Rosalie's Gift to the Anti-Magi

December has been a very emotionally difficult month for me.   Even under normal circumstances, Christmas has never been my happiest time—the dark winter days, the crushes of people everywhere, the incessant, crappy/sappy Christmas music, and the generally increased noise level make me crazy.  I know—I sound like The Grinch.  Maybe that’s why he’s my favorite Christmas cartoon character.

This year, though, in addition to all the above stressors, every single Christmas-related thing I see reminds me that either: 1) my husband is no longer here; 2) my mother is no longer here; or 3) neither my husband nor my mother is here.  Lights?  Bunny loved them.  Angels? My mother collected them.  You see how it goes.  I don’t set out to make these mental connections—they come, unbidden, before I can stop them. 

I’m sure it doesn’t help that the first anniversaries of their deaths are just around the corner.  Even if I’d been able to get past the stockings, there’s no way I could have put up a tree.  I don’t know about your ornaments, but I can tell the story behind every one of mine, and nearly every one of those stories involves my husband or my mother.

So, I’ve stayed away from malls.  On the few trips I’ve made to Walmart and Target in the last month, I’ve left crying like a baby.  Not only do the trappings of Christmas spark these flashbacks, but seeing people shopping with their spouses or mothers, happily arguing about what presents they’re buying, or what they’re cooking, or where they’re going remind me of the suddenly empty spots in my own family.   Then I feel guilty for being such a whiner, because I’m so blessed compared to others, like the families of the shooting victims in Connecticut.  Then I feel sad for the people I feel guilty about.  It’s a vicious, emotionally exhausting cycle.

After these incidents, I retreat back to my Christmas-decoration-free nest to regain my emotional balance.   Celebrating Hanukah rather than Christmas this year was one of the smartest things I ever did.  The cats and I liked Hanukah so much that we’re going to celebrate both holidays from here on out. I still wished Jesus a Happy Birthday when I woke up this morning, and since He’s the “reason for the season,” I’m sure He didn’t mind that my house isn’t decorated with a bunch of glittery, twinkly stuff.   It’s the thought that counts. 

Thinking back, the one place I can truly say I enjoyed December was at my grandparents’ house.  They lived right next door, so we went there every afternoon after school.  My grandmother always had some snack waiting for us, usually hot from the oven.  About two weeks before Christmas, my Great-Great Aunt Renie would bring my grandfather the best coconut cake in the world, and he’d tease us with it for days before he finally cut into it.  Unfortunately, she took the recipe with her to the grave, and I haven’t even been able to come close to it since then, despite years of trying.

One of the very best things for a kid in December, though, was presents.   Every year, my grandparents did something that drove my mother nuts: they let us open presents throughout the month.   That was my grandfather’s doing, and he had a story to rationalize his behavior.  Once upon a time, he had a little sister, Rosalie, who wanted nothing more than a doll for Christmas.  His parents got the doll and were saving it for Christmas, but Rosalie got sick and died suddenly, just before Christmas.  His parents always regretted not giving Rosalie the doll before Christmas.

So, no stockpiles of presents from our grandparents on Christmas Day: we’d opened the majority of them long before.    In my step-father’s family, we opened everything on Christmas Eve, during the annual family get-togethers, but when Bunny and I set up our household, we decided that we’d open presents on Christmas Day.  As compatible as Bunny and I were, there was one area where we always failed spectacularly: gift-giving.  For years, I’d buy him Christmas or birthday gifts, sure that I’d found just the perfect thing, only to be met with his half-hearted attempt at excitement.  For his part, Bunny would sometimes try to get something he thought I’d really like, but other times he didn’t try at all.

For example, one Christmas, I opened my sole gift from him to find a wallet.  Not a fancy designer wallet, either—a plain, black wallet he’d gotten at Brookstone.  I already had a wallet.  I don’t remember what hints I’d dropped that year, but I could have printed them on bricks and chucked them at his head and he still wouldn’t have gotten them.

“It’s…a…wallet.” I said, the picture of underwhelmed.    Even Bunny, a master of BS, couldn’t sell me on how much thought he’d put into this gift.  For years after, the wallet was the bottom of the scale by which all other gifts were measured.   

“Hey,” one of us would say to the other.  “At least it’s better than a wallet.”

Finally, around year 17, I suggested we each stop wasting money on gifts the other wouldn’t appreciate.  He didn’t argue.

“We’re like the Anti-Magi,” he agreed, referring to the O. Henry short story, The Gift of the Magi.    So, from then until last year, we would buy our own gifts, wrap them, and put them under the tree.  On Christmas morning, we were sure to open something that we really wanted.

Suddenly, last October, he announced that he wanted to go back to the old way of gift-giving.   I had a moment of panic, but agreed, because I knew it would likely be his last Christmas.   One of the first things I got him was a St. Peregrine medal.  St. Peregrine is the patron saint of cancer patients, and with Bunny’s newfound embrace of Catholicism, I figured it was a winner.  Not so much—it’s still in its box, undisturbed after he opened it Christmas day.

I scored a victory with the big present, though.  Toward the end of the summer, I’d gotten an iPad. Bunny, figuring apps weren’t that important, got another, less expensive, tablet for himself.  Within a week, he was coveting my iPad.   Soon, he was borrowing it to take with him on days when he had chemo or blood transfusions.   

When he changed up the Christmas rules on me, I knew the perfect gift.   I bought Bunny’s iPad just before Thanksgiving.  Then, with Rosalie’s story in the back of my mind, I promptly gave Bunny his present.   I’d never seen him so happy with any present I’d given him before.  He immediately started downloading apps for all his interests: chess, poker, history, big foot, etc.  I think he used it every waking moment.

Finally, I’d broken the curse of the Anti-Magi!   As things turned out, Bunny entered the hospital for the final time three days after Christmas.   When it became clear that he wasn’t coming out, one of the first thoughts I had was gratitude for my grandfather’s insistence on telling Rosalie’s story.   Her legacy allowed me to make Bunny’s final days a little brighter, and that thought warms me.

As more time passes, I’ll get comfortable with Christmas again.   I’ll be able to decorate without falling to pieces over every single ornament I hang on the tree.   And I’ll be as happy as I can be with the incessant, crappy/sappy Christmas music in the background.