Happy Anniversary, Jenn and Mark!
6:25 p.m.
I remember that my girlfriends down the street celebrated Christmas every year, dressing freshly-cut trees with glistening and glittering decorations, festooned with lights and imitation snow, icicles and ribbons of silver tinsel. I remember the gifts heaped high under them, and I remember being shown the amassed loot after the shiny wrappings had been removed. One friend celebrated Christmas on December 25, her family being Austrian. The other, Macedonian, waited until January 6 to open her presents. But of Christmas itself I knew nothing.
My mother would take us kids downtown to see the office buildings done up with their decorations. I remember being enchanted by them. The Hospital for Sick Children always had a display of Santa and his reindeer on its lawn, and a loudspeaker somewhere broadcast the strains of The First Noel over the snowy streets, prompting my brothers to tease me by singing, �No El, no El.� But apart from a seasonal glitch, Christmas still meant nothing to me.
My memory holds nothing at all about Christmas and its affect on me personally until I was actually dating a young man whose family celebrated that holiday. Up until then, December 24 and 25 were good days to go to a movie as the theatres were relatively empty. Nothing much happened on those days, so we didn�t do much of anything. I liked that. I miss it.
It seems kind of odd that after all the stresses of end-of-term, when we are looking forward to the time off, we instead subject ourselves to the stresses and anxieties associated with this season: the hustle, bustle and tussle of getting perfect gifts, having parties, impressing each other. I�d rather hibernate for a couple of weeks. Wake me when it�s time to go back to school.
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