Based on the song 'tis the damn season by Taylor Swift. This chapter has lyrics from the song Lavender Haze.
The holidays are an insane combination of joy, excitement, stress, and exhaustion. As children, the build-up is huge, you're bombarded with ads, videos, movies, and TV specials about it being the most wonderful time of the year. Kids are trying to be on their best behavior while everything in their day-to-day routine is thrown out the window and they're filled with sugar at every turn. Parents, generally moms, are overwhelmed with all the additional work, and that's all just in the weeks leading up to the big day. Christmas Day finally arrives and then there's the aftermath, the letdown, the sugar crash, the additional five lbs gained, and the reality of the awaiting credit card bills. I wasn't aware of any of it as a kid, or even as an adult until my sister and Mary Lou had children. They talked about the unrealistic expectations put on moms during the holiday season. They were trying to manage their day-to-day responsibilities of work and family, but adding in the responsibility of having to: shop, wrap, bake, decorate, write Christmas cards, and do it all without screaming. Things like cookie decorating, arts and crafts, or other things they tried to do as a family were stressful. They were taking time out to try and make special memories together and it usually ended in the kids fighting, a big mess for them to clean up, and the urge to yell, "Stop being assholes! This is supposed to be fun!"
They both told me that even sending the kids to school in the week before the holiday break had become ridiculous. As if it wasn't hard enough for the teachers to try and keep kids focused on learning amid the simmering excitement for Christmas Vacation, the school added dress-up days. Each day kids were encouraged to dress according to the day's theme: Grinch Day, Ugly Sweater Day, Holiday Hat/Headwear Day, Crazy Christmas Hair Day, and Polar Express/Christmas Pajama Day. It was exhausting. Last year Angie lost a chunk of hair after Val had tried to style it like Cindy Lou Who, the teasing and hairspray resulting in a giant knot. Most of all Mary Lou resented that by default, she was in charge of Christmas and birthdays, Father's Day, and sometimes even Mother's Day. She had to do all the shopping, wrapping, meal planning, and play hostess to Lenny's whole family and he seemed oblivious to all of it. One year, when the kids were ready to open presents Lenny leaned over and asked her what they'd gotten the boys for Christmas. She responded with a straight face, "I didn't get them anything, didn't you get them something?" After that, she said he was more involved in the planning and even did some Christmas shopping. When he saw how expensive everything was he also quit bitching about how much money she spent. After hearing all of that, I had a little more appreciation for my mom's hard work, but there were still things I resented about how she managed the holidays, mainly how she handled me.
That's not to say I don't have great memories of Christmas as a kid. I do. But that doesn't mean it was always perfect. I always enjoyed the build-up, and the things we did before Christmas Day more. I loved the giving, the making, the doing. That's where I found the magic of Christmas. Val and I were kids in the days before streaming services, we grew up in the era of VHS tapes, DVDs, and Blockbuster. There were only a handful of holiday specials, they only aired once during the season. It was a big deal, like the Superbowl or the season finale of a tv show, there was no pausing anything or watching it later. Some people would record shows and movies on VHS tapes, but in our house, we were lucky to figure out how to play a tape and find the remote. If you had to go to the bathroom you ran like hell during a commercial break and raced back to your seat on the couch like it was an Olympic sport. Those nights, watching Rudolf, Frosty the Snowman, and Charlie Brown Christmas were some of my favorites of the whole season.
Like most everything else around the house, Christmas was my mom's domain. There were a few exceptions of course. Since it was an outside chore, my dad was in charge of hanging the lights on the house, and he did it grumbling, bitching, and cursing the entire time. This was the era of actual light bulbs, not LED lights, icicle lights, things you could program, or television shows showcasing family displays you could see from space. Each year my dad would have to wait until after Thanksgiving to hang the lights because that was the unspoken rule. In the days before global warming, it was cold in Jersey that time of year. He'd haul the cardboard boxes of lights and decorations out of the garage, the cold Jersey air making his breath come out in small clouds. Inevitably he'd open the box to find a tangled mess. Burg etiquette also declared that lights had to be taken down just after New Year's Day. Early January in Trenton was even colder than November, so he'd open the boxes in the Fall and be reminded of how he'd hurriedly taken down the strands of lights eleven months before and shoved them haphazardly into the box amid more cursing. Lack of planning is a trait I obviously inherited from my father.
Helping my dad with the lights was a job that fell to me. I never minded, it was rare for me to have time alone with him and that made it special, plus it's where I learned some of my favorite Italian phrases, much to my mother's chagrin. I'd follow Daddy around the yard, handing him strands of lights as he stood on the ladder, tested for burnt-out bulbs, and best of all, arranged the lawn decorations. The Burg never heard of the adage, less is more, in our neighborhood, more is more. In addition to the house needing Christmas decorations, inside and out, the space between the house and the street couldn't be neglected. Being good Catholics we of course had a nativity scene. They were plastic, painted figures, the largest ones about 2 feet tall. They all also needed to be plugged in and lit up. How the whole house didn't go up in flames, I don't know. Between the cords for the lights on the house and the lawn decorations, my dad had constructed what I remember as a braid of extension cords that would set the whole neighborhood on fire if one of the wires shorted out. He was a postman, not an electrical engineer. Not that I mentioned my concerns to him.
In the winter months, competition with the neighbors changed from who had the greenest lawn to whose Christmas display was best. Bowing to peer pressure, my dad at some point added a set of painted plywood decorations, Santa and Frosty the Snowman, and a Christmas tree, the scene lit by a small spotlight on a timer. Of course, they needed to be set a respectable distance from the Nativity. It wouldn't do to have Santa and Frosty crashing the birth of Baby Jesus. Competition intensified as the years went by, more and more decorations appeared on our block, and everyone tried to be a trendsetter and one-up each other. As I got older I noticed how bizarre some of them were, as well as unintentionally inappropriate. Mr. Mancini was the first to have artistic silhouettes made of white wire and lights, the aesthetic was beautiful, but it was ruined by the unfortunate placement of a reindeer right in front of Santa, the animal with his head turned and looking back at the big jolly man, appearing to be alarmed with what Santa was doing so close to his hind quarters. Joe's Grandma Bella was extremely proud of her angel choir figurines, each holding a long phallic-shaped taper candle, eyes closed, mouths open. While I assume the intention was for them to appear to be singing, unfortunately, the effect brought to mind something much less holy. Grandma Mazur's favorite was the year Gladyis Dobrowski wanted to show off that she and her husband were headed to Florida for the winter, one of the first in town to be able to afford a condo in Boca Raton. In an effort to rub it in, she placed plastic palm trees in her front yard and wrapped them in Christmas lights. While beautiful during the day, the only thing anyone could see at night was three lit penises ejaculating on the lawn. In recent years my parents have relaxed a bit, the only holiday lights are the electric candles that shine through the front windows inside face plastic wreaths and the lone lawn decoration is a four-foot inflatable snowman I bought for my dad a few years ago.
The tree was also Dad's responsibility. We would all pile in the car and drive to whatever local store had cut Christmas trees for sale in the parking lot. What should have been relatively painless instead took over an hour while my mother poured over every tree, finally choosing what she deemed the perfect one, the right size and with the right kind of needles. Since the trees were already wrapped up there were often unfortunate surprises when we got them home, they were crooked, had odd bare spots, or were extremely dried out. Now it's more of a tradition for families to get in the car, drive to a tree farm, pick out a tree, and cut it down themselves. Valerie's family did that once. Two years ago they loaded in the van and drove to a tree farm in Pennsylvania. My brother-in-law Albert was not the handiest of guys, so Val ended up with the saw. Since she was short though, he was tasked with tying it to the top of the van for transport. A Boy Scout he was not, because halfway back to Trenton the knots came loose and the tree started to slide off the roof. It was too windy for them to get it back in place, so finally they shuffled car seats around and shoved it in the van with the kids. While they all survived the episode, Val did get a call from Mary Alice's teacher on Monday who was concerned about the tall tale she'd told everyone about her weekend. Valerie had to explain to the teacher that it was all true. That year she and I went out on the day after Christmas and bought an artificial tree they've used ever since.
My mom loved decorating the tree and always had a theme, changing it every few years. When I was very young she decided to forgo traditional ornaments and made everything on the tree herself: Garlands made of popcorn and cranberries, ornaments of dried apple slices, and orange slices that looked like stained glass. She'd been the proudest of the gingerbread boys and girls and sugar cookie angels covered in giant sugar crystals. While she had to remake the garland each year, she'd baked the cookies a little longer than usual to make them sturdier and could use them for several years. I was four years old the last year she used them. As she was taking down the tree and packing up decorations she found several cookies from the back of the tree that had bites out of them. Oops. While she wasn't pleased at first, when she tells the story now, she can laugh about it. The part that she found funniest was the cookie that had two bites out of it. She said she could understand a preschooler taking a bite out of a cookie, but what baffled her was me taking a second bite out of a three-year-old cookie. Unfortunately my mom not understanding me has been a theme that carried through my whole life.
It wasn't that I didn't love the big day itself, Christmas morning was one of my best memories with my sister. Val and I weren't close for the most part, we always had different interests, friends, and tastes, but mainly the issue boiled down to the fact she was perfect in my mom's eyes, and I wasn't. I was told constantly I was supposed to follow in her footsteps but I always wanted to create my own path. Eventually, I started to resent her for it. We talked about it one night before I left. After several big-boy margaritas at Don Julio's, I spilled my guts and told Val how growing up, I felt like I could never measure up to her, to the Burg standards, to all that 1950s shit they wanted from me. I told her the reason I married Dickie, the red flags I ignored because, for the first time, Mom was proud of me. I cried and felt extremely guilty when I told her the petty part of me was glad when she got divorced because it meant she was a mere mortal. We hugged it out and then it was Val's turn to blubber on. She told me about her anxiety growing up, everything she did was to make Mom happy. She enjoyed cooking and baking, but she was petrified of screwing something up and disappointing Mom. It's why she got straight As and was an officer in half the clubs in high school. I nearly fell out of the booth when she told me she had been jealous of me. She wanted to be able to say screw it and do her own thing, and being an introvert, she envied how easy it was for me to make friends. So I guess the tequila and feelings weren't all bad because it helped us finally be honest with each other. Our relationship is stronger than ever now. I wish we'd talked sooner about everything, but that was not the Plum way. Val was trying to break that cycle with her girls, and I needed to learn to do it with myself.
Christmas morning was the best memory because it was the one time a year Valerie broke the rules. I broke the rules all the time, but not Val. But one night a year we were partners in crime, and we'd sneak downstairs to see what Santa had left for us before waking our parents. Val loved the holidays and was too excited to wait and it overrode her internal drive to follow the rules. That's not to say I wasn't excited, but I went down early for another reason. I needed to see what Santa brought me so I could prepare myself mentally to be excited when my parents were in the room. Christmas morning wasn't always as joyful for me as it was for my sister. I doubted Santa's existence much earlier than my classmates or even Valerie, mainly because he never brought me what I wanted. When we were in elementary school, Val and I would sit at the kitchen table after school and write our letters to Santa while mom worked on dinner. We'd pour over the Sears and JCPenney catalogs and local store flyers that came in the mail. I always asked Val for help when making my list, especially with spelling. Mom would overhear what I was asking for and would butt in, trying to convince me to ask for things that were more acceptable for a little girl in the Burg. If I wanted to ask for a superhero cape, she'd twist the idea until it was a hooded cape and princess dress. A G.I. Joe doll would end up as Ken, who of course, came with a Barbie. She never said no outright, but she reasoned, cajoled, and distracted me until I thought I wanted something closer to what she wanted. Thinking about it now, it was similar to how Joe treated me. I guess that's another slide to add to the PowerPoint for my therapist.
It wasn't until I was older that I recognized what she was doing or why I felt let down on Christmas morning. I was getting what was on my list, but it wasn't what I wanted. So I tried to find ways to fix the problem. Santa always fell into the same general category as God for me, a big dude with white hair and a beard, watching my every move. We were taught you could talk to God and he'd know what was in your heart. So when I'd say my prayers before bed, I'd add a little message to Santa, telling him what I really wanted for Christmas. After that didn't work, I decided the problem was that he had my original request in writing, which overruled anything I had asked for in my mental messages. I tried writing a second letter but worried it wouldn't get to him since I didn't have his address other than the North Pole and no stamps. So I figured I would take it directly to the big man himself. Visiting Santa at Quakerbridge Mall was also a tradition for the Plums. We'd go on a weekday after school the first week in December. Not only did we get to see Santa, but when my grandparents came along Grandpa Mazur would buy Val and me cookies from Cookies & More in the mall. Mom refused to buy them because she always had freshly baked cookies at home, which was true, but she didn't make a Cookie Monster cookie covered with nearly a full cup of blue buttercream icing and googly eye candies on it. Yum!
When I was in 4th grade, I tried a new tactic. Since Santa didn't seem to have telepathy, I decided not to tell my mom what I wanted for Christmas and just wrote down whatever she thought I should want. When it was my turn to see Santa, I ignored the smell of cigarettes and beer that surrounded him and told him what I wanted. I took time to explain that he should ignore the letter my mom mailed him and to bring me a Wonder Woman doll, the very same one I'd gotten in a fight over at the Toys For Tots event the year before. He seemed to only vaguely focus on my request before the elf took our picture and I was hurried off to make room for the next child. I was sure I'd finally figured out how to get what I wanted for Christmas. But when I ran downstairs in the early morning hours finding a Just Like Me Doll that looked like a miniature Stephanie, complete with blue eyes and curly hair. I nearly cried. Val was hot on my heels and thrilled with her Betty Crocker Junior cookbook, new apron, and teddy bear-shaped cake pan, too engrossed with her haul to notice I was upset. Luckily, we heard my parents moving around upstairs so we hurried back to our rooms, she was delighted and I was heartbroken.
When my parents were fully awake, we all trooped down the stairs together as usual. In the Plum household, Santa Claus didn't wrap presents. I thought it was so our parents could see our immediate reaction, my sister, after having three children of her own said Mom was probably too tired to wrap anything else. When we hit the living room Valerie went squealing, running over to her pile of new culinary tools as if she hadn't discovered them just a few minutes ago. I dragged my feet over to my new mini-me and tried to come up with some enthusiasm for the doll, the little trunk, and the wardrobe she came with. I loved clothes, but these were replicas of things my mom wanted me to wear, not what I wanted to wear, all frilly dresses and aprons, no jeans or t-shirts. While Val was raving about her plans for dinners and desserts she wanted to bake I mumbled a few words about the damn doll. My sister and mom were already busy meal planning, and my dad came to check on me.
Even though I tried to hide my disappointment, I knew he saw it. I didn't want to be ungrateful. We were taught to appreciate what we had and how lucky we were. At Halloween, we had little cardboard boxes we filled with coins for UNICEF. I had to eat everything on my plate at dinner because there were starving children in the world. After seeing a commercial on TV, Val and I convinced my parents that we should sponsor a child in need through Save the Children. We sent money and letters, receiving letters in return. So I knew some children didn't get presents from Santa or have a home for him to deliver them to, or a nice Christmas dinner. But it didn't change the fact that I was still just a kid and confused and disappointed. Santa and Christmas were supposed to be about having your wishes come true and it felt like once again, no one cared about what I wanted. Holding back the tears, I knew lying to my dad wouldn't go over well, so I didn't say anything. He sat down next to me on the carpet, right in front of the tree, hugging me and dropping a kiss on top of my head. I looked up at him with big watery eyes and tried to keep the tears from falling. He nudged my shoulder and tilted his head towards the pile of wrapped presents under the tree. "What's that over there?" he asked. I turned to try and see where he was looking, grateful for the distraction, but I didn't see what he meant. He pointed, "Behind that big green box with the red bow, what's that sticking out?" My eyes zeroed in on what he was pointing at, I spotted it my heart started fluttering. I couldn't speak. I just looked at him wide-eyed. He smiled and said, "Looks like one of the elves was in a hurry and dropped that in the wrong spot." I scrambled to my knees and crawled to it, pulling free the light blue box with the clear plastic window. Looking back at me was the Linda Carter Wonder Woman doll I'd asked for last year, but received the ill-fated Easy Bake Oven instead. I hugged her to my chest and the tears started for real this time. Dad hugged me tight, set me in his lap, and took the box from me, carefully opening it, and freeing my doll and all of her tiny accessories. At my squeal of delight, Mom looked up from her planning with Val, surprise visible on her face. I couldn't see the look my dad gave her from where I sat, but her face flushed with embarrassment and she ducked her head back down to talk with my sister. That year renewed my belief in Santa Claus again and solidified my belief in my dad.
Christmas morning as a kid is great; the excitement, the joy, the wonder, waking up at an insane hour to see what Santa brought you. There's also something to be said about Christmas morning as a single, childless adult. For example, sleeping in and having a steaming mug of coffee with one of my mom's cinnamon rolls is also pretty great. Now that I was a grownup there was no visit from Santa, but things were more relaxed. Valerie's family came over and we had our traditional Christmas dinner at noon. As usual, the meal was fabulous and I ate more in one sitting than I usually ate all day. I considered going up to see if I had any stretchy pants in the closet. The whole meal was unusually peaceful, no one cried, screamed, or threw food which I think was a first. It was just another reminder of how the kids had grown, changed, and matured while I was away.
After dinner, we all gathered in the living room around the tree to exchange gifts. Most of the gifts I gave this year were experiences: gift certificates for gymnastics classes for my nieces, spa packages for Mom and Grandma, a chance for Albert to try TopGolf, and for Dad a spot at the cigar bar's Scotch Library tasting event. Moving across the country reinforced for me the fact that we all had too much stuff and no one needed any more. Besides, these gifts fit pretty easily in my suitcase. Shopping was especially nice this year because for the first time since I divorced Dickie, I could afford nice gifts. I know it's not about the money and it's the thought that counts, but I was proud of myself. My new job paid better than any I'd ever had. While the cost of living was higher in California, it was just me. I had a cute but small one-bedroom apartment and a late model, new-to-me hybrid, compact car. With my luck in recent years, my cars and apartment getting firebombed multiple times, I'd learned to live without lots of things. So when I moved out west, I purchased basic furniture from IKEA. I had work clothes and casual/comfy clothes. I didn't go out much so I'd accumulated a nice little nest egg and was financially stable for the first time. Maybe I hadn't been successful in moving on from my hopes of a relationship with Ranger, but other parts of my life had changed for the better.
After everything was opened and the kids started to get a little whiny, Val and Albert packed them up and headed home. I tried to help my mom clean up, but she shooed me up the stairs, telling me I needed to nap, worried the jet lag was still affecting me. I wasn't going to argue, a nap sounded great. Changing into the comfy, soft gray lounge set Valerie's family had given me, I crawled back under the covers. As far as Christmases went, this was a pretty good one. Strangely, there were no probing questions about my love life or complaints about living so far away. The children were all well behaved and my sister was able to relax and enjoy herself. Grandma had even been more subdued, with no gifts purchased from Treasure Pleasures or Fredericks of Hollywood. While I enjoyed not being mortified while opening the latest in self-pleasuring electronics in front of everyone, I was still worried about her. I tried to distract myself from those thoughts and settled into a nice nap, hoping for sweet dreams, but just like Christmases in my early childhood, I didn't get what I wished for.
As I pulled into the Rangeman underground garage at 3:55 pm on Christmas, I told myself this was a good thing, but I didn't believe it. I was leaving in less than a week and since I was here anyway, I could leave my Rangeman gear in my cubicle and avoid any awkwardness around resigning from the job I sometimes/kind of/sort of had later in the week. I knew it was cowardly, but I didn't know what to say to anyone, and I was afraid they might convince me to stay so I wanted to wait until the last minute.
I'd planned on spending tonight sorting through my closet, separating clothes into piles to take, things to put in storage, and bags to donate or throw away. But, just as I was leaving my parent's house after Christmas dinner I got a call from Tank asking if I could cover a shift tonight from 4:00 pm-midnight with Bobby on monitors. He'd been visiting his mom in Atlanta and his flight had first been delayed and had just been canceled due to the weather. Tank, well, all the Rangeman had always been good to me, they were like the big brothers I never had. I felt guilty that I was leaving and hadn't told any of them yet. I had no idea what to say or what they did or didn't know about what happened between Ranger and me. Ranger wasn't big on sharing information, but they were smart guys, trained to notice things, so I assumed they knew something had gone wrong. I told Tank I'd be happy to hang out with Bobby and headed home to change my clothes.
Due to the current status of my and Ranger's non-relationship, I had no reason to see him. Catching occasional glimpses of him confirmed what I already knew, he was as miserable as I was, which just solidified that I needed to leave, it would be best for both of us. While in the past I'd volunteered to help at the office or on patrol, Ranger hadn't asked me to pick up any shifts this year, for obvious reasons. We hadn't seen much of each other in a while, except for him showing up at my apartment every so often in the middle of the night, to fight and fuck me silly, not always in that order. I'd worked on a big case the FBI had contracted with Rangeman which wrapped up a few weeks ago. While we'd successfully closed the case, the experience drove the wedge between Ranger and me even deeper. I'd seen him every so often during the day in passing, but we hadn't spoken since he walked out of my apartment fifteen days ago, not that I was counting. The winter months were always slower with bonds, which was probably another reason Ranger had always offered me shifts at Christmas, knowing I needed the cash. Rangeman paid holiday pay for any shifts on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day. But this year, with the money I'd earned from the FBI case I wasn't desperate and had been spending my time packing and making arrangements for my move to California. The only people who knew so far were Hector and my immediate family, and I'd sworn them to secrecy.
Stepping off the elevator I turned towards the control room and stopped dead in my tracks. Through the glass wall, I could see it wasn't Bobby watching monitors. It was Ranger. Shit. Maybe he was just checking in? I'd thought I'd be safe, he usually worked Christmas morning and then headed up to his parents' house in Newark for dinner. Judging by the way he was dressed, I'd guess that's where he was headed. He looked completely edible, wearing a black cashmere sweater and charcoal dress pants, not his Rangeman cargos and combat boots, his gorgeous hair hanging loosely around his shoulders. His clothes did nothing to soften the hard edge, the aura of power that surrounded him, signaling to everyone he was the boss. I tried to suppress the bolt of lust that shot through me but was only moderately successful. Forcing myself to keep walking, I considered likely scenarios to explain his presence, he must be covering for Bobby who was in the bathroom or running late. Please let either of those be the case. I told myself I could handle seeing him for a few minutes, I could be in the same room with him alone for that amount of time and we would both remain completely clothed and there wouldn't be any yelling. The idea that he and I might have to spend the next eight hours together, just the two of us, was too much to even contemplate. I pulled up my proverbial big girl panties and gave myself a pep talk: I could do this, I was a grown-ass woman, and I wasn't going to let him see I was uncomfortable. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. If he refused to show emotion, then I could do the same. I think. I hope. As I opened the door and stepped in Ranger didn't even turn to look at me before he barked out, "About fucking time…" He stopped short realizing I was about 11 inches too short, 100 lbs too light, and didn't have nearly enough melanin to be his second in command. If I was surprised to see him, my feelings paled compared to the shock on his face.