The Annual Padded Cell Christmas Party

We all know (or we should by now) how I feel about this madness called The Holiday Season, Christmas, whatever your choice of phrase (I'm not going to get into whether or not you should say Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or Fuck You and Your Santa - if someone is pleasant enough to you to wish you a merry ANYTHING you should just be polite and say thank you without quibbling, the world is nasty enough). My beef isn't with the holidays that roll around starting at Thanksgiving and dragging my tired ass to that Hallmark Holiday of Holidays, Valentine's Day. I have absolutely no problem with people celebrating the holiday of their choice and honoring the religion of their choice. At least, that's what I always thought it was about. Most of the celebratory days that come in winter were originally religious in origin. Now they're about who can run up the highest debt buying shit they can't afford and that they and their kids don't need. Which has led to an entire generation of spoiled, obnoxious brats that have an incredible sense of entitlement that they seem to have obtained simply by managing to get pushed out of a vagina (or cut out, as the case may be) and taking a breath when they got a smack that they probably deserved later.

But this isn't even about the Horrid Herd of Shoppers, or their incredible lust for that last electronic gadget that they are willing to mace you to get their hands on. It's about how I came to feel so blue about this season.

I was raised Roman Catholic. I came up right after Vatican II, when Pope Paul made radical (for a Pope anyway) changes in the dogma of the Church and the way the Mass was said. Things have changed even more since then. I spent 8 years of my life going to private Catholic schools, complete with nuns who looked like penguins, moved like they had wheels, and had those fucking clicker things to make us sit down and stand up during Mass. We went to confession every Friday and Mass right after. And I hate to say it, but I LIKED going to Mass.

I have always felt an affinity with the Virgin Mary (hold your laughter til the end, please). And no, I was not named after Mary Magdalene, which would probably have made more sense but my mom didn't know at the time that her adorable little blonde baby was going to grow up to be a Goth nightmare. But I digress. I always prayed to the Virgin. I loved the incense, the ritual, the comfort I found in the repetition of the prayers. I loved the smell of the church. We went to St. Agnes Cathedral, the seat of the Archdiocese of Rockville Centre, and it was a beautiful Gothic church (before they redid it - now it looks like the Staples Center). And of all the church days, Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve was my favorite of all. I looked forward to it starting the day after Halloween. The church was PACKED, SRO, all the women in their furs and finery, the men in their suits and wool coats, the kids decked out in red or green velvet. There always seemed to be a slight smell of scotch in the air, apparently from people going to holiday parties before welcoming the Baby Jesus into the manger. I was always dozy and leaning against my mom's mink stole (shut it, PETA, this isn't about animal cruelty). But I never fell asleep, because I didn't want to miss Jesus showing up. And every  year I was convinced he would ascend from on high into that little empty creche (and every year I was disappointed, but I never saw Santa either and the cookies were always gone so there you go). And I loved listening to my parents sing the carols along with the choir. My dad had a lovely, rich barritone and my mother had a perfect soprano, and their voices singing "Adeste Fidelis" and "Angels We Have Heard On High" are still some of my fondest Christmas memories - I do have some.

So what happened? When did I start to despise this happiest of holidays. Well, for starters, the year I was 18, my boyfriend, the love of my life, with whom I'd been in love since I was 14, overdosed on a hot shot of heroin in my bed on Christmas Eve. Granted, we shouldn't have been using heroin. And nobody knew (or at least that's what I thought - when you're 18 you think you're the smartest person in the kingdom but everyone knows what you're up to). And it was supposed to be my bag, but I left it on the dresser to shower. When I came out of the bathroom, there he was. Dead. I didn't blame the dope. I blamed God. A lot of bad things happened to me as a kid, and Mark was the one good thing (I thought) to come along, and God took him away from me. The heroin didn't take him. God did. I didn't go to the wake or the funeral - his parents did not want me there and I couldn't bear to have my last memory of this alive, singing, guitar playing, Harley riding, beautiful boy be in a coffin.

Also, my dad, with whom I was closer than any other member of my family, passed away a week before Thanksgiving 4 years ago. I had wandered far from Catholicism by that point, but losing him just made the season SO much darker. When we had Thanksgiving dinner that year, I had no idea what to say I was thankful for. The turkey? I don't like turkey. The empty seat at the head of the table? The fact that there would be no huge Dad-inspired Christmas ever again?


So that started it. But there were other things. I stopped being Catholic, for one thing. I no longer found comfort in the rituals, and I found the dogma to be somewhat nonsensical. I found more comfort in the Old Ways. I studied a particular path of Wicca. I became a third degree priestess. That gave me comfort on Samhain, when I could talk to those I loved who had passed. I'm not delusional; I don't really think my dead loved ones are in the scrying bowl and eating the meal I put out for them. But the symbolism gives me hope and comfort in the notion that they are still here, in some form, loving me as much as I love them. I also find the concept of a male and female duality that is the basis of most Pagan religions far easier to swallow than a virgin getting pregnant by the Holy Ghost (imagine that conversation with Mary and Joseph: "Well baby, what had happened was, this SPIRIT came down...." I always felt sorry for Joseph). Man needs woman to create life. That's just the way it is, and it's just a logical basis for a religion.

Which brings me to Yule. The celebration of the death of the god. We're not celebrating God with a capital G dying - it's a celebration of the turning of the seasons. And the knowledge that spring, and life, will come again. We light the log, we warm ourselves, we sustain ourselves with the harvest. And I find that immensely comforting.

I have no hate in my heart for any religion. I have no hate in my heart at all. I used to have bitterness, but I found that it took more out of me than the person at whom the bitterness was directed - generally speaking, they didn't even know. And so, I wish each and every one of you a joyful and merry and hopeful holiday, however you wish to celebrate it. I just wish you would teach your children - the ones old enough to know that Santa is not real - that while getting gifts is nice, it IS more blessed to give than to receive, and that is true not matter what your faith, even if you have no faith at all. Teach them that there are people this year, and every year, who want nothing more for their holidays than a roof over their head and any kind of food on their table. Health care for their sick or dying children. Heat. Lights. A family. Maybe forgiveness for past transgressions. And the hope that spring will come again. Because in this darkest of seasons, sometimes we forget that the light will shine again, that the crocus will poke it's wee purple head out of the snow, and that we will be warm again. I wish you peace.