I lay in bed and I stare at the ceiling. It’s Christmas Day. I hear my baby brothers and sisters laughing. I hear them singing into their freshly unwrapped karaoke machine. I think of Christmas when my dad got me a robot chimpanzee and a karaoke machine. I think of that same Christmas where my grandpa got me ten new CDs. I can still see my dad smiling in the sunroom of my grandparents’ house. I can still feel the relief I felt when he showed up when I really didn’t think he would.
This year, my dad was in Paris without me and I was feeling awfully like Kevin McCalister, only I wasn’t lost in New York. I was just alone in my room. It’s not like I wasn’t grateful for the laughter in the house or like I wasn’t eager to be a part of it, I just knew I wasn’t really in the holly jolly mood.
I’ve been trying not to dwell on things like the melodrama of being seventeen years old without her mom or dad for my last childhood Christmas, but that’s the funny thing about trying not to dwell on things. By trying not to think about them, you are just making it worse.
The idea of ignoring the weight in my chest, the titanium lungs in my ribs, felt almost impossible. That’s how I knew I had to do it. There was going to be no miraculous Christmas surprise; my dad was not going to walk through the door dressed like Santa. If I wanted a merry Christmas, I had to put myself in it.
I got up from where I laid, I put on a red sweater, and I asked if there was room for me in the car to go see the lights. I bought my family hot chocolate (the specialty kind that tastes like s’mores). I spun my sister on my back. I held my baby brother as he sang along to “Frosty the Snowman.” I put $20 in a busker’s cup. I sat on a bench. I let myself feel everything I was feeling, but I didn’t let myself get so wrapped up in it that I missed the moment I was in.
This Christmas wasn’t golden in my mind. I didn’t feel like it was the best day in my life as my older brother and I walkie-talkied to each other. I didn’t feel like I was a pop-star animal conservationist. I didn’t have a renewed faith in Christmas magic. I was sad. I was angry. I was bitter. I was happy. I was warm. This Christmas couldn’t have felt further from golden. It was ultraviolet.