Christmas notes

Christmas, for whatever reason, is the seat of most of my childhood trauma. I still can't sleep without my feet covered because of an animated film called "The Nutcracker Prince" in which an evil rat queen scurries under cover of darkness, creeping into beds and biting people's toes to call curses down upon their lives.

That was a fun December night in our family. The movie ended and L. and I were so terrified we ended up sleeping on the couch with my exhausted father. Over the years we built up a whole mythical persona for the evil rat queen. We could make deals with her. We could make sacrifices to appease her. But there was always her son to worry about. He was less predictable: the rat prince who, in the film, is later stabbed by the Nutcracker's rapier and drags himself through a dollhouse palace, bleeding from his side and screaming vengeance in a raspy death rattle. Yes, this was a children's movie.

The other thing I'm still working through is the whole concept of Santa Claus. I was a very superstitious child. I knew (intellectually) that certain beings and creatures didn't exist. But at my base, in all belief, I couldn't be so sure. Thus, my scrubbing through our lawn to find four leaf clovers, my obsession with mythologies, my casual gifts of food to the Elder Gods (just in case), and my inability to banish Santa Claus from Christmas traditions.

Wilson children never believed in Santa Claus. We were taught from very young that he was a consumerist pagan myth loosely based on St. Nicholas, a real man who had lived in Turkey or some other place that sounded equally made-up. I remember my mom clucking disapproval at a Santa-heavy Christmas display in a craft store. Christmas wasn't about Santa and it wasn't about presents. It was about Jesus and shepherds and virgins (whatever those were. The answer that satisfied for a couple years was "a woman who wasn't married yet." This would later become very complicated.)

But the vigorous and repeated denial of Santa Claus didn't convince me he was fiction. Instead it told me he was not only 1) real, living, and breathing but also 2) the embodiment of evil. L. and I feared him. He came into our house? Whether we wanted him there or not? Didn't he understand that this was a Christian family and we were only about saviors, wise men and hark the heralds? Santa Claus became a natural force to us, as unfathomable as a hurricane, not to be contained or controlled. A fearsome being.

The years passed. We learned how to spell. We realized "Santa" was an anagram for "Satan." That was the year we decided to turn all the heaters up to HIGH on Christmas Eve. We knew that, traditionally, Santa came through chimneys. We had no chimneys, but we weren't taking any chances.

Still, deep in my heart, I wanted Santa Claus to be real and good. I couldn't bring myself to like the obese Coca-Cola Santa who looked like a whiskey alcoholic on a bender. But I loved old folk art-style pictures portraying him as a tall, lean striding man with a long beard and reindeer-skin boots, a hunting horn at his hip: the Santa Claus based on Odin. This was a Santa Claus I could get behind.

Mostly, I don't get Santa Claus and I don't understand telling your children he is real. I have no background with this and it sounds weird and, besides, children believe things or don't believe them and there's little you can do as a parent to control that. I think I would have given up on Santa early on if I'd been told he was real. As it is, I'm still a little obsessed. The question marks around the nature of Santa (good or evil?) haunt me yet.

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I plan to get caught up on all my advent readings today and tomorrow. I've been slacking. As usual. Jesus just takes such a long time to show up, though. Have you thought about it? A really long time. It's interesting.

Still have some Christmas gifts to buy. I busted out most of my shopping yesterday and there are only a few things to make. It will happen. It will be fine. Christmas isn't until Sunday.

babies, the definitive edition

This is a post about children, but first it is a post about a book because (clearly) children and paper products are synonymous.

I am reading (or rather, read) "Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's First Year" by Anne Lamott. I feel like she's a roommate that you love and think is wonderful, but she has these tics that make you want to hit her half the time or go into your room and shut the door (all the while insisting that nothing's wrong between you, you're just really busy and you really need to get some project done and really [really] everything's ok. But [really] you just needed to scream into your pillow for a couple minutes because your roommate is driving you crazy). Anyway. This book makes me believe I can have children... not that this was every a particular concern, physically at least. I'm the oldest of 6 children all of whom more or less popped on out without any sort of angst. I have, as it were, the child-bearing hips of my clan.

What I mean is, I think I might be able to raise children (it helps that Lamott is very funny and swears a lot and admits to evil thoughts. Such things make me feel safe, in good company, not the only utterly lost and crazy person out there).

But I have complicated emotions about children. I love this one family of kids utterly, but I babysat most of them from when they were toddlers and infants. There's a connection there and they are (in my book) the raddest group of kiddos ever. Most other children I tolerate. I don't enjoy feeling forced into liking or approving of anything simply because it's young and helpless and wouldn't survive under a city bridge for a day. If I like the parents, probably I'll approve of the offspring, but I probably won't beg to hold it and play with it and take it off their hands for hours at a time. Unless I am paid. (There are some exceptions. You know who you are.)

I can already hear your judging thoughts, don't worry. I'm okay with kids, but it's like people. I don't like ALL people indiscriminately. I like individuals. Thus, I refuse to like all children. Sorry, it's not going to happen. Children can be ugly little tyrants and I'll give them some grace, but I'm not going to give them total abject worship.

This used to worry me. How can I be the oldest of several kids, raised in a community of large families, and not be a baby person? Am I some sort of sociopath who hates life (and America)? I can't guarantee that I'd like my own children, but I think there's a good chance I would.

But enough of this... before I turn everyone against me and get labeled a baby hater. Let's be clear: I will not dangle your child out of an upper window, nor will I say cruel things to your impressionable child like, "Life is short and hard and then you die." They'll figure it out soon enough. Nor will I condemn them because they can't do anything useful except look cute and make me feel (on occasion) maternal -- but let's remember, many things make me feel maternal: loggers, my brothers, "Godzilla," dead moths in the hallway, awkward girls, people who work ridiculously long hours, and the old Honda Accord no longer in my possession.

Here's a positive: despite all my indifference to children, I am a baby-whisperer. It's like how people who hate cats are always the ones to have cats come fawning all over them. So am I able to get cranky babies to fall asleep. It's like magic and I can't take any credit for it yet it has happened on multiple occasions. Just so you know.

Day 21: In which life is too short

Other possible titles for this post:

1. Why I Sometimes Dislike Elderly Women
2. Why I Sometimes Dislike Children
3. Harry Potter harrypotterharrypotter(harrypotter!!!)harrypotterharrypotter HARRY POTTER Wheeeeeeeeeeeeee

Life is too short to:

...insult people 40 years younger than you and call into question their ability to judge distances. Especially when you are wearing sunglasses and your cataract eyes are 40 years older. And also especially when the younger person you are insulting is in a car and you are on foot and your feet aren't as fast or as stable as they used to be, are they?

...stop at stops signs that do not exist although they may occur elsewhere on other streets.

...to argue with the logic of you three year old child in the middle of a movie in the middle of a movie theater in a town that you are only visiting. Life is also too short to do so during the quietest part of the entire film.

Life is not too short to:

...spend 2 and 1/2 hours of it watching the new Harry Potter movie and eating Swedish fish, even if the movie ends and the Swedish fish make you sick. And, yes, I realize the picture I have is not of the current movie. It is, in fact, of a previous movie. You are very clever to have spotted this.

Signing off.