The Beatles sang \u201cSo This is Christmas\u201d. Oh, so very fitting for Christmas 2005 \u2013 the worst Christmas in my life.<\/p>\n
It was going to be hard enough with being the first one without my Dad, on top of missing my kids as always, as I have for over ten years now. I miss them terribly every single day of the year, but Christmas always stirs up those very fond memories of great Christmas days gone passed.<\/p>\n
I guess I am a traditionalist in that I believe in all the trappings of Christmas \u2013 Christmas Eve with family and friends; opening that one special gift on Christmas Eve; the excitement of Christmas morning opening all the gifts, having a special breakfast (which I always cooked) and then enjoying the gifts everyone got, and looking forward to a wonderful Turkey feast for Christmas dinner. All so wonderful! Made you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.<\/p>\n
This year? Well, the first challenge was money. We have been struggling and getting worse and worse with each passing month, to the point we ran out of oil last month and froze. There was certainly no money for Christmas gifts and celebrations. Instead that \u201cshopping time\u201d was devoted to desperately trying to get financing to just survive a few months longer, but no luck. Well, I thought, we\u2019ll just do the best we can. My sister said she would look after the dinner but we couldn\u2019t have it Christmas day because they were leaving for Las Vegas for ten days Christmas morning. Oh well, not so bad to have it a day earlier, I thought. We\u2019ll still have the joy of Christmas morning together. Then the dinner became Friday, because that\u2019s when everyone could come. Not very close to Christmas, but we\u2019ll still have Christmas morning, right?
\nAnd it would be nice to have her look after everything for me, and give me a chance to relax a bit and enjoy Friday at least.<\/p>\n
The fist item on the \u201chelp\u201d agenda for Friday? They went to the casino and left me to wrap presents, clean the house, start the turkey, and do the recycling, burn the Christmas music CDs and food shop. I had also asked Ron to bring in some bags of pellets for the stove because I\u2019m not supposed to be lifting after my surgery. Of course he didn\u2019t so I had to get on my belly under the trailer to drag out the heavy bags, hurting my stitches in the process. Then, when they finally came home, Ron took off to wash their brand new car, and Wendy asked me to get the liquor and cigarettes for them, and shop. It was a madhouse and not something I thought I would be doing, what with all this \u201chelp\u201d. Oh, on top of it, the guy came to pick up the firewood that I had sold to try to raise some money. Did I get any help from Ron loading the firewood? Nope. When everyone got here, I was still rushing around and trying to get dressed to spend some time with them.<\/p>\n
Because this was Mum\u2019s last Christmas, at least in her home, I had arranged for a video camera to record it for her to remember. It lasted all of five minutes on the Friday night when everyone was here, so that idea was toast.<\/p>\n
Someone suggested we open one gift while everyone was here. Although it certainly wasn\u2019t Christmas Eve, I agreed that anyone who couldn\u2019t be here Christmas morning should open one. That was when I found out we were opening all of the gifts on this, I guess, \u201cspecial\u201d Friday and not Christmas morning. Not impressed, but no point in upsetting everyone who obviously didn\u2019t care that it wasn\u2019t Christmas.<\/p>\n
My buddy Wade had driven seventeen hours to get here and spend Christmas Eve with me and our friends. I said I had to be back early in the morning Sunday for opening gifts, but this changed of course when we opened them all early. I still wanted to be home to cook the special breakfast that I had managed to scrounge up the money for and planned to cook for everyone. After they went to the casino on Saturday to spend money we don\u2019t have, they informed me at three o\u2019clock that they were leaving right then. When I said I had plans for Christmas Eve, they said they had to \u201cget going\u201d, so my night was toast as well. And breakfast? Well, there\u2019s lots of food.<\/p>\n
My buddy Wade, such a true friend, first gave me three hundred bucks to help me out. Mum thought it was for both of us and promptly divided the money in half. I tried to explain that it was money from Wade to help me out, and she insisted it was for both of us and I wasn\u2019t getting any of \u201cher\u201d money. Then Wade phoned his Mum in OK Falls to ask if there was room for two more at the Christmas table dinner because my Christmas had been wrecked. Of course, Bonnie said there was always room at her table. Well, at least something to look forward to.<\/p>\n
So Christmas morning was just like every other morning of the year, other than Mum searching for the money she insisted she didn\u2019t have; asking over and over it was Christmas and who did she get this gift from, and where did she put the gifts, and bitching that she didn\u2019t have a \u201ccent\u201d and might as well be dead when I told her she doesn\u2019t have any money, and, well, you get it. At least I had that dinner to look forward to.<\/p>\n
Seeing as how she has had the same clothes on for three days now, I asked her to pick out some nice clothes for our dinner. She asked what\u2019s wrong with what she had on, and I said she had worn them for three days now and has lots of clothes, and it would be nice to put something special on for our dinner. She said her clothes were perfectly good and she wasn\u2019t going to change them for anybody, and said I got out of the wrong side of the bed, and she wasn\u2019t going anyway, and that was final. So, the one final shred of any Christmas magic I had left is gone too.<\/p>\n
So how special was my Christmas? Undoubtedly, the very worst in my entire life. I hope yours was a whole lot better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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