It’s Christmas time.
Christmas is an ambiguous holiday for me to say the least. I’ve never been the kind of person who truly appreciates the holiday season. Instead I feel more like I’m obligated to celebrate the season when damn Toys For Tots comes by my cubicle and I take a five proud out of my wallet and hand it to The Man, tossing it in translucent pressure-bag full of ones and fives all plucked from the coffers of other guilty office members; reminded at the last minute that there are indeed people less fortunate than them. That to some, there isn’t such a thing as poverty in a exaggerated sense. Even with this reminder it is only under the watchful eye of the fellow employee who drew the short straw or has that greatest of all diseases, genuine kindness, that one must truly make a donation.
Admittedly as the five drops into a sack proudly bearing my company’s logo on it I look at it with some measure of joy. After all I am helping some less fortunate Child. And I don’t think about the fact that my lunch costs more than what I’ve given after all it’s my money I get to do with it and what I want Try to take it from me I dare you. It’s mine. But the Joy isn’t exactly earned, it’s more obligated. You see I will only—did give to an unfortunate child because I’ve been told to give to an unfortunate child. It wouldn’t have happened to me on my own on my own I would’ve taken the money and spent it probably on one of my friends part of the Christmas gift spending too much like I always do but they don’t really need whenever I’m giving them. The child who gets five dollars may really need the toy he or she gets. But I don’t care about that kid, I care than my friend knows that I can care and give them what they in their heart the opinion of our friendship think that they deserve. I want recognition. And some impoverished little kid isn’t going to give that to me.
I am sick.
I go on to my mother’s to decorate her Christmas tree. She offers to buy me dinner from a restaurant. I don’t want dinner. But I know if I tell her I’m not hungry that she’ll be offended she’ll think I’d don’t want to waste her money. Completely absurd logic on her part. So I ask for something I think will be small: a fajita quesadilla which turns out to be the largest fucking thing on the menu. I see it added table with three others dining on the oversized faux-Mexican dinner, stuffing myself with more food than I want, embarrassed by my own gluttony. Waiting for it to end . Then after the meal, the true reason that we all gather together this December evening, It’s time to trim the tree. No garland this year it’s Too Small And there’s Not Enough Strength in this tree. Not enough room for the buckets and storage boxes full of ornaments, the ornaments of the ad-hoc family member thrown into the fray, the ever-present danger of a senile canine Desperate for one of those sugar coated apples. It takes two hours. Memories of my childhood in the ones I made the ones bought for me the ones not mine that I covet all meticulously plotted on to a tree that can barely hold up the weight. It reminds me of mortality; the blinking lights \seem to twinkle through time around to every Christmas I have seen I will see at once my mother aging before me, she didn’t turn out so bad. How will she die? When will I? Five bucks doesn’t matter.
Old dog, too old to care, demands a scratch. I oblige him, staring at a well decorated tree. What have I got 70 more? Stay calm. Stay calm.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, December 12th, 2006 at 11:55 pm and is filed under Personal, Creative Writing.
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