The magic of the Winter Solstice brings ghosts to us,
haunts us like Scrooge and, for me, forces me to stare those spectres in the
face and read their messages through my veins.
The pale, chained Ghost of Christmas Past needles my heart –
the sharp-ended, frozen candy cane shank probes, and pokes, and pokes.
 |
| I realise this is not the real Ghost of Christmas Past but this is how I see it. |
Pricks my soul and stings my eyes.
He shows me my Granny at a dining room table playing
cards. We are Whist partners, as
always. I am a young mother. It was the last Christmas I had with her and
I was so grateful because she was able to meet her namesake. My daughter was given Granny’s name as her
first middle name.
There was so much confusion for me. I was nearly thirty but felt much
younger. Especially when with my mother
and Granny. It was like I was my son’s
age – he was 3 then.
I was so young. I was
having a child’s Christmas and yet I had children of my own and one of them was
worried that Santa wouldn’t find us.
Santa.
The grief of being Santa that first year, when my oldest
knew that Santa existed, was weighty and palpable. If I was Santa, then the Santa of my
childhood did not really exist.
Ever.
The chained Ghost drives the candy cane point deeper into my
chest.
But he had an encore appearance, a resurrection, as I became
him. And just when the two older kids
teetered on the edge of losing Santa, another child came into our family to resuscitate
him and keep him alive for a little while longer.
Until last year.
Last Christmas the youngest, then 12, made a Declaration of
Independence. He declared that he was
not going to be: read to at night, “tucked
in,” “play” with his lego (it had to be put away and taken out of his room),
sleep with his bear Sunny, or do anything else deemed by him “baby-ish” because
if he was going to high school in the fall, he had to act like a big kid.
So let it be written.
So let it be done.
And for some reason that triggered in me a yearning for the
days when my children were young and I felt that old familiar grief.
The ghost chain rattled and Santa died once more. Unceremoniously. No dirge.
No procession. No eulogy.
I wept for him as I wrapped the gifts I had chosen for my
older children – themed gifts that connected me to their “little” selves. For my oldest son it was Where the Wild
Things Are, for my daughter “The Little Mermaid,” and for the youngest “Lilo
and Stitch.” Each child knew the
connection and message they would bring from me.
It really, really hurt and I was so jealous of my colleagues
who had small children – houses where Santa Claus was still very much
alive.
Then, in the nick of time, Christmas Present’s ghost walked
through the wall, into the room, and embraced me. I began to understand that I just needed a
re-framing of how I was viewing everything.
My relationship with my children had been growing and evolving –
particularly with my adult children as they graduated and started navigating
early adulthood. Why would that not
extend to Christmas?
This year the youngest, newly-minted high schooler, asks “Santa”
questions around who fills the stockings when and could he please play Santa on
Christmas morning because he has been thinking about it for weeks?
Enter the Ghost of Christ mas Future to slowly slide the
candy cane shank from my chest. With the
frozen candy splinter removed, I can see that the spirit of Santa moves on and one day there will be
grandchildren near to resuscitate Santa once again.
This Spirit has a great lesson for me – a
salve on the sticky, minty wound in my heart.
It whispers to me that Santa never really dies. He sleeps.
He sleeps until the children wake him again year after year, generation
after generation.
Thank you blessed Ghost.
May your Spirit heal all whose wrists are bitten by the
frozen shackles of Christmas Past and may they find love and Peace in this
Christmas Present.
Blessed Be all this season.
