Reclaiming Christmas

When I was a kid, my very dysfunctional family had only one real Christmas tradition, and even this nearly went by the wayside toward the end (for the uninformed, my parents, all of them, are divorced- but believe me, it was time). My mother started it (she was usually the genius behind most of the cool things we did as a family). Every year of our lives, starting with the first one, my mother would buy us a Christmas ornament. Now, I know that this tradition merely helped further the aims of the commercialism masterminds behind replacing Christ with Santa. But yet, every year we looked forward to getting our new ornaments. When it came time to put up the tree, we would pull out all the ornaments, and my parents would go down the line and give us our ornaments in order. We kids would then fight for the best spots on the tree in our eagerness to have our ornaments be the center of attention. It was a simple thing, but it was also magical. It kept Christmas special, and for that one hour every year, my family was able to get along without the help of a tv or movie.

Eventually the new ornaments stopped appearing every year, and as my parents stopped caring about more and more, christmas became one of things that they would procrastinate or nearly forget about (don't get me wrong, there were presents and decorations, but often it took one of us kids to get them wrapped in time). But the tree was the one thing we kids fought to keep. And so, when my parents finally called it quits, the one thing I really regretted was that all of our ornaments would never hang on the same tree again.

And so, a few years later, as my wife and I began to create our own traditions, I explained to her how much that one tradition meant to me. Overwhelmed by my charm and wit, my wonderful wife of course agreed to adopt the ornament tradition. I was excited. In my own way, I would be able to preserve and perpetuate one of the few good things I remember and pass it on to my children.

In eagerness I called my Dad to look into how I could get my old ornaments. When I hung up the phone, I was devastated. As it turned out, my Dad had ended up with the ornaments after the divorce, and had stored them in an old van he kept in an extra parking spot in his apartment complex, and the van was stolen, along with everything inside, shortly after he moved in.

And so, it seemed that the magic had finally worn out. After years of poor communication, bad memories, family tragedies and poor decisions, it seemed that someone looking for an easy buck finally destroyed what we as a family never could.

Once again I talked with my wife, and once again she reassured me. While we couldn't fix all the wrongs in our lives, we could fix this.

A quick trip to eBay, and the rest, as they say, is history. While I have not found all the ornaments yet, I have reclaimed my first seven ornaments, as well as one of my brother's first ornaments. I'd like to think I'm buying the ones that were stolen, but I know that it's unlikely.

Then the questions comes- why bother? Why not just start anew and continue from there? Well, because sometime we shouldn't have to start anew. I think that we should fight to hold onto the things that keep magic alive in our hearts. Often we give up to easily and let things go when, with a little effort, we could have preserved them.

Christmas is a time of magic, of memories, and of undying love. If we can't extend a little hope and resolve to hold on to those things, then Christmas itself could also become meaningless.

The pain of bad memories will eventually fade if we allow them to. Sadly, so do good memories. And yet, most people choose to hold on to the bad and forget the good. We need allow ourselves to forgive and forget the bad and evil in our lives- in a word, get over it. It's not easy, and it doesn't happen over night, but you can do it. And fighting to hold onto the good will help in the process.