Ah, growing up ghetto has left me a little jaded as far as celebrating Christmas goes.  A few years ago I celebrated the day by catching up on laundry, then going to my moms for a brief and cigarette filled gift exchange, only to dash over to a friends house for a decent meal.  And I always get cash from my mom.  I Don’t like to be surprized, ever.  I’m so terrible these days, I buy and wrap my own Christmas gifts from my husband and kids.  Who cares …. lol!

Now that I’m married and have stepkids, I have to fake it.  Don’t get me wrong, I love hearing my stepson scream in joy when he gets a good gift (And he still beleives in Santa @ age 10, you have to love that!!!)  and watching the whole family happily opening & playing with their gifts.  But, about 15 minutes later in the back of my head, I always feel the dread.  I feel so damn uncomfortable, like I’m a fraud celebrating this day.  Look what I’ve done to our cat, Beatrice so far this year. 

This is the “funnest” thing I do @ Christmastime.  Except Beatrice is miserable, and I feel somewhat guilty, but its hysterical to see her facial expressions in this get-up!

I now even own my own Christmas decorations.  Here are a few:

Look at how sweet my husband was as a kid.  Like a mini Italian Ringo Starr.  His ex-wife gave this to me wrapped up our first married Christmas together.  I was just thrilled.

My first memory of Christmas is kind of a bummer.  It was 1976, I had just turned six the week before (Yes, today is my birthday people, 38!) and I had caught my mom wrapping gifts at like 12:30 am Christmas morning.  I asked her “What, there isn’t really a Santa Claus?” and she answered back “No!” and slammed the door on me.  Later that morning she denied, but the damage was done, and I was mad to know that the whole thing was a lie.  I guess even then I was a rational little person.

My step-father came from a well off family (But we were poor, as by this time he drove a cab after being laid off from Ford) and they always hooked us up with gifts.  When I hit nine I was given about 100 gifts total and was absolutley thrilled.  Even though some were like a pencil sharpener, etc, it was the most gifts I had ever seen.  And, this was the year that I received my Caligraphy pens and parchment paper.  I always wanted to have fancy pens, and the following year my teacher gave me lessons after hearing that I was trying to teach myself.  Mrs. Marchoni was such a nice teacher to take time after school to do that. 

Once my mom and step-father got divorced, Chistmas @ The Mouse House (so named for the 100’s of mice that ran around the house for years and occasionally jumped into bed or the shower with me) was meager.  In sixth grade I got Love’s Baby Soft spray and a book and that was it.  I was still grateful for what I had gotten from Santa, but come on!  Sadly, my step-grandparents had decided that I was no longer a part of ther family and stopped buying just me gifts because I wasn’t their real grand-daughter.  That is about the worst thing you can do to a kid, act like their family, and once a divorce is finalized, refuse to acknowledge their presence.  My gramma would get so made at me for caring, but they were loud and fun and I missed them.  I’m still mad to this day @ them, shame on you people for doing that to me!

The following year I was really sick, and had been puking all Christmas morning.  I could never make it to the bathroom, so there was a pile of puke next to the couch, leading down the hall, etc.  we had about five cats, and …. they started fighting over eating the puke.  OMG, it was the most disgusting thing I had seen in that house, and this strarted a barf fest between my mother and I.  We were laughing and puking so hard, it actually turned into a good memory since we were starving that day and it gave us something fun to talk about.

There were a few years where churches gave us gifts and food.  The best year was when all the gifts came from Kmart with receipts, so we could take back everything and exchange it for the stuff we really wanted.  I got my first Walk Man at age forteen and couldn’t have been happier.  I had been carring around a tape recorder like reporters had with a real microphone for years to listen to music.  Now, I could stash my music in my purse easily. 

1986 was a bad year emotionally but good for gifts.  I got all four tapes I had asked for (Hewy Lewis & The News, AC/DC, The Eagles, and The Police) and was thrilled Santa hadn’t fucked it up for me that year.  However, my nutty ex-friend Shannon’s mom had confided in me that she spent $500 on each of her kids, and that afternoon I had to tell her that her kids didn’t even appreciate what she got, and they were moaning about what they didn’t get.  I told her my mom had spent like $40 on me and that it made my day for her to pick out the right tapes and perhaps she should consider spending less since she had obviously spoiled her kids.  Can you imagine if your daughter friend had said that to you?  I had some balls on me, even back then.  But it had to be said.  This year my stepfather had made a reappearance in our lives, and brought me a gift from the step-grandparents who hadn’t talked to me in years.  It was my first guitar, a cheap one from Meijers, but I loved it!  I had dreamed about playing guitar like Eddie Van Halen, my hero.  I was pissed he came over drunk and high as per usual, and he and my mom and my brother and I got into the biggest fight our house had ever seen.  My mom actually lifted the top off of the stove to bash him in the head, and I chased him to the car, beating him and slamming the door repeated on his ankle until I broke it warning him to never come back to our house.  He waas the meanest bastard I had ever met, and would torment me 100% of the time.  We fucked up that man so bad he actually never came back, and I was glad to have protected my mother from that asshole for the last time.

I have never sat down to a holiday dinner like most families until I started dating M. and R. in high school, and that was a culture shock for me.  I remember R.’s entire gigantic family got together and Santa Claus called each person to the front to receive their gifts.  Even the aunts got me pressents.  I was amazed to be welcommed in to a family so easily like that.  I had my own orniment at their house to hang and everything.  I always have appreciated that, a chance to see what a normal family did for the holidays. 

What I miss most from my childhood is my gramma.  She made me a special bread each year, along with the $40 she always gave me on the sly, $20 in front of my mom and $20 behind the back, lol!  Gramma’s bread  was an oily italian twisted bread with anchovies in the center, except she made me a batch free of anchoives, but put their oil in the center.  I’d die to have just one more piece of that bread, or at least see her again.  Great, now I’m crying at the library ….

I could go on and on with this post, but my lunch hour is over and I want to post this today.  I’d love to hear any of your special holiday/Christmas traditions.

Here is a photo that my mom gave to me three Christmas’s ago.  This sums up my whole nutty life.  Its a damn dead bloody mouse caught on the fly paper that I took in 1987 to prove how nasty our place was.