Christmases Past

The tug of war began at Thanksgiving.  We sat  at the table with golden juicy turkey freshly cut on good white china, golden wheat pattern, fine silver.  Mom had purchased the massive ornate dining room table, eight chairs, china cabinet, and buffet from Main Auction House a few years earlier,  fresh gold brocade recovering the seats of the chairs to suit her taste.  The beige table cloth had masses of fruits in burgundy, gold and brown.

 I began the usual Thanksgiving discussion, "It is so nice to have the family together.  Wouldn't it be nice to have a Christmas at home this year?"

Quiet.  Not a good start.  Oma interjects, "The chestnuts are a little dry.  I think they had a bad year."

Tyll stuffs his mouth with good food and waits for the right moment to speak.
Mom begins with, "It is important we go on vacation.  I need the rest.  I always plan a trip to Florida so we can enjoy the warm weather and the sun during the cold and winter here.  We are still together, you, Tyll and I."

"But I want to have a REAL Christmas, at home with family and friends, like other families."

 Mom stated loudly, "But we DO celebrate Christmas like other families, just on a different day.   The exact DAY we celebrate Christmas is not that important anyway?"

We talk about the fact that in Germany Christmas is celebrated Christmas Eve, but in America it is celebrated December 25, or the next day.  

Tyll adds,  "We all enjoy swimming, being in the sun, and Mom and I really love fishing. You will enjoy being there once you get there."

"But we ALWAYS go to Florida for Christmas.  Can't we just this once, stay home for the holidays?  I love winter, the snow and the holidays.  It's not the same being around the ocean, the beach and palm trees during the Christmas season."

"I already made the reservations.  We are leaving right after my last ballet class. You will miss a day or two of school, but we have more vacation that way, and I want to make the vacation worthwhile.  I know you don't do that much school work those last days before vacation."

Tyll smiled to hear the news.  He was thrilled to miss any school, but I hated the thought of even leaving school an hour early.  An English discussion or a class in math was so interesting to me, I would rather be there than on vacation.  I was not happy.  This was my family but they did not understand me.

From when I was about 6 years old, until I was about 17 and had graduated from high School, we always went to Florida over the Christmas holidays.  I do not recall a Christmas spent at home, even though we celebrated Christmases in the first two weeks of December at home, and then celebrated a smaller one in Florida on Christmas day.

And why did I grasp onto the need to have a holiday in such a traditional way?  Certainly Jesus was born in a land of sand and palms.  It has been questioned that the date of Christmas, December 25, is not the time of the birth of lambs( which is traditionally the springtime), so that the date of the birth of Jesus might have been that time.  Yet we persist in the belief that we must celebrate on a certain day, want to have snow, and feel at odds when it is not just "so".

I wonder if I had been able to peer deep into my Mother's eyes, I could have understood why the Thanksgiving feast, and Christmas were so different in our house.  At Thanksgiving, a tradition we began in America, the family came together and celebrated being thankful.  We truly enjoyed that time with each other.
 As the season of Christmas neared, Mother changed, and she needed to leave the house.  She could not stick around.  She had to take us along, but she had to move.  I think now it was because she so intensely felt the loss of my Father, who had celebrated some Christmases with her, and that  brought so much pain into her heart, she insisted on a different surrounding.  When she went fishing, she made Tyll happy, and she could forget about the holidays.  When she sat on the beach and went swimming, she was free of the memories of the past happy family times we all cherish.  It was a way to fight the imprint of the love of her life, and bring happiness to my brother and me.  I just wonder if she was conscious of what she was doing, and if she could have told me, if I could have let it be.  Would I have understood?  I was just a child, and I hated moving around each Christmas.
 Once married, only a few times did Jim and I take the children away for the holidays, and that was to visit my Mother in Florida.  She still lived in Florida for the winter and even though we invited her to celebrated Christmas with us, she did not come "Home" for the holidays.  It was a habit she continued throughout her life.
 I never asked her if it helped her survive the holidays. It is only now, while writing this blog, that I can ask those questions that will never be answered.  I can just wonder and think about the reason why we traveled to Florida all those Christmases Past.