Hipstercrite Life

Childhood Christmas vs. Adulthood Christmas

Bah!

This will be my third- THIRD!– year in a row that I’m unable to travel home for the holidays.

Since I no longer work a 9-5 job with set time off (though my last 9-5 only gave me Christmas day off- yes, they were conservative Republicans), money and time make it difficult for me to travel home to New York. Neither Austin, Texas or Syracuse, New York, the cities I fly out of and into have large airports, so the cost to travel between the two can get mighty expensive. Sprinkle in the fact that me and my family (my mother and grandmother) are a bunch of neurotic weirdos (I have a fear of flying, they have a fear of driving 45 minutes away in the snow to pick me up from the airport) and the whole experience becomes more stressful than it needs to be.

None of this takes away from the harrowing guilt (we’re Jews that celebrate Christmas) I feel associated with not going home for the holidays. However, home for the holidays has taken on a different meaning these days. Going back to my very small hometown in Upstate New York in the dead of winter, to no longer see friends due to them moving away or creating families of their own, and to have my mother still put out my stocking as though Santa visited (this part I like) and for us to sit, with my grandmother, and open gifts while our knuckles ache from the cold and our faces look as pale as a polar bear’s ass just doesn’t entice me. We should all be somewhere else, in a warm and more forgiving land where the ICE CLOAK OF DEATH doesn’t befall everyone.

I didn’t understand until recently that this is why I’ve been so depressed during my holiday visits home. That the cold weather and distance from my childhood caused me to write super-emo diary entries and blog posts about how devastated I was to feel something short of extreme happiness during “the most wonderful time of the year”.

For the past 30 years,  my family- the three of us- have tried to hold onto my childhood with a vice-like grip during the holidays. Without children of my own, I’m still the child, but without a child home for the holidays and no one to treat me as a child away from home and no child of my own to celebrate with, what is Christmas?

It’s Adult Christmas, that’s what it is.

“Christmas no longer means anything to me without you here,” my grandmother says to me more and more lately, and with each time she says, a tiny piece of my heart crumbles into dust.

I spend a great deal crying over my distance from my family- my mother and grandmother in New York, my father in California. I cry because I’m an only child, and before Geoff, they were all I had. I cry because I kind of like them in addition to loving them (I talk to them daily). I cry because they’re getting older, not in front of my eyes, so when I see them the one or two times a year, it comes as a great shock to me; I’m in complete denial that my mother’s hair is thinning, my father’s skin is wrinkling and that my grandmother can only walk for set stretches of time.

When did it all change?

While I was away.

I’ve been away for eight years.

The momma’s girl, the grandmother’s girl, the girl they were all afraid was too sheltered to leave home, left. She has never been back, but she constantly looks over her shoulder.

But what is there for me back home in Upstate New York?  Nothing. No career, no Geoff, no hope. Yes, I said “no hope”! If you’ve been to Upstate New York, you know what I mean.

My family is Upstate New York though and isn’t family everything?

For all of you who live geographically close to your family, count your blessings. You are very lucky to being seeing your family for the holidays.

Now when I hear Christmas music in the stores or watch a holiday-themed movie, I want break down. When I drive by a house decorated in the warm glow of Christmas lights, with a sparkling Christmas tree poking out from behind the window curtain, I can’t help but think, “What happened to my childhood?”

 

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7 Comments

  • Reply Smedette December 10, 2012 at 4:16 pm

    Nostalgia seems to rear its unforgiving head the most around the holidays, but sometimes we cling so hard to the past, that we stop making our own traditions. The holidays are whatever you make of them.

    What’s stopping you from enjoying Christmas music are creating your own warm glow in your house, with Geoff and local friends?

    • Reply Smedette December 10, 2012 at 4:16 pm

      *…Christmas music AND creating your own…

      Sorry about the typo.

    • Reply hipstercrite December 14, 2012 at 11:50 am

      My dear, you are onto something. You are right! The only problem is, my boyfriend really isn’t into holidays (except for Halloween!). I think it’s up to me this year if we want a tree or lights etc. A few girlfriends are doing a Christmas Day party and I’m looking forward to that.

  • Reply Evan December 12, 2012 at 11:16 pm

    I’m really relieved to have read this! Just went shopping for Christmas gifts and cards and almost cried the entire time…Personally, I’m 26 and this is going to be my first christmas away from my family…Thank you for sharing. It doesn’t solve anything, but I am kind of taking comfort in the fact that mine is not a weird experience…

    • Reply hipstercrite December 14, 2012 at 11:47 am

      Evan! Awww…man! Thanks for sharing YOUR comment! Why are you away from your family this year?

  • Reply Lady Jennie December 13, 2012 at 12:21 pm

    You relive your childhood when you have your own kids.

    I’m from Syracuse, and now I live veeery far away from home. It’s hard not to be there for aging parents (and thank goodness my parents are still pretty young and hip).

    To make things more complicated, nearly all of my family has moved and scattered over the US so that when we visit once every two years, we find ourselves with a very busy schedule.

    And upstate NY is COLD! I remember when I used to live in Asia and could come home. I needed to wear sweaters even in the summer. Forget those brutal winters!

    • Reply hipstercrite December 14, 2012 at 11:46 am

      Hi Lady Jennie! Thanks for stopping by! France is VERY far away! I can’t imagine living in another country! Good for you. I would be way too chicken. I’m from Cortland- about 30 miles away from Syracuse. I know Syracuse well. Man, I do not miss the winters there…

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