Forgotten Christmas
Should I spill about the good ones? Before the family died. When Christmas bulbs were big and grew hot and metal-clipped to the branches of real cut spruce trees? When those long gone sang carols in German as I cuddled on open welcome laps. Old country cookie recipes were baked, Hartshorn smelling of ammonia was added to the batter for leavening, kneading by hand required, an all family project. Holding yellow ware bowl stirring with wooden spoon making shapes with Depression era cutters. Half-dollar sized snowflakes silently fell. Vanilla essence warms the yellow kitchen on an afternoon where time means nothing, no hurry. The tabby cat washes himself in the front window. Silent night, grandmother and child.
Fast forward to teenage years. Grandparents buried. Yellow ware bowl back in closet. No sweets. No family projects. Small artificial tree I hang decorations on myself. Mother and Uncle discussed inheritance while we waited for word on their impending deaths. Uncle went manic spend spend spend in and out of alcohol rehab an early death at age 51. Mother in the nut house making ceramic frogs. I called ambulance while she screamed how it was true, she hit me as an infant I wouldn’t stop crying she didn’t like motherhood at all. A month in that hospital, six months in when I was a six month old then she canceled outpatient and stopped all her meds. Snow piled high and drifted in to places I never knew existed.
My own kids had lists for Santa I never wrote . Sears catalogs Toy R Us sitting on the red man’s lap in lines for eternity. Making cookies again, cards and sleds sleighing down hills of opportunity. Boy Scouts. Church Pageants.Friends sleeping over. Family vacations. Thanksgiving week Baja cruises. Golden State chance came up and off we drove across the USA. Six years of no snowflakes. San Diego Zoo season pass. Seaworld summer camp. I worked three jobs went to school for Bachelors degree never got to be stay home mom like all the neighbors were. Back to real Christmas trees, taking in others for dinner who had nowhere to go. Rediscovering live poetry events writing to save my life in those spare minutes.
Thought we’d stay in San Diego forever but bought cabin in Tehachapi mountain town. One job now. Great Dane, Great Dane mix, first pit bull. Almost 2 acres. Woods and canyon, bobcats behind boulders. Artist town but no poetry. Started my own group built eccentric community. Husband left me with questions and debt. Still one job but. 60 hours a week, grabbed every overtime hour I could. Christmas tree with leaner gifts but always cookies carols lights inside and out. Snow began to fall in October making the mountain a reminder of wedding cake. Roads close, highway down,, snow days welcome with my kids. Silent night lonely night. Owls talked to me from the roof Who Who Who are you now?
Two years later he walked into open mic night. Man with a mind blew into town. Intense eyes. Crooked smile. So much the other side of the tracks from me. A completely unknown but familiar feeling, love. Learning to trust. Unwrapping the few old tree ornaments I collected for starting new. If I could start new. Snow was falling in those big round snowflakes I remember falling all those decades back to childhood. The kind of snow that cushions in comfortable nostalgia, like being loved like I was loved in the beginning. Love like the true meaning of Christmas. Safety. Warmth. Even within the flurries of snow.
Diane has been published in Synkronicity, California Quarterly, F(r)iction, Penumbra, Lake Affect, and quite a few other literary journals. Her first chapbook, “Over the Falls” was published this July 2022 from Foothills Publishing. She holds a B.A. degree in Literature and Writing from CSU San Marcos.
Diane is also a visual artist in mosaic, wool felting, and collage. Her pieces have been in galleries in the Sacramento Valley.
Diane has worked in the mental health field for years before retirement. She lives with PTSD from childhood trauma and is on the neurodiverse spectrum.
