When I was very young, there were six of us. My family lived in a small one bedroom apartment in a semi-pleasant suburban neighborhood somewhere Southeast of Los Angeles. My parents were in their early twenties raising four children and working odd, long hours. I remember my dad used to be an ambulance driver at one point and my mother worked the graveyard shift at a Coca-Cola warehouse in Downey counting bottles as they were loaded onto trucks. They were fucking struggling. And young. And considering I blow 50% off my paycheck on grub and alcohol at 26, I think putting food on a kid’s plate at 23 is a big fucking deal.
I hated Christmas growing up. Not just because I was incapable of being grateful for the gifts I had received, but it just all didn’t do it for me…(We didn’t have a chimney, so Santa came in through our window?, Santa never paid any attention to my list, we had to be at grandma’s house all damn day).
Then, age knocked sense into me and the ignorance of my youth has been replaced with a general sense of disillusionment. Now, I have come to hate the holidays for how inundated we are with all these fucking petty things and how it highlights how we our identities are so tied up with commodities. BUT what doesn’t, you know? Anyway, this year, I thought about something that probably would have never been clear to me had it not been for Christmas:
I remember my dad telling me that one year for Christmas, my parents were so broke and we (my siblings and I) kept asking him to buy us a tree. I remember visiting lots throughout the years, doing the same old ritual where you run around and choose the tallest, greenest fucking tree in the lot and then you argue with your siblings over why your choice is clearly the best. I remember being more aware of how close Christmas was the more and more I saw trees strapped to the roofs of the cars cruising down our neighborhood. To a child, it’s magical and it’s all just happening. But, now, in adult(ish)hood, I can see how pressing and pending the date would seem. Parents have to be the illusion-keepers. They have to render the veil of enchantment and hold it tightly. It is a huge weight.
Anyway, I remember my dad telling me that one year, they were so broke and he was so intent on giving us our Christmas that he got crafty. He saw a tree that some lot had just thrown out (because maybe it was too damaged or something), but he took it from the trash and he cut the bottom. Then he told us that he got us a brand new mini-Christmas tree. And I’m pretty positive (knowing us) that we maybe complained about the height or something. But ultimately, we were none the wiser.
Young parents do not have it easy, but greatness and goodness and love has nothing to with the size of your wallet. Fucking kudos to all the people out there who work really fucking hard to take care of your own. I’m probably not exactly who/what my dad wanted me to become and I know it’s not enough to realize how great some people really are, but given the way things are in the world right now and the fast approach of my least favorite time of the year, I’m putting things in perspective: hard times make great men greater, not smaller. Adversity does not equal defeat.
