Visions of Sugarplums
From the first viewing of holiday specials in early December, every singing of Jingle Bells and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, every watching of “White Christmas”, “It’s a Wonderful Life” or “Miracle on 34th Street”, my sister’s excitement for Christmas rose like the mercury in a thermometer that’s been warmed by a fever. By Christmas Eve she was almost levitating, unable to sleep because she needed to hear that sleigh and clattering of hoofs hit the rooftop. From the last day of November to the 24th of December my sister was on a single track to her destination, the engineer of the train taking her to visions of sugarplums.
It wasn’t about the toys or the gifts that we would ask for in our letters to Santa. It was the happiness and the joy she wanted. It was her perceived belief that this year, this particular year we were in, Christmas really was going to be just like a holiday depicted on a Hallmark Christmas card. There would be snow, and happy children. There would be prettily wrapped gifts with perfect bows that would glitter under the tree. The tree itself would be decorated while we sang carols and hymns while our father played the piano, and there would be hot chocolate and a tray of the sweet goodies that our mother spent weeks baking, brought out to us as we threw the last of the tinsel on the tree.
Except that wasn’t the reality. The holiday specials, the music and the movies were all possible and enjoyed. The rest of the dream was not reality. The tree was decorated with carols being sung, but the ornaments were never placed where our father thought they should be and the tinsel? He wanted it strung piece by piece, an exercise in futility for two children with small hands, trying to separate the tinsel that has a cling factor of 5,000 and impossible to reach the highest branches. We’d give up and just toss it thinking it looked like real snow on a tree. But without fail, he came back to it after we’d finished and did it the way he wanted.
Christmas morning began tentatively as we’d gauge the mood to see how excited we should be. A little too much enjoyment could cut off gift opening until a later hour, not enough and we were ungrateful and toys put away until he decided we had waited long enough or were grateful enough or he’d had a drink or two.
I learned not to care. I learned that you just played it by ear and Christmas would either be a pleasant enough day with a meal to be enjoyed or a day of yelling and fighting and recrimination and a meal you had to choke down and hope you’d be released from the table as quickly as possible.
My sister carried that Hallmark Christmas in her head her whole life. It was the nirvana she intended to achieve. She bought every magazine she could find that offered recipes, home décor, and outdoor scenes of families frolicking in the snow before sitting down to a meal that came straight from Betty Crocker’s kitchen. A mother whose hair was still perfectly coiffured, a clean apron and a beaming face as she brought that golden turkey to the table to be carved by the father in his tie and cardigan. But the reality of the holiday season for us was depicted best in “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” where mishaps occurred, too much time was spent trying to create perfection, the turkey was often overcooked, the tree fell over, and there were no sugarplums to be found anywhere.
We created some wonderful Christmas years after our parents divorced and life became calmer and quieter, our footing more secure. The best Christmas we might have had together was the last one here, in my home, with our mother. The one we didn’t know would be her last. We had older adult family here from out of town and it was utter chaos. Two small children trying to put together Lego and play mini sticks with the older adults (my mother was goalie that day), plenty of rye & gingers, rum & cokes, and wine, a Christmas tree that started to fall over, plenty of food and laughter, wrapping paper from one end of the room to the other, a table cloth ruined by spills. And those same two children who were on sugar highs from too many goodies and chocolate and had room only for mashed potatoes and stuffing. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way.
As for the holiday magazines my sister collected, every year, in her honour, I treat myself to just one. I don’t even need to read it. I just like to have it here, on the coffee table where I can see it. It reminds me of who she was in her deepest soul. It allows me to have hopes & dreams to believe in what magic might happen, and to have my own visions of sugarplums dancing in my head. They look just like my sister always imagined.
