Monday, November 07, 2005

The Holidays, I remember now!



Welcome to the season to have fun, as a puertorrican you learn to have as many paid holidays as you can, and have as much fun as you can. It's about celebrating diversity, eating and drinking in all honesty. LOL.

There were times that I remember when the idea of the Holiday Season would have given me a stomachache, a headache , depression or simply a reason to be miserable, let us say many years ago. As a child my life was full of material objects and very little affection. My Yaya, the nickname for my maternal grandmother, was the only person who was physically affectionate with me. She played with my toys and me, even when she did not know what they were, she was there with me and I remember.

The only time I remember my father playing with me, I must have been around four years old and had a little construction set made of wood. That was the one and only time and it ended up with him hitting me, for whatever reasons.

The Holiday season, no matter what holiday you celebrate, may be full of good and bad memories, resentment, sadness, and yes happiness too. Happiness seems to escape some of us, or maybe we scare happiness away, because we enjoy being in an unhappy place. Believe me it is not easy to have a good attitude after so much unhappiness in my life, but what do I have to lose by treating myself nice and with love? Maybe I will be happy!!!

I enjoy the holidays to the max, I decided many years ago that I was going to have the greatest of times every year, no matter whether with company or alone, for the rest of my life. Easier said than done and believe me that overcoming the childhood sadness and abuse is very important to anyone who has undergone such trauma. I believe the most important part is to make sure that you have the best time possible, no matter what happens. Never rush to buy gifts, never make it a point to give gifts or receive gifts. What do I mean? Give because you want to give, give without attachments and you will experience true happiness. At the same time receive with joy and gratitude, even if your next stop is the Goodwill Store.

I always made plans for a special meal, ahead of time, something simple, but that I may be able to share with some friends if that happens to be in the agenda. I would start buying presents from August of every year. Sometimes, as you know, I make my gifts. One important part of giving is to release the gift completely. When I give a gift yo may go ahead and do whatever you want with it, that's why it is a gift, right?

To make sure that I make my contribution to Happiness in the Holidays I would do certain things. 1) Give a contribution for food to a food drive. 2) Give a cool toy to a toy drive. 3) Make sure I am in the happiest of moods constantly. 4) Give some money to a charity of my choice. 5) Get a present for myself and wrap it. 6) Do not allow the grinch to steal my holiday spirit.

Oh and to the point of all this writing. I remember that we had an aluminum tree. Do you remember those? More over, we had a light that had a plastic wheel in front of it with four colors. The wheel turned and the tree changed colors. WOW!!! Technology at work, LOL. As a child the tree look humongous, and there it was, the town of Bethlehem, covered in snow, with little people. You can imagine that coming from a tropical island, where the weather is always around the same, snow was a fascinating item for me, still is. I remember there where these colored glass birds attached to the tree with glass filaments for tails, I remember the glass spheres and I remember the electric shock. Well somehow our christmas tree had a short and because it was metal, sometimes you touched it and it gave you a little shock. Talking about having kids not touching the tree. I dared sometimes and I did not get a shock, but sometimes I did. I remember now. I remember the Star at the top of the tree! I remember looking at all the wonders that were in the branches, the glass spheres had things in them, it was fascinating! I remember!!!

3 comments:

Calvin said...

Nice entry, Andy. OMG, your family had an aluminum tree! One of my uncles (that lived next door)had one and even had the round turning light also. I thought that it was fabulous at that time and that my family's plain, green tree was boring. Oh, the memories.

LadyLinoleum said...

Love aluminum trees!

This is a wonderful post. I feel the same way you do. My family is well, a bit trying, but I resign myself to have fun at Christmas despite them. And I do. Hear hear for Christmas cheer! Oh, and lots of tequila helps with that too.

Stephen said...

This really is a great post! You really have the right idea about the holidays. Something for me to chew on today! ;-)

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