Open Heart on Christmas

I used to like Christmas time, but not anymore. In fact I got to that conclusion many years ago, but I thought it was just a feeling for not having my father near me. I found out that it is beyond his absence.

I never liked Christmas because I didn’t really believe on it. Seriously! Worst, I never could spoke out about my feelings at my mom’s home because she is not a kind of person who has her own opinion and everything she does has a deep affect on what someone could think and I’m the opposite way. So, it isn’t surprise that we are like dog and cat…no, I wish we could be this way because if we had a discussion about any subject maybe things would turn out better than the actual situation…we are more likely water and oil. Yeah, I think it is a good comparison. We both tolerate each other without any mixing or physical contact.

Well, the point is that I don’t speak freely at my mom’s house and for this reason I spent a lot of years having a miserable time every single year on the holiday season. As my family is very catholic and catholic church uses to think that Jesus Christ is its propriety, I used to question priests, relatives about my doubts, having books and magazines as references and/or bibliography to fundament my inquires, but I just got “get out of here” as answer!! My argumentation never helped it!! It came back to me as “crazy woman”, or “don’t listen to her” or even “you think too much”.

Brazilians, unfortunately, has no reading habit and particularly in my family, no one enjoy the company of a book beside myself. I got it as a lifetime gift from my dear friend/neighbor/teacher Iris Helena, Lena, who lent me many books when I was around 6 years old. It was a ritual for me, because I even needed to take a shower to put my hands on her books. It was my mom condition to read them.

I started reading I was just 5 years old and I never stopped. When I was 12 and already diagnostic with a rare thyroid disease I could get refugee in a library of my town and around 14 I had read all classics such as Alexandre Dumas, Leo Tolstoy, William Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Fyodor Dostoevsky among many others and almost everything of Brazilian literature.
The librarian got scary with my hungry for books and set up a meeting with my family because the thought I could have a life outside her work place. Until now it sounds very surrealist to me…
Anyhow, I always had a book in my bag doesn’t mattering where I were. I mean, I always have a book in my bag like Rory from Gilmore Girls. Detail: I already opened my book in a disco in France!!

So, because of this “weird” habit of mine, I have a very critic point of view what it isn’t tolerate at my mom’s home, making our connivance even harder.
I grew up hearing that I couldn’t do something/anything because God was watching had that he would punish me for being a bad girl. Every time I heard that, immediately I replied saying that I couldn’t believe on it because if God were the big father he’d never punish me for doing such a thing without any relevance. In my child’s mind, a father never punishes a kid because he/she broke a vase by accident. How come, the perfect father could spend his precious time punishing a child for this reason??

Around 14, I took a decision of not going to the church anymore because it had no meaning to me whatsoever. Also, I never believe on what the priests said/say because it was a memorize text and I didn’t feel it as something coming from their soul. Also the Christ had no attraction to me because he wasn’t a real man with all the strength and weakness a human being has (at least it’s this way that the catholic church wants us to believe)! I couldn’t understand either how someone is sending by his father to suffer or to do things for someone who even asked for it. Those things combined helped me to see Christmas as an event and not just as a religions celebration.

For 2 years consecutive already, I stopped decorating my house and celebrating Christmas. Although sometimes we try hard to get out of some cultural action that we had grew up with, it isn’t easy to realize it. Christmas as celebrate right now as a commercial event is something that I really refuse to have. I don’t feel as a Christian, I don’t believe that Jesus was born on December 25th (24th), but I got mad when I saw my brother who is extremely religious thinking just about food and gifts as a main meaning of this celebration.

This year I got even madder because I decided to get a small/not expensive-gift-at-all to my nephews and I didn’t like the reaction of my brother. When I gave my 8 years old nephew my old laptop, my brother cried and didn’t stop thanking me for like a month or so. This year was the first year I got inexpensive gifts, I got a monopoly to my nephew who is now 10 years old, and until now I didn’t get any phone call… nor to wish me a Merry Christmas nor to thank for his kids gifts.
I’m not complaining evasively! I just have a huge problem with someone/anyone who doesn’t know how to say “thank you”!

Coming back to point of this post: this morning my mom called me to complain that I didn’t call last night. I said that I called twice and she was very busy with the food that she couldn’t talk to me, what is completely understandable. I asked how was the festivity and she said that everything was fine, except that I wasn’t there. I reminded her that it was better to come back before Christmas because as she knows I don’t like it, trying to start a conversation and then she changed the subject completely!!!

As I love to read about religions, even though I don’t have any, I said to her that I watched a very interesting documentary at national Geographic about the Gospel of Magdalena and she changed again…

As my beloved auntie uses to say…”if we didn’t know how difficult is to be the daughter of your mother, we could think that you were very intransigent”!

Maybe one day I’ll celebrate Christmas, but if it happens one day it will be because I started believing that it’s the day Jesus was born without having any question regarding to it and not because I think it’s cool to have one more day a year to exchange gifts.