 years old. We both didn’t have that much money but we wanted to get each other a gift. She had lost her dad and her mother worked to make ends meet. There was the very first Strawberry Shortcake shop in Singapore. We both wanted a wallet with Strawberry Shortcake emblem and we went to the mall together by bus to get each other a present. We wanted it to be a surprise so we decided we would go off alone and were to meet again at McDonalds with the gifts for an exchange. When we returned with our gifts we didn’t have enough for a meal. So we both emptied our purses on the table and counted out what we could afford. It was one cheeseburger. The smallest serving and cheapest serving that we split. The amount of sharing was the greatest act of love, I will always remember. The real Christmas gift was not our wallets. Rather it was that moment. A Christmas memory we both shared forever.
The Christmas Build-Ups
When my father was alive we always held a Christmas party. We would spend weeks getting ready. It started with cleaning the house, then buying presents for the different family and friends who would come and each new child born to my large family. We then would wrap the presents — which was I was never really good at and I would be reprimanded for ugly christmas wrapping. We were given a small budget to buy a Christmas attire we would wear for the party and for the Christmas service. I would go with my best friends and we would look for something affordable but stunning as we wanted the guys we liked in church to notice us at the midnight mass. As you can tell what was the more important thing on our minds at service — was not God. My mother would have to prepare the Christmas menu — not so much planning as to what was served, as we had a Christmas staple menu — my mother’s famous pork marinated in chilli sauces and other spices which went well with beer and some traditional Nonya and Eurasian dishes; rather where to buy the freshest ingredients and getting the best deals for the meat.
Emotionally we would go for confessions to clean our hearts before Christmas. I would spend more time praying or attending daily masses as a way to be ready for the birth of Jesus. In the church, we would form caroling groups and we would sing for community events, some of the better choirs sang at hotels in front of an audience and we sang at one of the Christmas masses. Lots of preparations for the actual day itself. The highlight was midnight mass on Christmas Eve, we sang at the mass, dressed in our new clothes, it was special. Then immediately after the mass, we would adjourn to a house party where teenagers danced and drank and hopefully have a Christmas romance come true.
The preparations gave us the illusion that we could make this Christmas better than the last. I felt I had to find the best dress, the best present, the best table dressing and the best dish and then I would have the best Christmas. And years of celebrating helped me realize this was far from true. The Christmas let-down was yes Mary’s boy child Jesus Christ was born on Christmas day — so it was good reason to celebrate — however once we ate and drank and danced for a bit — life would simple revert back to the normal and sometimes even degenerate to a sadder state because we saw how far we were from our idealized Christmas.
The Christmas Let-Downs
After one too many drinks, my father would say something offensive and we had many Christmas run-ins. Tempers would fly and sometimes fists as well. There was one time, my father felt that a colleague had insulted him or mom with a statement he made and he told him to leave the party and the apartment. My father went so far as to go downstairs to the foot of the block (even as friends and family tried to part the two men) to escort the man out and kicked the cab he was getting in, my father hurting himself more during that act of rage than the ‘offensive friend’.
For all our confessions and professions of better Christmas-selves, I usually would hear bickering at the family events and even church gatherings. Humans would tend to include and exclude at any time of the year, Christmas was not spared. Dresses were being compared, parents were controlling us teens and teens would lie to their parents to attend dance parties instead of church events. My hardest Christmas was the one when I knew something was not right in my then romantic relationship and we broke up soon after, just a day or two shy of the new year.
I see that happen alot in business and romantic relationships, something about a new year with an old washed out flame, makes everyone more reflective and decisive. What was usually ‘ok’ felt no longer good enough and just like we would clean our physical garages and cupboards during Christmas and remove the clothes that no longer fit us physically and emotionally, we let go of relationships which do not work too. We want a new year with the hopes of better. Very cleansing psychologically and also rather painful. If we were caught off guard, it could be a shock to the system to start the new year alone rather than with that special someone by your side. I have had that happen.
The Christmas Goodbyes and The New Year Hellos
My Christmases as you can see are rather bitter sweet. Sweet in that Christmas is still my favorite time of the year. I love the carols, the special traditional dishes — sugee cake, devils curry; the gift giving and receiving, the decorations and Christmas stories, the stockings hung up in a tropical city as if Santa would come down the Housing Board Estate rubbish chute simply because we had fake store made snow on a fake Christmas tree. There are lights on the major shopping street and we write Christmas cards and greetings. Reconnecting with lost friends and family members from all around the world through snail mail was really touching and we would display Christmas cards around the home like trophies of relationships that lasted the test of time.
Bitter, in that there are memories so closely associated with Christmas in the last few years that make it hard for me to hear Silent Night one of my mother’s favorite carols without shedding a tear. On Dec 23 many years ago, I saw my father breathe his last breathe after a 9 month battle with Stage 4 cancer, on Jan 25th just two years ago, I saw my mother in pain as she passed after weeks of being ill and in pain — all during Christmas. As of two years ago my brother who took over the Christmas party tradition my dad held — paused his parties for my mother’s well being. We became quiet at Christmas. We attended other people’s celebrations, we stopped being the host family. This year I assumed we would have re-started — the pain of mom’s passing less intense and left less of a void at the Christmas dinner table. However we lost our dear family friend, my brother’s best friend from high school and godfather to my youngest niece the last week of November, this year. There is little reason to celebrate and too much emptiness at the Christmas dinner table. There are two non-replaceable seats where family used to be.
Every year my brother’s best friends and their families together with my mom and I — had been the main family unit for any Christmas celebrations. Through those years, I was the collector of Christmas orphans. These usually were the international friends who lived in Singapore who that year didn’t fly home or the Singaporean friends who were not Christians and didn’t have a big Christmas party to attend. One year an entire French speaking family who landed in Singapore to visit their son and brother who was a friend of mine, was invited on Christmas morning itself to come to my brother’s place for food simply because I didn’t want them to wander the streets of Singapore on Christmas day with no home to celebrate in. Thankfully a few friends of mine spoke enough French for the family to enjoy themselves and the food spoke to their tummies as did the festive decorations to their Christmas heart. We would be the heart of Christmas for someone else.
This is the second year, I am the Christmas orphan. Last year I could not even bring myself to plan anything as all I could think of reminded me of mom. Ever since dad passed, I self appointed myself as mother’s keeper on Christmas eve and New Year’s eve. And now I had no where to be and no Christmas duties to fulfill. I could not even decide which Christmas mass at which church to attend, as I usually went to those with either my brother’s family or mom. So last year I ate a family meal with my brother’s family and flew away to Tokyo to simply sit with a dear friend whom I knew would be a companion in my grief and would be able to hold the space for my silence and also we could have some fun company. Thank you T you really saved me. We ended by doing things to distract me from my first Christmas without my family. Single, not partnered, not yet a mother, usually happy enough but at Christmas the void of what I know to be a busy celebration with family and friends — was suddenly very very quiet. I chose it to be that way. However death sting didn’t stop there. My uncle (my mother’s brother) passed on 26th December last year — I was in Tokyo when I heard the news.
This year I am facing my ghosts of Christmas past because I want to make my own Christmas traditions. I want to reclaim Christmas for the adopted child I hope to have by 2018. I want to reclaim Christmas Spirit for the little girl in me who loves Christmas. However last night when asked to describe a joyful Christmas memory I was put on the spot. I had lost them from all the bitter. I could not find the sweet.
Christmas is a special time of the year. I still buy presents for friends and mostly for their children. Even if it is only for a few days or weeks and even if the Christmas spirit doesn’t last, it is precisely because of those Christmas memories that make me miss family and friends all the more. It makes me value the times we do have and it makes me extra vigilant about keeping Christmas traditions and memories alive. I remember my mother’s love as she slaved over the Christmas meal — her gift to the family that came. I remember the jokes Dennis my brother’s best friend would make each year and how I would laugh despite myself. I miss his energy now as I write this.
I remember the yearly Christmas kisses and hugs that were only reserved for that one day a year given by my father and mother — because we were not a “huggy” family. I make attempts to meet friends whom I barely see because that’s the time of year you make those attempts. Even if we are full of celebrations and meetings and getting stressed, fat or sick from too much eating and drinking — it is simply necessary. It reminds me to appreciate a year gone by and a year to come. To thank God for the gifts of people. Not simply things. To call me to be a better Christian by simply being a better aunt and friend to someone.
I am a Christmas orphan this year.
No where to go and no one to be with.
I choose to write about it as struggle to be real and connect with you my reader-friend.
I choose to write about it as a gratitude that I am invited to homes of friends and family with parties and celebrations. I treasure each as an act of kindness to someone without a Christmas home. I have not always been able to say yes to such invites because I am still sad and healing inside. Yet they persist and I am so glad they do.
I choose to write about it — that we should not give up on Christmas. Even if it can get bitter rather than sweet. The Christmas of the grownup is different. It takes courage to see hope in a world full of change and challenge. Celebrating Christmas well needs emotional and spiritual courage. When we are able to see life as the gift. Christmas as the reason to celebrate that gift (embodied in baby Jesus) and New Year as the hope of things to come — and a chance to be the better people we all know we can be.
This year, look for the Christmas orphans among you. Be the home for them, if you can. Simply being the Christmas present and presence you can be. And if you choose to be a Christmas orphan like me. Remember you are never really alone. Christmas is not an action it is a state of mind and heart. You are the Christmas you carry in your heart.
Much love my human family — this Christmas 2017.
