Being Visited By The Ghost of Xmas Past

“Humbug!” I said. I’d never really believed in this “celebrating Christmas” thing. For starters, I’m an atheist – Jesus (and his birth) have no place whatsoever in my life. Besides, it’s always bothered me to no end this “be good to thy neighbor” vibe in the air. Such hypocrisy. No one seems to remember this in the other 11 months. Thus, I refuse to act like I care all of a sudden. So no, I shall not allow my employees to take the 24th off, nor shall I give them any kind of Christmas bonus. They get their wages, I have no other obligations towards them. So when my nephew knocked on my door shouting “Merry Christmas, aunt RML!”, that’s what I replied. Humbug.

I jest, of course, I love Christmas! Great food, lots of presents, my family and general merriment, what’s not to like?! But even though I’m actually very fond of Christmas, and do not go around humbuging, I couldn’t help being visited by Christmas Past.

My parents and I would always spend the holidays with my dad’s family in the capital (Rio de Janeiro); our family had this small silver tree, which I used to find very non-Christmas-y. (I still do, actually. Good thing they got rid of it.) But it didn’t really matter, because EVERYTHING else was VERY Christmas-y in the house! Everywhere you looked, there would be red and white flowers, and golden and green decorations; small Santas and snowmen, and reindeers and gingerbread men and candy canes. Even the napkins and glasses we used were Christmas-themed! Under the tree, piles and piles of beautifully gift-wrapped presents! And 80% of all those presents were for me: the only daughter, granddaughter, niece and godchild. And the youngest of both families. It was Heaven.

And The Food. The food we ONLY eat at Christmas. I mean, of course one can buy turkey any time of the year. But for some reason, people simply don’t do it, I don’t know why! There’s a certain “turkey is only for Christmas” mentality here in Brazil... So this is one of the things I look forward to the most: eating turkey.

I’d get all my presents around midnight, and I knew whom all of them were from. “From Grandma”, “From Mom and Dad”, “from Aunt L.”, etc. But every Christmas morning, I’d find “my special present” under the tree - the present from Santa, the one I’d “earned” for being a good girl. It was under the now empty tree, lonely, waiting for me, and it’d always be the toy I wanted the most.

So this has always been Christmas for me. A huge tree, presents all around, great food, my grandma’s place.

Nevertheless…

Worst Christmas Memory: 2005. I’d planned on visiting my family, and spending the holidays with them. I was looking forward to it, since they’d moved to another state – but I couldn’t buy the ticket in time. And I was having fight after fight with my then boyfriend. Hence, I ended up staying in the bedroom I rented at a boardinghouse, eating chocolate ice-cream and watching the new DVD I’d bought, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, the one with Johnny Depp. The very epitome of depressing, I’ll tell you that.

Best Christmas Memory: if I recall correctly, it was 98. Me and my parents decided to stay home for Christmas, for a change, and not go to my grandma’s. Me and my mom picked out a huge tree and lots of beautiful decoration. She was also a great cook, so the great food was a no-brainer. I thought I knew everything they’d bought for me, since they’d ASKED me what I wanted, but I was wrong: they got me my very first karate kimono. I’d spent the entire year asking them to enroll me at karate classes, and they’d said they’d think about it. I wasn’t at all sure whether they’d let me – but there it was. The kimono, the consent and a huge smile on their faces.