Jed Wolf

Should one bid Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays to someone like me? Less jolly than usual by others Hell bent on making this time of year seem joyous, I normally sigh rather than discuss making any season artificially bright. I like the dark and would rather be understood, than shamed for feeling more estranged than usual from others this time of year.

Whether exchanging gifts or glances at holiday dinners with people I normally choose to keep at a distance, coerced as a sweating turkey into making small talk, basting in guilt, pretending to care, it’s only a matter of time before someone asks me what’s wrong then tells me not to be a Scrooge. I watch the clock and try not to drink too much, thinking everyone’s need for a savoir is caused by these gatherings while wandering from room to room trying not to judge the tacky Christmas décor.

Rather than sugar plums, I recall stockings in the house I grew up in, stuffed with oranges and coal-like geodes. My clever parents were always gifting my sister and I their sensibilities each Christmas until Nixon was elected.

Before they abruptly stopped gift giving forever, my mother gave my father bra’s she’d burned with care. In addition to tennis rackets, parkas intended for skiing and other lifestyle hints, my sister and I received borderline dangerous gifts more mature kids might appreciate. One year, instead of lifelike plastic horses or long-haired trolls, we got a target, arrows and lethal archery bows and the next year I got a twenty-two rifle.

My parent’s approach to gift giving was a bit unusual but our living room with its twenty-foot ceiling was extraordinary. Though my family was agnostic, we always had three big, live trees in the living room, lit in three different pale colors, minimally decorated without taboo garland. Candlelit, with a blazing fire, and hushed Gregorian chants echoing in surround sound, our great room resembled a medieval shopping mall.

“Oh Dick, this is fabulous,” cocktail guests whispered, flumping fur coats in our lobby-like foyer. Unlike visiting single-treed neighbors with carboard Santas, yard reindeer and multicolored lights, my parent’s egg-noggy parties crackled with style. Their dimly-lit holiday extravaganzas were often flooded with austere moonlight, accentuating the true mystery of the virgin birth if timed right. My father knew just when to pull in nature, and exactly what to pour to give dreariness mystical significance.

Without the patience to make my winter solstices into theater, I lay low these days, but can’t avoid being called Scrooge or worse every year for being myself. I’m grateful for learning irony from my parents but bored making fun of others’ fun by outdoing them. Though I used to be famous for it, I’ve become too impatient to even organize caroling anymore, finding baying Noel into an otherwise silent night vexing especially in a crowd.

I kept my opinions to myself until this urge to pierce the veil with writing this Christmas Eve. You never know who’ll slide by and hark a shit ball from a sleighride this time of year or pray for me. Wish me luck.