Christmas past

Though the verses were different, the chorus of the song never changed: our father was far away, our step-father had always lost out to the Christ child for birthday recognition, the unhappy step-siblings appeared like clockwork and forced my sister into the closet. My mother, ever-hopeful that what was bad could be made better, decided to strike Christmas from the month of December once and for all. She had tried moving my step-father's birthday to June 25th the year before, throwing a summertime barbecue where friends sang the happy birthday song and brought presents, but he didn't fall for it. It wasn't his birthday and therefore the charade was a hollow one. Christmas, then, should be the holiday to get the boot. For one year, December 25th would be my step-father's day alone. There would not be the slightest mention of Santa or Jesus. There would be no sweet potatoes, no baked ham studded with pineapple and cloves. It was going to be one whole round-the-clock birthday with birthday hats and birthday wrapping paper only and homemade chocolate birthday cake. An entire lifetime of wrongs would finally be set to right! Actually, I remember this as one of the better Christmases of my childhood because for once we simply didn't try. My mother said it was really much more logical to celebrate the feast of the Magi, a holiday that was tailor made for gift exchange and conveniently located on January 6th. Among the many unforeseen benefits to the celebration of the Epiphany was the fact that a Christmas tree (known that year as the Magi tree) could be picked up for free at any grocery store or boy scout tree selling kiosk after the 26th and that all presents could be purchased with after-Christmas discounts. When my father called tearfully to wish us a Merry Christmas that year, we explained to him the deal was off. We were celebrating the step-father's birthday.

"What about the Christmas presents I sent?" my father asked.

"We're saving them for the Feast of the Magi," my sister said.

My father explained to us that what he had sent were Christmas presents, not Magi presents, and that we were to go upstairs to our rooms and open them immediately.

But was that the right thing to do, seeing as how this year was only and completely the step-father's birthday? "Now," my father said.

The Magi angle didn't seem to stick, and by the next year we were back to business as usual. Even though I was only eleven at the time, I had long since reached the point where Christmas made me insanely nervous. One night I woke up in such a sweaty state of panic I could not go back to sleep. By the soft glow of the plug-in nightlight in its baseboard socket, I decided it might make me feel better if I could unwrap a single present that my father had sent to me and then wrap it back up again. The gift was in my bedroom and so it wasn't much of a problem. If a package is disassembled slowly and reassembled precisely, who ever knows the difference? I took my time. I carefully slid off the ribbon and peeled back the tape. I was surprised to find that this small act of deviance made me feel calmer immediately. Now there was something I didn't have to wonder about, to worry about: my father had gotten me a sweater and a matching skirt. I didn't like them, but I found it comforting to know in advance that I didn't like them. The next night I opened the other two presents he sent: a stuffed siamese cat and the game of Life, both of which were much better choices. I didn't care what I was getting for Christmas, but somehow knowing in advance made me feel I had a secret life, one in which I could watch the pageant of Christmas with a critical detachment. I slipped back into bed and felt happy.

But the peace never seemed to last. The next night I was up again. I felt the encroaching holiday circle my throat like a cord of tiny blinking lights pulled tight. I had to go downstairs. I had to get under the tree.

This was no small task. While mice could roam the house freely (we never used poison again), the human beings were more or less electronically confined to their rooms. We had a complex security system that included weight sensitive pads secreted in different locations underneath the wall to wall carpet. The only off switch was hidden behind my step-father's night table. To get downstairs, I had to cling to the banister that looked into the sunken living room. As long as I could feel the bite of the carpet tacks on the balls of my feet I knew I was off the alarm pad. Inching along step by step, it took me about thirty minutes to make it down the hall and then down the stairs. By then my nerves were in such bad shape that I had to unwrap and re-wrap several presents, presents that weren't even mine, before I felt calm enough to try and make it back to my room again. The second night, when I was halfway down the hall, I remembered a thoroughly rotten little boy, the son of my step-father's friends, who had taught all six of the children how to squeeze between to banister rails and jump down on the sofa twenty feet below. His family had been to see us the summer before when my step-siblings were visiting, and at one unfortunate point all of the children were left alone together in the house. One by one he shoved us through the railings, except for my oldest step-brother Mikey who was too big and so had to go over the top.

On that night before Christmas there was plenty of moonlight with which to locate the couch, and saying a prayer for the souls of any mice who might have been sleeping in the cushions, I flung myself into the darkness to speed up the process of maniac unwrapping. If I had missed by a foot or so and hit the coffee table instead, leaving my family to find my broken body on the living room floor in the morning, they would have just assumed I'd had enough of Christmas. Instead, I survived the jump year after year and everyone always wondered why I was so hard to surprise. I'd hold up a box on Christmas morning, close my eyes, and give the thing a shake. "Hat and gloves," I'd say, and everyone would marvel at the way I always seemed to know exactly what was coming up next, even though technically such knowledge should have been impossible.

From the book "The Worst Noel" published by HarperCollins Publishers. "Birthdays," Copyright (c) 2005 by Ann Patchett.

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