A Christmas Story

 ON CHRISTMAS DAY LAST YEAR I spent all night tucked away in my bed watching every episode of The Witcher from start to finish and it was one of both the best and worst nights in my life.

Best, because I got to spend it all alone, for once, without any expectation after every dish was served. I didn’t feel obliged to walk back to the kitchen and do anything, such as eat cake, or wash the dishes, or talk. I’ve always loved the comfort of being alone in my bed, getting lost in a show that somehow relieved me of all the feelings that reality was giving me.

Worst, because my family and I had a huge fight, and even now I can’t see a mistake I did. Worst, because it was Christmas, and it was my favorite time of the year. It was what I looked forward to in all those 359 days—and it was, obviously, all for nothing. No cake. No washing. No talk. Just bad feelings and anger, on a fine cold night. And The Witcher, apparently.

So during the past few weeks, this year, I’ve been trying to avoid reminiscing as much as I can. Last year was a bad year in particular. However, this isn’t particularly a good one either. Not for all.

My apprehensions last 2019 was mainly about my life. It wasn’t going well; and even now, thinking back to the bittersweet moments that I spent hating every possible aspect that I could find in myself gives me the shudders that are uncalled for. They’re ugly, and unmistakably some roads I wouldn’t dare set foot on. As children, we were often pressured to make up New Year’s Resolutions and list them down so we could track our progress—a starting push of some sorts—and I never really thought importance of it until now. Because as we got older, these resolutions became a lot more meaningless, life became a lot more inseparable year by year, and hope gets a lot thinner in every way.

The same way the Christmas feeling does.

I’m only beginning to realize now more than ever that the concept of new years were made not just for organization of every single entity in the grand social, economic, spiritual, personal schemes of life. A new year is an attempt, albeit a lame one sometimes, not necessarily for a reset but for hope to get better. For things to get better. For life to get better.

And before all the fireworks and alcohol when the clock hit 12 on January 1 this year, I saw a glimpse of hope, too.

But right now it feels like it all crumbled down to nothing.

ON CHRISTMAS DAY THIS YEAR, I am writing this paper as a breather, as a response to the therapy sessions that I was lucky enough to get, and as a gift to myself. Because we’ve been through a lot of things. We are in the middle of a pandemic. School has been more of a struggle than an experience. And as if those weren’t enough, several storms, literal and political, have invaded our country and its people.

I think that the reminiscing that I was keeping myself from doing was a shield to prevent myself from accepting that while I’m well-aware that I’m not getting any younger, Christmas just will never be the same anymore. Not now. Probably not ever. Christmas has always been a feeling that makes me feel giddy, like a child experiencing it for the first time, and now, two decades later, it’s still sort of hard to let that go. I’ve always been a believer in magic disguised as coincidence, in fiction and all pretty things, but these years have been too much of an alarm to halt me still in abrupt and say, “Hey, that’s enough.” We can still have fun sometimes. Christmas can still be fun. Just in a different way that all of us probably can’t agree to unanimously.

Because the thing is, celebrating Christmas right now gives some sort of conflicting feelings to me. From this moment on, Christmas will be political. It will be a privilege. And as much as it pains me to admit that, I’d like to believe that someday, we can all begin to accept that. The divide limits everyone to make do with what they can. The protocols, and the things you cannot do without money, or without a car, or without a big house to light up and watch with your family—they’re all so necessary, and yet so lonely. I don’t have any of those, but I do have a big enough family to channel all my energy in. So this Christmas, it feels more fitting to spend the night tucked away in my bed watching another series in Netflix from start to finish. It feels more fitting to have bad feelings and anger.

Conversely, though, it feels more fitting to hope a lot more.

This Christmas, I have no idea what I’m going to do, or feel, with everything laid out before me: pending work, family feuds, and a two-day flu that’s starting to make me feel more anxious as ever, but I do have hope that it gets better. Faith has been a weak spot for me throughout this year, seeing all that’s happening to those who can and who can’t, but lately I’ve been getting more signs that we need it more at this time. I have lost all drive to plan anything at all for the New Year, but I have a tiny bit of hope. I have lost all comfort to build on my dreams and goals for the New Year, but I have a tiny bit of hope.

Everything is so fucking awful. But I have hope that it feels a little better.

And instead of searching for that familiar, giddy, child-like feeling that has been making me sane for the past eighteen Christmases of my life, all I want from now on is to pass it on to another kid. My cousins have another thing coming.

Writing this is a Christmas present to myself. It’s one of the best mornings of my life.