My wife and I are still on the mend from our recent bouts of illness. I'm feeling about 90% better, and my wife is probably hitting about 75%. (Yes, I'm pulling those numbers out of my ass. They are certainly not based on any empirical evidence aside from the fact that neither one of us had to take a prolonged nap to survive the day.)
In the morning, my wife, son, and I attended Christmas Mass. My wife was able to sing, although we had to make some last-minute musical substitutions. My wife simply couldn't perform some of the pieces because of her illness. Those high notes were just out-of-reach. Yet, it was a beautiful worship experience, especially when my wife sang one of my favorite songs of all time--"Jesus Messiah" by Chris Tomlin. Puts me in the weeds every time.
My daughter and her significant other came over in the afternoon, and we had lunch, opened presents, watched some Christmas movies, played some games, and then binged two of the new episodes of Stranger Things (along with probably most of the English-speaking world). It is now almost 11:30 p.m., and I'm ready for a long winter's nap.
I've been thinking a lot about the meaning of Christmas today. All those traditions that people hold dear. This Christmas was nothing like past Christmases. When I was younger and newly married, my wife and I shuttled between three and four family gatherings each December 25th. It was exhausting and really didn't allow a whole lot of time for us to truly enjoy the holiday.
Don't get me wrong. I love loud, boisterous family gatherings. In fact, loud and boisterous pretty much describes almost every family Christmas I remember. My parents loved the chaos that accompanied our holidays. But most of my blood relatives who truly reveled in yuletide joy have died. (My sister, Sally, in particular, loved Christmas almost as much as she loved Diet Coke, and she REALLY loved Diet Coke.) So, Christmas is just . . . different now.
But there will be chaos tomorrow night at my house. It is our turn to host Christmas for my wife's family. So, it's turkey with all the fixings, pecan pie, spiked hot chocolate and eggnog, and loudness. It will be much more like the Christmases I remember. My wife and I have been married 30 years, and we have been together for 35 years. My wife's family IS my family. They've seen me through lots of very difficult times in my life, and I'm very thankful for them.
Yes, I'm feeling a little haunted by Christmases past this year. Last night, as I was wrapping some of my final presents, I started thinking about my mother and how much I miss her. Spent a good 20 minutes crying while surrounded by rolls of wrapping paper, scissors, and scotch tape. That's part of the holidays, too--yearning for lost loved ones.
Saint Marty wrote an essay for public radio this year, a little ghost story to scare up some Christmas spirit in you.
Barbie was dead, to begin
with. This has to be completely
understood, or nothing wonderful will come of the story I’m about to
relate. Berton attended Barbie’s burial
and sent a card to her only living relative—a great nephew from Frankenmuth who
didn’t even come to her funeral.
Barbie was as dead as a
doornail.
Berton knew she was
dead? Of course he did! He’d shared an office with Barbie at Iron
Town Arts for over ten years. Together,
they’d overseen jazz concerts, productions of Our Town and South
Pacific, poetry readings by Billy Collins and Joy Harjo, parades for
Picasso Days (Barbie’s brainchild) every July.
Barbie had been
Programmer in Chief for 40 years. In
fact, for most residents of Iron Town, Barbie was simply the “Art Lady.”
For that reason, Berton,
who inherited the Programmer in Chief title, never had Barbie’s name removed
from Iron Town Arts’ front door. Year
after year, there it stood in flaking gold letters: Barbie Bradley, PIC. Sometimes artists still left voice messages
for her, seven years after her passing.
Berton never corrected them, and he never touched Barbie’s cluttered
desk, leaving it as she had left it the night she died.
Berton also inherited
something else from his long-dead partner in art: the annual Tiny Timathon. Another brainchild of Barbie (the first, as a
matter of fact, in her 40-year reign), the Timathon belied its nom de plume. Rather than an inspirational amble through a
forest of decorated Christmas trees, the Timathon had morphed into what Berton
privately referred to as “World War Tree.”
Local businesses, organizations, and
individuals jockeyed for the prime spots in Iron Town Arts’ art gallery, which
had been rechristened the Barbie Bradley Salon.
The Jolly Gingers—a group of red-headed hair dressers—insisted on
central placement in the Salon to combat institutional ginger bias. The Moonshine Pluckers—27 amateur banjo
players who tortured local assisted living facilities with bluegrass
concerts—refused to be placed by the Polka Dots—13 women accordionists who all
happened to be named Dorothy. And Girl
Scout Troop #2341 wanted their tree as far away from Girl Scout Troop #3409 as
possible due to some longstanding feud regarding cookie territory. It went on and on and on every year.
Yet, Berton had never
seen Barbie lose her yuletide cool ever, even when the Fraternal Order of
Caribou threatened to pull their financial support of the Tiny Timathon because
of the inclusion of a tree by the Christmas Queens, a local posse of drag
performers. Berton had watched Waino
Riintala, Exulted Ruler of the Caribou, lecture Barbie about family values for
over 45 minutes. Then Barbie folded her
hands on her desk, smiled, and said sweetly, “Isn’t Miss Ginger Ale, the head
of that group, your nephew, Waino?”
Barbie 1, Caribou 0.
Berton didn’t have
Barbie’s patience or Christmas spirit.
His first years as Programmer in Chief, Berton tried to convince Iron
Town Arts’ Board of Directors to discontinue the Tiny Timathon. He wanted to replace it with something
younger, hipper.
“I’m thinking an Eggnog
Dash,” Berton argued, “a 10K race with spiked eggnog stations along the route.”
“I think,” Board
President Alma Henderson said, “it’s a bit premature to discuss chloroforming
the Tiny Timathon. Barbie’s only been
gone two months.”
“Plus,” Dr. Bingley,
another board member, cleared his throat, “people love it. It’s a tradition.”
Berton saw the writing on
the wall. He was fighting a losing
battle. He gave it one more shot,
though. “You know, slavery was a
tradition in this country until Abraham Lincoln came along.”
Alma pressed her lips
together and sighed. “Let’s table this
discussion until next year.” Alma 1,
Berton 0.
And next year came and
went. And the next. And the next.
And the next.
Seven tabled-discussion
years later, Berton sat at his desk on Christmas Eve. He was exhausted. The Tiny Timathon had occurred two days
prior, with its expected array of petty squabbles, broken ornaments, and
bruised feelings. But the straw that
broke the proverbial camel’s back for Berton:
the “Hallelujah Chorus” played in four-part harmony on kazoos by Iron
Town’s fifth grade chorus under the direction of Theta Creed. Berton had gone home with a migraine, put a
frozen pizza in the oven, fallen asleep, and woken to a firefighter pounding on
the door of his smoke-filled apartment at 2 a.m. Berton made his decision that night.
The programming office
was adjacent to the Barbie Bradley Salon, and Berton had just strolled through
the Christmas trees (57 in total this year), unplugging lights, flipping
switches, sweeping up cookie crumbs and stray tinsel. He was looking forward to his one week of
vacation between Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, his time to take a long
winter’s nap devoid of trees, lights, banjos, accordions, and kazoos. (Berton hadn’t put up a Christmas tree in his
place for almost ten years. He was
simply Christmas tree-ed out.) On
January 2, he would send an email to the Board of Directors: either the Tiny Timathon goes, or he does.
Berton sighed, logged off
his computer, and turned off his desk lamp.
He noticed a strange glow creeping under the doorframe into his dark
office. Because he’d just made a sweep
of the Salon, the entire building should have been black as the grave.
Berton got up, crossed to
his door, and opened it.
Directly outside his
office stood the Barbie Bradley Memorial Tree.
The Board of Directors purchased the tree seven Christmases before to
keep Barbie’s spirit alive for the Timathon.
Berton clearly recalled
tapping the toe button on Barbie’s tree that night, plunging its branches into
darkness. It was always the last thing
he did before going home.
The Barbie Bradley
Memorial Tree blazed before him.
Berton glanced around the
gallery. “Hello?” he called out,
thinking a board member had stopped by without telling him.
Silence.
He shook his head, trying
to convince himself that he’d forgotten to turn off the lights due to CTSD
(Christmas Tree Stress Disorder); he tapped the tree’s button with his toe, and
the faux evergreen blinked to darkness.
Berton went back into the
programming office, shutting the door behind him.
The lamp on Barbie’s
cluttered desk, which hadn’t been used for seven years, was switched on,
casting a moon of light onto a stack of reports.
Berton walked over to the
desk, stared down at the spotlighted papers.
They were just spreadsheets of budgets several years out-of-date. He looked around to make sure he was alone. He was.
Shaking his head again, Berton reached down and turned off the
lamp. As he headed back to his desk, his
gaze returned to the office door, and he froze.
A strange glow was
creeping under the doorframe.
Berton held his breath,
calculating his next move. Grab his
winter coat and run out the back entrance?
Lock the door and call the police?
Or march across the room to confront the practical joker?
Berton was not a person
who indulged in flights of fancy. Right
before her last Tiny Timathon, Barbie said to him, “Christmas is a time to be
haunted by love.” Berton had laughed and
said, “The Taco Bell I ate last night is the only thing that’s haunting me
right now.”
He crossed the dark
office and opened the door.
The Barbie Bradley
Memorial Tree blazed before him.
Berton took a step back,
jaw slack with surprise. Glancing around
the dark Salon, he called out, “Whoever is doing this, it’s not funny. I’m calling the police.” He leaned over and unplugged the tree from
the outlet. Darkness ate its branches
again.
Berton slammed the door
and spun around, intent on dialing 911.
The lamp on Barbie’s desk
was back on, casting the same moon on the same pile of papers. However, now sitting on top of the pile was a
box no bigger than Berton’s fist. Berton
approached Barbie’s desk, fingers of dread squeezing his throat.
The box was wrapped in
brown paper, and Berton could see lettering beneath a thick layer of dust. He picked up the box and blew on it. The dust fogged the air briefly then settled. Berton squinted at the writing.
It was an address. Barbie’s address. Each letter was blocky and
large, as if traced onto the paper by a kindergartner. Instead of her name, however, the sender had
just written “Auntie Barbie” above the street number, in the same clumsy
script. In the lefthand corner was a
name (Tim Bradley) and a Frankenmuth return address.
“The long-lost great
nephew, I presume,” Berton said under his breath.
Berton paused a moment,
feeling as if he was back in high school spying on girls changing in the locker
room. He tore the brown paper off the
box and opened its lid. A photograph
tumbled out.
In the picture, a man
about 45 years of age was sitting on Santa’s lap, his smile so large it looked
like it was eating his face. The man’s
eyes were almond-shaped; his ears, small and low-set. Berton could tell the man had Down
Syndrome. On the back of the photo, in
the same block letters, was an inscription:
Timmy loves Santa!
Berton set aside the
photo and reached into the box, removing a plastic Christmas tree
ornament. Someone had drawn a green
triangle on the ornament and peppered the triangle with shiny gold star
stickers. On the ornament’s opposite
side was another handwritten message: Tiny
Tim ♥ Auntie Barbie!
Berton stood holding the
ornament in his palm. Understanding
flushed his cheeks and forehead. “Tiny
Timathon,” he whispered. He heard, or
thought he heard, Barbie’s words again, softly, like snow falling in the night: Christmas
is a time to be haunted by love.
Berton
looked back at his office door.
The strange glow was again
creeping under the doorframe.
Berton carried the
ornament across the room to the door and opened it.
The Barbie Bradley
Memorial Tree blazed before him. It was
still unplugged, but all the lightbulbs in its branches were glowing like
winter constellations.
Berton
walked to the tree and hung Timmy’s ornament on it. He stood there unmoving. One by one, all the trees in the Salon
blinked on until the entire room looked like it was on fire.
Berton
watched all this happen calmly, as if he was waiting for a traffic signal to
change. When the final tree came to
life, Berton nodded his head almost imperceptibly. He opened his lips to speak, but then closed
them again without saying a word, as if he didn’t want to break the spell.
Finally,
he took a deep, deep breath. “I
surrender,” he said. “God bless us,
everyone.”
