December 11, 2010

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Peter has been living in my “spare” room since early September. He gets to stay in return for giving me pro bono one shift a week of personal assistance, and for doing some inclusive community development around this housing cooperative, Robert Cooke.

The other day Peter brought home a “Christmas tree” constructed from 111 Coke cans coated in silver paint which has partly worn away, and a string of Christmas lights so old that Peter is having trouble finding replacement bulbs and sockets. This artefact was constructed by his mother – likely 50 years ago or so. Yesterday he brought home a “wreath” made almost entirely from twigs with barely a speck of green.

It’s funny how something can occur that makes one realize that one – I – actually care about something. The Coke can sculpture is a memento and a sort of heirloom for Peter and so even though in my view it doesn’t qualify as something that has a genre, like kitsch or retro, I recognize that it’s going to have a place in my household. But when it showed up, and especially when the round pile of twigs arrived, I realized that if we’re going to decorate around here for Christmas it better look LIKE Christmas to me.

Now, what does Christmas look like – to me! Well – green for starters. Secondly, not like Good Friday where utter bareness makes sense. My intellect “knows” these thoughts are not relative to any fixed reality, but the rest of me feels that Christmas is about new life, regeneration, hope reborn, and that the symbols of this ought to reflect new growth.

So we nailed the twigs to Peter’s bedroom door and I bought a Santa to sit on top of the pile of silvered cans along with some bows and beads to drape and paste so as to soften the severity of the piece. I also placed a small woven red and green decoration on the front door of our place. Now it’s time to do a little cleaning and to dig out the ornaments that have been in storage bins for over two years and give the pad a festive look.

Possibly one of the strongest effects of my Mother’s Alzeimers was that Christmas became an uncertain experience. There was a point when I was in my mid 20’s that I actively resisted celebrating Christmas. But from the time I was 29 until the year that Mom and Dad first moved into a retirement residence, Christmas varied little.

Mother always insisted that all four of her children be with her for this celebration. I imagine that there were a few years when my elder brother Ian was unable to attend because he was somewhere out of the country with the Canadian Armed Services. Otherwise we all showed up and generally speaking our spouses – permanent or temporary – showed up as well.

Mother always had a fabulously decorated tree. On Christmas Day itself she did not relinquish the kitchen to anyone. The meal was invariably rich, festive and abundant.

There were other invariant aspects as well. For example, my mother (and later my siblings) always took care to place me in exactly the spot where I was to remain for the entire occasion. The sole exception to this was when I moved to and from my assigned spot beside Dad at the dinner table.

In later years, we adopted a different pattern for present giving. At my sister, Rosemary’s, encouragement we put a price limit on the presents and reduced the number that were given. Later, but after Mom and Dad were in the retirement home, Christmas was held in one or other of the siblings homes and we used a Secret Santa strategy which was not only less expensive but a whole lot more fun for all of us.

But mother passed away two and a half years ago and suddenly there was no longer a clear sense that we would all gather in the same place. I do not believe that I have been to a family Christmas dinner since that time and I won’t be this year either.

So I find myself attracted to the idea that Peter would want to decorate our apartment with his mother’s Christmas tree even though, and at the very same moment, I am repelled by its tackiness. My own mother would never have let such a thing exist in her space.

For myself, at this time, I am merely reflecting on how intensely I am experiencing a need to do something that counterbalances both my own mother’s rigidity and Peter’s (and his mother’s) different sense of value. December 25th at 20 Garnett Janes Road Apartment 812 will be a very different day indeed!