I remember what Christmas meant to me as a young child. Even back then it seems, the adults lamented that kids these days didn't know the true meaning of Christmas. Sure, it was very much about what I would find under the tree on Christmas, but it was also a lot more than that.
Starting in early December, my family would browse various tree lots looking for just the right tree--sometimes we would visit several lots before finally deciding on the one we thought would make the best centerpiece of our living room. After bringing home the tree, my parents and my sisters would listen to Christmas music while hanging the home made ornaments we made when I was almost too young to remember. I am the youngest of three children, and so the honor of placing the angel at the top of the tree was bestowed upon me each year, even while my father had to hold me in the air so that I could reach with my short child arms. I remember twinkling strands of Christmas lights, glittery garlands and the fun we'd have untangling them. I remember Christmas caroling, midnight mass, egg nog, and going Christmas shopping with my mom for my dad and sisters.
I remember searching the house for my presents every year--and it seemed no matter how hard I tried, my parents always managed to find a mystical hiding place to hide four entire loads of presents! I am baffled by that to this day, simply because I checked every place that could have possibly hidden a batch of presents each for four children, and they were not to be found no matter how hard I looked. The last year before I matured and finally gave up looking for the Christmas presents, I even looked in the attic and the crawl space. No such luck. My parents were very good at keeping up the appearance of the existence of St. Nick.
And I will never forget the nativity scene that my mother made. She has a hobby of making little cotton stuffed dolls with embroidered faces. The dolls were mostly about 6 inches high, with embroidered faces and yarn for hair, but the baby Jesus was about 2 inches tall! There were had the three kings, a few sheep, the angel that had brought everyone together for the joyous occasion, complete with a wire frame, but cloth covered barn with a manger inside.
I can recall my memories of past Christmases and write down the way things were, but that doesn't tell the whole story. The real story is the way Christmas used to make me feel. It's hard to put into words. It certainly was the Christmas spirit, which seemed to do all kinds of things to me, from making me feel very happy, to changing the way I perceived the world around me. During Christmastime everything would seem more beautiful, especially red lights and fog from my breath on a cold Christmas day.
Although my early memories of Christmas are loving and warm, my later memories are much cooler. My sisters moved out, with husbands the United States Army. My father began to withdraw more during Christmas. Three or four years before I finally moved away, he stopped decorating the tree with us. I would haggle him, but for at least three years in a row, he simply labored over the stuff he had brought home from work.
But there's more.
Although I had been aware of this beforehand, but I had no idea of the significance of it. I was only about twelve at the time and far too young to understand why anyone would be so uncomfortable with themselves.
Not long after my youngest sister moved out (I'm the youngest by six years) my father started coming out as transgendered, male to female. This was, to say the least, against the wishes of my mother and I. Of course, my sisters rebelled against this as well, but they were older and more able to deal with such difficulties.
It started with simple things, like toenail painting, or dressing up and going out as a busty blonde for Halloween, but it became more and more prevalent as the years passed by. His work shirts slowly evolved into blouses, his body hair was shaved, the painted toenails more frequent, and gee, those glasses sure look feminine, and yes, I saw panties instead of a painter's crack.
The man who had taught me everything about the Catholic Church and who had given me the mental tools necessary to determine that a man dressing up as woman was not moral, had slowly, yet violently distorted everything I had learned to be true and right about the world.
Although this wasn't the only factor, it was the primary one: I lost my faith in God when I was about sixteen. I stopped going to Church because my parents stopped making me. I still remember what it was like to be self-assured about the world and my worldview: something I envy about true believers.
Sometime in mid-December when I was 16, I realized I didn't have the Christmas spirit.
I had grown used to it coming about without any effort. Each season there would be a moment where I realized I had been imbued with it, and for the next few weeks, I felt greater than usual love for everyone and everything about me. I remember feeling quite sad about it. I had come to expect Christmas to be a time of love, sharing and togetherness among family and close friends, but with my sisters scattered and relations between my father and I strained, the Christmas season became just a damn cold and damn rainy time of year.
I haven't felt the Christmas spirit until this year, an entire 11 years after I lost it.
Oh, I'm still agnostic, and things are better with my father now, but that's not what brought it back.
I met my soul mate three months ago. I have never fallen in love so quickly in my life, and every day that we spend time together is a confirmation of the rightness for each other. Yes, I know no relationship is perfect, and we've already experienced some imperfection, but we came through our first argument with flying colors. I have never felt so certain about anyone in my life. She is the best thing that's happened to me since the day I was born, and yes, I had already made up my mind about that when we realized what I'm about to tell you next.
There's something about meeting someone and discovering spectacular mutual feelings that reduces all inhibitions, and consequently, we, uh, might be pregnant. In fact, there's a damn good chance. We were waiting for her to get on the pill and were intending to use condoms during the fertile phase of her cycle, but due to a few confusing factors, my little men had to have been swimming around in her at the same time she released her egg.
If someone told me six months ago that I would be in this situation today, I'd have shit a brick. My instinct would have been to start shopping around for an abortion clinic. She and I are on the same page as far as religion, but those good ole' Catholic morals are even more intense in her than in me. She does not want to have an abortion.
Neither do I. I love this woman. I have a decent job, a warm place to live, a running car, hence I'm able to provide for two people until she decides to go back to work. Just because 90% of other people who get into similar situations end up with broken homes and subsequent divorces, that does not mean that she and I will go the way of statistics. I refuse to let statistics make my plans for me.
And so, you know what the kicker of this whole situation is?
Pregnancy tests generally do not become accurate until the 1st day of a missed period.
Guess what day that will be?
You guessed it: December 25th, 2005.
I get to find out if my soul mate is pregnant on Christmas Day. What better a gift could anyone ask for?
(The other reason I'm writing this diary is to prove that not all liberals are anti-Christmas...)