Liz Furl | On 10, Dec 2014
Until the age of 23, I spent every Christmas with my mother in my childhood home. I would drive seven hours from upstate New York to New Hampshire, share a wall with my mother (which was, at the very least, interesting when either of us had a boyfriend over), and open presents on Christmas morning in my pajamas on the floor in front of our tree.
It was the tradition I had known since childhood, the only way I ever saw Christmas apart from jaunts to two long-term boyfriend’s families. Those brief encounters perplexed me, and it never quite felt like Christmas – where was my mother in her bathrobe, hair mussed, sipping coffee, never wanting to open her presents first? Why were people folding wrapping paper to save for later, but throwing away perfectly good bows? And why did no one read their cards aloud before diving into the presents? I was always grateful to return to my own family of two; even if a boyfriend sometimes tagged along, I always knew that Christmas traditions would be upheld no matter what, a comforting fact to, first an undergrad, then a recent graduate whose life was constantly in flux.
Then 23 hit, and I couldn’t come home. I was flat broke, and had broken up with my long-term, live-in boyfriend a few months earlier, and so had no one to help me finance the trip. That Christmas was fairly awful, to say the least – motherly guilt + holiday loneliness equaled a sleepover at a former fling’s house, followed by seeing my ex to exchange gifts. Not a tradition that bears repeating.
The year after, however, I was engaged and happily living with my fiancé, excited to decorate, cook, and celebrate together in whatever way we decided was best.
At first, combining our steadfast traditions seemed daunting, to say the least. I wanted to start putting up decorations right after Halloween, whereas he wanted to wait until sometime in December. I preferred Mariah Carey’s Merry Christmas while he liked melancholy covers by the Pogues and Bob Dylan. I wanted to bring out all my family’s heirlooms while he preferred starting fresh with modern things.Those, however, are details that are easily solved. Veteran’s Day weekend proved to be the perfect compromise when it came to the decorating timeline, Mariah was added to his tried and true Christmas playlist, and it turns out that brand new oversized silver balls go quite well with my grandmother’s knitted snowman.
It was Christmas itself that was a problem.
That year, I had just started a job that didn’t shut down for weekends or holidays. We were open 365 days a year, and, as a new employee with no children, I felt obligated to sign up for working Christmas Day. Even though the shift ran only from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., it wrecked my entire idea of what Christmas was supposed to be: waking up when it felt right, making coffee, leisurely reading cards and opening presents, ending with a decadent breakfast. That tradition was dashed to hell right from the get-go.
Instead, we threw out all our preconceived notions of what Christmas was supposed to be, and started fresh. If I had to work Christmas Day, then we had to go with the flow. So, on Christmas Eve night, we stocked up on firewood, loaded up the fireplace, and set it aflame. We opened a bottle of Malbec, cooked a beautiful meal together, and ate on the couch in front of the fire while watching It’s A Wonderful Life, a movie that I had never seen. Afterward, we opened presents while growing lazy from the wine, and I fell asleep on the couch, listening to my fiancé read from the vintage book I had bought him that year.
When morning came, I left for work like it was any other day, but I didn’t feel I had missed out on anything, even as the Facebook posts and Instagram pictures came rolling in. And the next year, when, once again, I worked Christmas Day, we simply repeated the ritual, and it felt just as beautiful as it had the year before.
This is my first Christmas that I won’t be working since we’ve been together, but I expect that we’ll continue on with our Christmas Eve celebration. It wasn’t what either of us grew up with, but it’s what we made together, what we made our own.
Eventually there will come a time when going home for Christmas is just not possible, whether traveling is too expensive, or you have a family of your own to tend to. And, in spite of the initial disappointment, it’s an opportunity to honor the old, begin something new, and, most important of all, make that day all your own.
(Feature Photo via We Heart It)