My Ghosts of Christmas Future

It's not birthdays that make me feel like life is passing me by, it's Christmas

I know this isn't a Dickens Novel (that would be sweet), but indulge me for a minute in my Christmases Past.   The holiday experience has changed as I've gotten older.   I'm spending my first Christmas without my family.   I was thinking about how I've spent past holidays, and since I've got no races coming up (or really training to share...I'm running almost every day but the lack effort or speed would make Alberto Salazar cry), I figured  'tis the season....to post old pictures of myself.

THE EARLY YEARS....

I have few early childhood memories of Christmas.  Mainly, I wondered why we couldn't have a real tree like normal families did.  I spent most of Christmas morning fighting with my brothers over the Whitman's Sampler.   Good lord those chocolate buttercream chocolates were delicious. 

I also distinctly remember the loss of my innocence (not that kind, ew..) in which my mom attempted to tell me there was no Santa Claus.  

As a true believer, I told her she was wrong, and that he was real.  

Of course, I was the true winner that Christmas.  Mom was forced to carry on the tradition by giving me a present from Santa to avoid breaking my believer heart. 

TEEN ANGST

I was in high school.  My brothers left for college and when they came back for the holidays it was one big party for me.  I finally had someone to play fight with and sing along to guitar with again!  It was awesome, but Christmas as I knew it was in jeopardy.  They had their own lives at college and were talking about adult stuff like "jobs" and "interviews".  Borrinnggg. 

In the ultimate act of rebellion, I asked for cds with explicit lyrics for Christmas.  My mom refused.  Perhaps she was onto my secret plan to run away with this rock star....

Luckily, my dad ignored my affection for rock stars and instead pretended to be thrilled with being gifted nearly the same pack of socks and button-up we'd been giving him for the past 15 years.


THE COLLEGE YEARS
My new found college freedom came crashing to an end each December.  The pure joy of sleeping 13 hours a day was cut short after a few days by requests to pick up my clothes and stop being a dang slob.

I met up with my high school friends to see how we'd changed and who had the most ridiculous college stories.  

EVOLUTION INTO THE 20s

I think the early and mid twenties are tough for most people.  Despite having a decent job, and a classy Christmas photo (see right), I had no freaking clue what I was doing and probably spent most years upset over something inconsequential.

My brothers got married, and I wasn't their number one girl anymore!  Worse yet, they had to do that "alternating Christmas" thing.

We spent some Christmas's visiting the hospital as well, as my father spent 80% of his last ones there.  Yes, it sucks to be sick on Christmas, but more so, it just sucks to be sick.


I remember his last Christmas, in 2009, he came downstairs unexpectedly to see me.  He told me he had a present for me, and slipped me $300 dollars.  "Don't Tell Mom", he said, and hobbled back upstairs.  Thinking back, I bet he had several grand stashed in that room for no particular reason.  Always prepared.

NOW
Things will never be the same again.  This Christmas, I won't be eating the Whitman's sampler as fast as I can or thinking that my Mom just doesn't understand.   We're not going to wake up and play all the new cds that we got and eat our weight in chocolate.

That's the thing about life, right?  It moves even if we're not ready for it to.  Of course, I'm sure there're awesome ghosts of Christmas future waiting for me too.  But as long as I'm going to be haunted, I'd prefer that my ghosts pick me up some candy for the journey....