It’s Christmas in Peru. Everything is decked in green and red, but you still can’t find an ugly holiday sweater. That’s because Christmas arrives in the summer, along with llamas and wiseman bringing gifts of sunscreen. No partridges in pair trees, just parrots in palm trees. And Santa takes a bus, that is, if there isn’t a transit strike.
Truth be told, I stopped going bonkers over Christmas once I was too old for toys. The best Christmas ever was when I got a Barbie on Parade gift set. Barbie (still pre-twist-and-turn waist) was a baton twirler, Ken a drum major, and Midge a cheerleader. Santa also brought me a can of Silly Foam, which I immediately sprayed on Ken’s plastic head, which immediately ate off his painted hair.
Some Christmases are ones you wish you could return. Take my Christmas of 2013. I had to choose between being with my dying mother or my dying marriage. It was a mean one, Mr. Grinch.
This Christmas story doesn’t start in Bethlehem, or on 34th Street, or Walton Mountain, or the North Pole. It starts in China, where I travel thirteen time zones to Grand Rapids, Michigan, a trip lasting twenty-four hours, which includes one change of underwear and two close calls skidding off snow-covered roads.
I arrive at the senior rehabilitation center, shaking my boots off in the lobby. There’s a fake fireplace with fake logs which is next to a fake tree with fake presents underneath, all being wrapped empty boxes. I see a care-giver behind a huge desk with something more important than certification in elderly care, that being a genuine smile. I have no clue if she can replace pea-size batteries in my mom’s hearing aids, but this gal is giving up Christmas with her family to be with Mom. God bless her soul.
“I’m looking for Joan Sinsabaugh.”
Her eyes popped. “You must be that daughter from China”.
I wonder how she knew. I wonder what she knew.
“She’s three doors down to the left.”
I scurry past an old people’s mover, a few abandoned walkers and finally hear the chirp of my oldest sister talking in old people’s slow-mo. My heart races. This is the Christmas present I’ve been waiting for. I feel a smile breaks out on my face, like a sunrise over a frozen lake Michigan.
And there she was, Mom, looking like a slow-leaking balloon in a sweatshirt. I go for a Pillsbury hug, wanting to feel her doughy cool skin, to take in her smell, a mix of hair spray and cold cream. I barely finished the hug when the Hallmark moment is ruined by the ringing of a phone.
My sister’s phone.
The call is from my ex-husband whom at the time was my I-still-want-to-make-this-marriage-work husband. The honor-the-covenant-we-made-to-God-husband. Not the blow-off-my-mother’s-funeral-arrangements-to-swim husband, who’d he be known as two weeks later. My sister, not hiding her disdain, quickly hands me the phone as if it were an envelope of Anthrax.
My ex doesn’t ask about an update about Mom. He just blurts out what he has to say like projectile vomit. “You know that boy in your class who went to France for the holidays?”
“You mean Charles?” I say, wondering why he is so important. This kid, a Chinese version of Winnie the Pooh, had a penchant for Snickers bars.
“He was killed in a helicopter crash.”
My heart stops as my ex shares how my student drowned in a river in France along with his billionaire dad, while looking for a chateau to purchase in the countryside. That’s a Chinese stocking stuffer. Their deaths made international news, the fifteen-second story on the ABC nightly report cold and callous, the anchorman painting a portrait of my student as an entitled terror. Buddhist monks combed the French countryside for weeks looking for the remains of his father.
I look at my mom. She gives me a half smile and a sigh, signaling me to get off the phone. I sit on the corner of the bed trying to comprehend the incomprehensible.
My not-yet-ex continues, “And you need to get to Wisconsin for my family’s Christmas dinner. My mom got holiday sweatshirts printed. Everyone is coming, Ginger. You got to get here.”
CLICK.
And there you have it. The worst Christmas ever that I couldn’t exchange for a Chia head. I wish I had three wisemen to consult. I look at my mom’s smile, and not able to get enough of it, I decide to spend the night at the old folk’s home. I make a bed out of two guest chairs, which is slightly less comfortable than seat 37D on a Boeing 767. I hold her hand all night while watching the TBS Christmas Story marathon. I recite Ralphie’s classic lines with him, including his plea for a Red Ryder carbine action two-hundred shot range model air rifle. But my mind drifts to my young student drowning in an icy river in France.
Somehow, I sleep and Ralph got his gun and the dogs got the turkey. I wake to fresh snow heavy on the branches, my marriage heavy on my mind as well. Red cardinals fluttering on the pines just like old holiday cards without the glitter.
“Merry Christmas, Mom.”
I scoot her to the dining hall filled with parents forgotten by their children, all sitting at tables built to accommodate wheelchairs.
As my mom waits for her two soft boiled eggs, I scramble for a Bible. I find a large print King James near the jigsaw puzzle. I bring it to her table, then flip through the pages until I see the passage Linus reads in the Charlie Brown special:
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. Luke 2:13-14
“Can you read a little louder?” a tiny voice warbles.
I read the rest of the passage in my old-folks-slow-mo as everyone dials up their hearing aids. Maybe I was meant to be there just for these parents. Maybe this story is their Christmas gift. Maybe this Christmas isn’t that bad after all.
After breakfast, I cash in miles to fly to Wisconsin. If only I had enough miles to fly back in time. My not-yet-ex-husband isn’t happy to see me. My my father in-law yells at me. My mother in-law makes accusations of me. I choke down the Jell-o with shredded carrots. I pose for the family photo in the specially printed holiday sweatshirt.
Two days later, I am back in Michigan, reading what nobody ever wants to read, a photo-copied pamphlet from a palliative care nurse entitled, What to Expect the Last Weeks of Life.
There are no sad Christmas stories, no bad Christmas stories, and none as perfect as those on the Hallmark channel. Even life’s hardest moments are good if they change you. The real chunks of coal are the Christmases we forget. The bland moments, the emotional mash potatoes that don’t move us or change us.
So this year? I’ll have a good Christmas even if the only thing I find in my stocking is a foot long banana. And the best thing about Christmas in Peru? If you’ are running low on Christmas spirit, you can fill up on Jesus gas.
Christmas 2013 was horrible for you! I’m so sorry you had to go through all of that. You made the right choice in getting out of that marriage and away from those selfish, toxic people. You had so much to process at that time and it must have been overwhelming and awful. Love you, Ginger! P.S. The llamas are so cute and lol at Jesus gas.