Christmas: Santa

Christmas: Santa

We remember that moment when you stopped believing. That was a really shitty moment.

Parents all say that Santa is about generosity and devotion and love and such, but really, it is about that moment when the kids see something given to them for no reason by something that they is absolutely no explanation for. Kids believe in magic. Adults do not. Santa is magic, and he makes kids go crazy. Parents play along for that moment of utter bliss in their child’s face. It’s the opposite of present face. Its blissful unaware joy.

And yes its materialistic as all hell, but it still really cute to watch.

I also have to give Santa credit for being a character who gives away things to people he doesn’t know at all for no other reason than he is Santa and they are children. I suppose there is an idea that children will look at with a bit of hope for good things in the world. There is something undeniably nice about Santa because of this. Love for all. Its a bit Socialist, maybe. Anyway, regardless, kids never really understand the "love and generosity and devotion" that exist as surely as Santa does, but man do they get excited! Santa is awesome for the power he holds over children. He's not a good teaching tool, and he's not much of anything except super fun for the kiddies. And you know, what? I think that's enough.

And remember I am a cantankerous 24-year-old who has been described as having a black soul. I might not be the best person to talk about the jolly man but, props where props are do, and wow, what a way to make kids happy. Want to read something a little bit more blindly cheery about the big ol’ guy? Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus.


And as a side note, a fun related read from the Wall Street Journal:

"70% of 3-year-olds reported that Santa Claus was real, while 78% believed in the garbage man"

Christmas: Tradition

Christmas: Tradition

Traaaadition! Tradition!
Doo doo doo doo doo
TRADITION!

The song being in and of itself a tradition in the Treviño-Bradshaw household (imagine my father doing “The Fat Guy Dance” that Topol is so polite to show us in the barn with his rendition of If I Were a Rich Man)

But old Broadway references aside, tradition makes us a part of something larger. We do things without complete logic behind it, year after year just like our parents, grandparents, great-grandparents have done. When you follow a tradition, you become a piece in a puzzle that is infinitely larger than you. It can span decades or only the next few years. We do things not because we have to, but because we feel that we are supposed to, and we fall into a long sometimes tedious path of what has been done in the past.

Christmas is filled with tradition. From sitting around in the kitchen with a giant pile of masa in front of us as we make tamales, to stringing cranberries to decorate the tree, the annual ceremony rumbles on. And even though we sometimes might feel caught up in it like a giant wheel unable to claw your way free, there is always a moment that you step back and assess the havoc around you and smile. Every year you can count on the fight over stuffing, every year you can count on the ornaments to be a little bit heavier placed on Dave's side of the tree, every year there is a fight amongst the adults on who has to wear the Santa hat, a distinction that long ago was fought you got to wear it among the same people.

You might grimace at the old stockings, still hung but never filled. You might roll your eyes at the eating of the sweets behind eat door of the Christmas calender as the days pass. But then you slip into it, oftentimes against your grumpy attitude, and like an old robe, it brings comfort and joy. There is an undying sense of security that you when the whole world changes and acts differently from year to year, at least in December, you can find solace in the fruitcake or the tamales or the family singing carols and sitting around the living room. Tradition is a solid thing to hold onto when everything changes. Its one of the reasons that we enjoy Christmas. Year after year when the world is turning dark and cold, we light it up and sing and eat and be merry.

Ah, tradition. Tradition!

Christmas: Giant Decorations for Your Front Yard

Christmas: Giant Decorations for Your Front Yard

Now, to be honest, I hate these horrors. I think they look tacky and weird and usually have nothing to do with Christ or the actual reason for the celebration. But this is also one of the reasons I love them.

For example:

The flying pig



Cactus



The flamingo



And of course, the ever festive:

Spongebob Squarepants



(This is the only picture that isn’t mine. I do have one of the not so elusive Mr. Squarepants but my computer seems to have forgotten it has a DVD drive and won’t let me find it.)



All bizarre. I just don’t understand. I hope that were I to sit down with people who decorate like this, I might be able to comprehend some (but never all) of the reasons for such atrocities.

If nothing else, its always fun to watch an inflatable Santa that has blown over, or a snowman that is only half filled with air and it slumps over on the lawn like your favorite drunk uncle at the end of the holiday, or walking past the little piles they leave behind in the morning when the blowers have been turned off and all that is left is a puddle reminiscent of the remains of the Wicked Witch of the West left for the neighborhood children to walk by and wonder what strange demon prowled the streets last night killing all of the ridiculous horrid lawn decorations during the night.

Or to just imagine what made some think that this was a legitimate way to celebrate the birth of our Lord and Savior.

Christmas: The Tree

Backdating a bit. Timeliness has never been my strong point.

Christmas: The Tree

Our family had a plastic tree forever. One Christmas when I was in middle school we bought a real tree and I found it horrifying. I couldn’t stand the idea of watching a majestic tree die in our living room. A beautiful tree that could have lived on for, at least, decades more had we not interfered.

So we had an old musty tree that we would take down from the attic every year. And every year Daddy would stand on the stairs holding the box and gently shake the tree out of the box into my mother’s waiting arms with a big puff of matter flying off into the air. The smell of slightly heat toasted plastic, dust, and fiberglass always remind me of the holidays.

Christmas trees continue to fall into the special place of odd traditions. When you think about it, chopping down a tree, dragging it inside, decorating it with flammable things and candles, sounds like a tradition that should have stopped very soon after the first house was burnt to black ashes. But, it wasn’t. Perhaps people were better at fire safety back then, or perhaps people were appreciative onf the warmth the burning house gave off in the frozen German winters. Regardless, the Tannenbaum is a beautiful and sparkly Christmas tradition.

I have firm beliefs when it comes to trees:

1) Only colored lights. All white lights are depressing unless they twinkle, and even then, eh. .
2) When all your ornaments match in a perfect colored coordinated way, it is just as depressing if not more than having non-twinkle clear lights.


Why?


Well, because this is how the Bradshaw family tree always was decorated.

Hanging ornaments was always like looking through old chests and photo albums. You uncover the glitter covered cardboard ornament you “made” when you were four. Your first grade picture that had been fitted into the old lid of a lace decorated jam jar lid. The ballerina ornament you got when you were twelve that is glued back together from when you threw it at your sister. Christmas ornaments are like a time capsule. You remember and you reminisce and it’s great. Its one of the reason that I never find decorating the tree a chore, and I hate to do it alone. It’s a celebration of all Christmas’s past, and if all the ornaments on your tree match perfectly the décor that you decided this tree then you are missing something that the big box of colorful mismatched ornaments hold. And I feel a bit sorry for you.

So if you find yourself in that situation, go to Michael’s or Target or the local Christmas fair at your church or city square or anywhere, and buy something that will mark this year to you, the year that you started to make your Christmas tree and fascinating storyteller and not just a pretty thing that sits in the corner and catches fire.

Christmas: Peeking at Gifts

Day Two!


Christmas: Peeking at Gifts

My sister, P, and I would always exchange gifts on Christmas Eve. These were the “special” gifts that we gave each other that were allowed to be opened the night before. We would sit on the brick in front of the fireplace, still dandied up from Mass, grasping at our gifts. I vividly remember waiting every time this occurred. It is very possible we never really waited, I was little ten minutes to a six-year-old is an easy percentage of their life.

One year as I was grasping the box that was just the right size for a Barbie, I nicked the edge of the wrapping. The nick was small—there was no noticeable tear, just the corner of the corner bared. The tear looking very similar to what might happen if the package had been carried around for a long time and had just worn through. And what did I find under that mighty tiny tear? Bright toxic Barbie pink.
I got a Barbie. Sissy bought me a Barbie! There was a moment of such elation, even though I didn’t have a clue what kind of Barbie it was, or if it was a girl or boy; I was just ecstatic to realize it was a Barbie.

Hours later (it seemed), Mama and Daddy came over and we unwrapped them, and I’m sure it was awesome. I just don’t remember it, but I do remember that first flash of hot joy when I glanced at the trademarked color. Ooo Barbie!

Oddities of Oddities

Its snowing in Texas y'all! Now, this isn't as rare as many people may think. North Texas gets snow. It does. It gets cold, not Chicago-cold, but it stays in the 30s-40s for a few weeks.

But today, I wake up, and its early and cold, so I spend thirty minutes in bed with a book. I get up to take a shower but decide to check my e-mail first. I quick jump to Facebook, and everyone is raving about snow. Snow?!? Snow. I open the blinds in my bedroom, and there sifting gracefully down from the heavens is the white magical powder: Snow!

See?



From inside my house:



Beautiful.

Granted as soon as it stopped snowing, I could hear the drip drip drip of the snow melting off of the neighbor's house. Within an hour, it was all gone and it was like it never actually occured.

Christmas: Lights

After watching many of my writer friends rockstar through NanoWriMo on Facebook, I though it would be a good time to rededicate myself to writing on a schedule. So, in honor of the season: Christmas Things!*


Christmas: Lights
I am a firm believer in the illusion of magic. Making the choice to suspend belief is one of the most delightful things about life. Its essential to theatre, the movies, and most art. Its also can get lumped into the general category of “Things That are Fun to Do.”

Let’s pretend that we are spies as we shop in Wal-mart.

Let’s decide that all the grey tiles are lava and you can’t walk on them.

Let’s act like we are at least ten years younger than our actual age so we can do that above things without being weird adults who should know better.

Its fun. Its silly. Its magical. Christmas lights have some of that magic in them. It’s the twinkle and glitter. The fact that they are so bright and cheery against the cold. The oddity of having orbs of light bedecking your house.

I’ve always viewed Christmas lights with an awe that is similar to stargazing. The stars twinkle and explode forever in time and space as far as you are concerned with your relatively short life. Stars can be explained scientifically. According to physics, we know what they are, what they are made of, how the light travels from them, but everything about a star, a far away star, the stars that we only see as brief pin pricks of light, is not something that we can easily understand. The science behind them could be pure magic, and the lay people would have no recourse. Shooting stars are something from very far away reaching out to us. Stars are by definition, the past looking us in the face. There magic is inherent in their existence.

Christmas lights contain the same magic and not just due to the obvious similarities in appearance. The awe, the wonder, the oohs and ahhs and laughs you get as you gaze at the inflatable Santas and Jesui that are half melted when the blowers go out. All of these things just inherently make you joyful. Dazzle your eyes and amaze you just a bit more than anything else you’ve seen that day.

They are ridiculous and odd and beautiful and (oooh!) shiny and magic.






PS I was wanting to include a song with every post (being as Christmas music brings joy) but my computer’s sound is on the fritz, so I will have to update with songs when I’m on a different compy.

*This might also unabashedly been inspired by 1000 Awesome Things which you should go and read immediately because its, well, AWESOME.