Saying goodbye to my inner Grinch

My dad died eight years ago. This is the first year I’ve felt that Christmas magic come back

My favourite photo I’ve ever taken is of my mom and dad, a silhouette of them walking arm-in-arm in the middle of a white, blanketed road. It was taken close to midnight on December 24, 2013, during Toronto’s infamous ice storm. The city was eerily quiet as my parents, my three younger siblings and I carefully hobbled home from our aunt and uncle’s annual Christmas Eve party, where no amount of sleet could deter the rowdy 30-strong gathering of relatives. My mom was wearing my Gammie’s long mink coat, the only night of the year she’d ever put it on, and my dad was making sure she didn’t trip on the precarious ground.

Growing up, Christmas always felt warm and safe: wood-burning fires, haphazardly applied coloured lights, school-made decorations, chaotic turkey dinners. We were a family that rarely dressed up, but Christmas Eve was an exception. We’d sing carols around the piano with our extended family, squeaking the too-high Page parts of “Good King Wenceslas” or cheering after one of our more musically inclined cousins roared out a solo from “We Three Kings.” After presents on Christmas morning, it was time for our annual Lord of the Rings viewing in the basement—us kids trying to get through as many extended version DVDs as we could. I was easily annoyed with my parents and siblings the rest of the year, but during the holidays everything felt cozy and right. I knew I was so lucky.

I loved Christmas because my dad really loved Christmas. Come December first, he’d start rotating his CD collection of holiday hymns, and the sounds of organs and choir voices would fill the home every evening (he’d start even earlier if he could, if it weren’t for my mother’s December-only rule). It was the only time of year the living room fire was used, and he’d spend hours perfecting his flame height and crackle volume. He relished his bartender status at family gatherings, especially festive ones. “Buzz, you’re a goddamn jewel,” was the classic quip from my maternal grandfather whenever my dad handed him his four-finger-tall gin martini. When I picture my dad, I think of him in a cozy cashmere sweater, next to the fire, cocktail in hand. Just happy to be with his family.

When we were younger, he chewed up carrots and spat them into the snow to make it look like reindeer had been there. He skied across the lawn to mimic sleigh marks. My parents dragged overflowing stockings into our rooms every Christmas Eve once they were sure we were asleep—a habit developed when we were little to delay the 5 a.m. Christmas morning wakeups. But they never stopped. Even when my siblings and I were grown and launched, sleeping over in our childhood bedrooms, we’d wake in the morning to a stuffed stocking at the end of our beds.

But then my dad died. I don’t even remember his last Christmas. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer one February and gone by that September. We never had a Christmas where we knew he was sick, where we could try to make our memories even more special, just in case.

At the same time, my older cousins started having lots of kids, so we said goodbye to larger family gatherings for a while. Christmas wasn’t the same at my mom’s new house, all bright and modern. There was no space for a piano, and the colourful lights and homemade decor didn’t feel quite right next to the stainless steel gas fireplace and pale hardwood. Christmas is the holiday of lived-in homes, creaky floors, mahogany dining tables. Families that are complete.

My daughter was born nearly four years ago, but even the joys of parenting didn’t snap me out of my anti-Christmas funk. I went through the motions, of course: wrapping presents, ooh-ing at ornaments, documenting memories. But even last year I still felt a persistent bah-humbug. No amount of holly centrepieces or kitschy decor could lift my Scrooge-y spirits. It still didn’t feel right.

As anyone who’s lost a person knows, after they die, life simply…goes on. My world progressed in every other way: I worked, moved, got married, had a kid. I think I was subconsciously keeping my Christmas spirit at bay to remind myself that everything was not, in fact, as it should be.

But this year, something’s finally shifted. Maybe it’s that my daughter’s unbridled enthusiasm for the holiday is becoming too infectious to ignore. Or perhaps it’s just taken this long to finally feel comfortable with a different version of Christmas—one without my dad.

My daughter’s almost four. She knows what death is. She looks at a picture on our bookshelf of my parents at their wedding and asks me to tell her again why Pop Pop isn’t around.

“He got sick, and his body stopped working.”

“Why?”

“Well, sometimes that happens to people.”

“So he’s gone forever?”

“Yes, sweetie.”

But she also knows what excitement is, and feelings of comfort and safety. While we were decorating the tree this year she shimmied her body to a carol, spontaneously exclaimed, “This is SO fun,” and gave me and my husband unsuspecting hugs. Later, she and my niece took handfuls of tinsel and threw them at the branches. They laughed and shrieked as they gazed in awe at their sparkly creation. My daughter now insists on eating breakfast in the dark every morning so that the tree lights are better illuminated. And she won’t let me vacuum tinsel strands from the floor because, “They’re too beautiful.”

This year, I’m finally embracing new traditions. I took my daughter to my high school’s annual carol service for the first time, keeping her out past her bedtime and cringing as she ran up and down the isles. My sister-in-law and I brought the girls to see The Nutcracker, sitting in the only affordable seats we could find, way too close and off to the side. We attended a briefer extended family party, now overrun with kids, toddlers and babies. We tried to belt out carols, anyway.

In a couple days, my husband and I will host our family for Christmas dinner in our small space, our oversized tree that’s leaning dangerously to one side taking over half the sitting room. We will cram in another person on each side of the dining table, and don tacky cracker crowns. There will likely be at least one wine-fuelled family argument that’s been waiting to boil over. I’ll stay up too late assembling the mini trampoline my daughter desperately wanted, even though it’s destined to be a living room eyesore. I’ll pick up tinsel off the floor for the next three months. And I can’t wait.

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash