The ghost of Christmas past.
12/25/2006 9:14 AM
This year my family thing will be the year of uncomfortable silences due to reasons that no one can acknowledge so I’ll take a moment to take you to Christmas past in my life. I like Christmas…I really do. You’ll hear me grouse, bitch and complain throughout the holiday. But like the Grinch who heart swells 10 times…that’s what rumbles below.

The Christmas Pagent…My church growing up used to do a Christmas pagent with growing intensity each year also with growing resentment within me. It really used to be quaint or at least quaint in my mind. Kids of all ages reenacting the story of Mary and Joseph. Shepherds in bathrobes…Christ, our lord was represented by a doll from the church play room. Its one of the first places where I learned that it’s the meaning and not the color of the wrapping paper that was important. It was cheesy and quaint but the message was there…in its own humble little way even as a 3rd grader I “got” what Christmas was about. The performance that stands out was where I was a shepherd. Let me tell you…if your child has no talent and can’t sit still. They make him a sheperd. When it comes all down to it all they have to do is look scared when the angel appears, then make a big show about going to Bethlehem and then gather round the manager for the last few seconds. The only worse role in a Christmas pagent is that of the Inn Keepers wife…who just stands behind the Inn Keeper who performs the ultimate dick move in turning out a pregnant woman in the middle of the night. The Inn Keepers wife has to look supportive of this decision. In retrospect the always got the quietest girl in the congregation to play this role. But the shepherds were almost always the clowns of the church. It was just enough to keep them occupied but not enough power to affect the performance as a whole, much like the White House Press Secretary. The pagent I recall I was a shepherd and I got stuck in front of a kid about 8 years older than myself. Who after I would say “Look? What is that?!” he’d grab me and shout “Monsters! Monsters!” rehearsals had been no eventful the shepherds would usually gather in the play room and throw things at each other. But since tonight was the big show…This dude clamps his ham paws on me and shakes the shit out of while screaming “MONSTERS!!!! MONSTERS!!!”. Some reports likened it to a Central Park mugging all I could do was shake like a rag doll but it played up for big laughs in the congregation. Thus ensuring that the Sunday school delinquents would continue to get shepherd roles for years to come.

Resentment grew each year as the church changed its pagent into a circus. Now legions of children sang throughout and hour and a half service. We stopped doing the “play” and stuck to readings and songs. It stopped being fun. I remember the last vestiges of fun being the Christmas Eve that “Paula S” grabbed me before the service and begged to sit next to me for the service. I had a crush on Paula since the 5th grade and with each year of puberty it had gotten worse. My silent strategy of waiting, wanting from a distance had been rewarded. This strategy would later be described by most experts as “stalking”. I dumbly shook my head yes and sat next to her. Then…she put her hand on my thigh…in church…ON CHRISTMAS EVE! It rarely gets more decadent than that and in 8th grade it is roughly the equivalent of sex. My head spun…”how to play this? Got to be smooth…I could…wait… a hymn?!!!” That meant we had to stand breaking the bond between us. After we sat back down and she did NOT put her hand back. It was not meant to be. As I got older I found that Paula moved at a little different speed than I. I moved like slow syrup and she was a shuttle take off. I later learned that my thigh she had only been putting her hand on and she would later date a guy that terrified me and beat me up despite the fact he was 2 years younger than me. Conversely though he had the IQ of about 12 and would flunk out of high school. But for that one starry Christmas Eve she made me feel like a “man” even though it only lasted a hymn.

Stay tuned for more holiday fun…