“Blue” Christmas

Let’s move ahead to one of Blue’s Christmas’…

As always there was a big decorating frenzy for Christmas, Blue was helping unpack things from a box or two while her mom was setting the decorations out for immediate display. Every Christmas it was almost like “clock work” how the holiday preparation began. Blue’s mom usually did things herself but this year, was different. Blue was actually trusted to unpack Christmas decorations from many years of collections and was intrusted to do it without the “eagle eye” bearing down upon her every move. Her mom was almost religious about how she set everything up and Blue had watched her so many years doing it that she knew where things went.

There was the ceramic decorations, Frosty, Santa, Angels, and more that were placed on the console radio which could hold them all in fine array. There was the snow fluff that needed to go underneath each one, as if to give the impression that they were in snow. Of course, the Angel had to overlook the manager scene and figurines. There was things that were gifted from friends and family that got their turn at being displayed. They were arranged in a manner fitting to their themes. Blue’s mom was very particular about how things needed to be displayed.

Blue just loved staring at the decorations, to her they were a thing for imagination and pretend. Sometimes she visualized in her head how it would be to be as small as the figurines and all were. She imagined how it must have been like to be baby Jesus and his mother and father back in the manager. There was absolutely no limit to her expandable imagination.

Blue loved helping decorate the tree. Her favorite thing about the tree was the shiny mirror like balls that her mom placed on the tree. With the background of the flickering lights, each ball mirrored the images perfectly and the took on a whole new look. The flickering Christmas lights were set to a certain pattern or rhythm and they could flicker fast or slow. Her favorite was the slow changing colored lights. Blue would lay on the floor when the tree was finished and just stare upward through the tree with all of it’s decorations and let her imagination soar. It was certainly fun for her, and a much-needed distraction from her everyday life.

Sometimes in one’s life we all need a break from everyday things, and Christmas was that and more for Blue.

In thinking back to other Christmas’ Blue loved this time of year so much. It was one of the times she actually felt like her family recognized her wants and wishes. St least for gifts, at least, too bad that was not the case 364 days of the year. For Christmas Blue actually got to tell what she wanted. Who wouldn’t love that? Each year the Sears and Roebuck Catalog came out and in it was lots of toys, clothes, and more. This was the catalog that Blue went through, circling her requests for Christmas. Almost as predictable as having shoes to wear, she would see what she asked for up under the Christmas tree. It felt good to know that she had been included and that she was thought of enough to get what she really wished for.

Wished for? Hmm, she certainly got presents and stuff, but not what was most important in her heart. As often as a person’s heart would beat, that was how much Blue wanted her wish of having not to be scared in her own house, Her father was not on her Christmas wish but he was certainly part of what scared her. He had his own agenda and not even Christmas was a detriment to how he treated her, For Blue not even Christmas was enough to fight off some demons. 

Blue loved waking up early on a Christmas morning and finding her stockings full of nuts, and fingernail polish along with treats and candy of all kinds. Often Blue thought her stocking was the most special gift of Christmas. It was always loaded with goodies and almost overflowed onto the fireplace mantle. It would take Blue a month or so to even empty out her stocking. She had so much packed into it. It was the best.  Her brother often tried to sneak her chocolate from her pile of stocking goodies, but she learnt to keep them hidden. Her brother was a sneaky sort of chocolate monster. He loved it. She did too.

On Christmas day it was usually a laid back kind of day. Lunch was usually an after thought, because Blue and her brother nibbled the stuff from their stockings. Usually there was an early supper and her mom had family over to eat. Blue really loved her mom’s cooking,  There was the potato salad her mom always made, the turkey that filled the whole house with a tantalizing aroma and the stuffing that was placed inside the turkey to soak up the juices from the cooking. It smelt heavenly there in her house , on Christmas day. The ultimate thing was when there was left over turkey for the next day, with which Blue loved a mayo and turkey , with salt, sandwich. Yum!

Her mom was the best cook, if you were to ask Blue. There was nothing her mom fixed that wasn’t delicious, Blue only could hope to be such a good cook when she grew up. When Blue was little, her mom read the Christmas Story, the biblical one, each Christmas Eve. It told of a baby born in a manager because there was no room for him and his parents in the inn. It gave Blue hope in a weird sort of way. She knew if Jesus could survive being mistreated from birth, certainly she could survive her home predicament. She always took the meaning of Christmas and tried to pull hope from it. Each Christmas just reminded her to never give up.

…and never give up, was what Blue did.

Although, she really felt like it, she would not. She clung to the hope of better things and that gave her the courage to live. If Blue really got her Christmas wish, it would be that she never had to hide, in her own home, from someone that was suppose to love her. That was not the case though, she was constantly trying to sort through the unnatural feelings that her father had for her, She took his actions to mean that she was nothing more than amusement for his own self.

To be continued…