Shoes and Coal

I was thinking about Christmas the other day. It’s the season, of course, but that’s not the reason. What started me off was the reporter who threw his shoes at George W. It made me think of the stories about bad little boys who got lumps of coal rather than toys in their stockings. Most of us at this point might consider throwing other things at him—like dead polar bears, shopping carts used by the homeless, cheating financial advisors (who probably ought to dropped onto him from, say, the top of the Empire State Building), and strips of mildewed and rat-chewed wall from the veteran’s hospitals. Most of us, also, might take more care with our aim. But I digress. As I said, I was thinking of Christmas.

It occurred to me that Christmas has changed a great deal over the years—over my years anyway, and I’m not sure that it’s been all for the best. Everyone says this and affects the proper degree of exasperation while rushing out to buy the stores out of anything remotely Christmassy. I, on the other hand, have retreated into a kind of cave from which I blink like a mole in daylight at the goings-on around me.

It wasn’t always this way.

My earliest memories of the season are actually among my happiest. There was just my mother and I and money was tight. I got one present. I knew what it was but that never stopped the anticipation. We always went up to London by train to see Father Christmas at Harrods or Marks and Spencer and the Regent Street lights, then we caught the train home. It was a splurge for us, always appreciated, and always cherished. Mum made a Christmas cake for us, a heavy dark fruit cake with marzipan and royal icing. She’d generally work an additional shift relieving other nursing staff so she could make a bit of extra money. I’d go along with her. Once I remember a slightly drunk doctor kissing all the nurses. I got kissed too. The first time anyone had ever kissed me on the lips.

When I married and had a family, I tried to duplicate some of the joy of my youth (sans inebriated doctors) for my son. The problem, however, was that my husband had family. My youthful enthusiasm for Christmas yielded to the expectations that came with the season. These became burdens as the volatile Italian family I had married into celebrated Christmas with fewer or more people, depending on who was talking to whom at the time. My sister-in-law held the record for non-arrival. When she actually appeared, it was like the second coming and the topic of conversation for months. We all endured and went back for more because it was Christmas, right?

Christmas took a sharp turn to the dark side when my husband died on December 16, 1997. I don’t know why I felt I had to proceed as if he was still with us. I think I was numb. It seemed pressingly important for me to have “a Christmas.” I think my mistake was forgetting that Christmas is not a stand-alone event. I should have understood that none of us had even begun the grieving process—least of all me—and that probably none of us was ready. My son and his wife and the children came to my house and proceeded to get into a disagreement. I sat watching things escalate until they packed up the kids and went home without even having dinner. I didn’t want to be alone, so I threw the uneaten dinner into the fridge and went out looking for some place to be. Nothing was open except a sports café with a small, tilted plastic Christmas tree on the bar. The place had a handful of regulars and I got the feeling they too had nowhere to go. I had a glass of white wine and a bucket of chicken wings and listened to canned Western music. I remember particularly the song, “All my exes live in Texas.” Then I went to see Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets. I’ll always be grateful the movie house was open.

Since then, I don’t do much for Christmas. It seems pointless with my family thousands of miles away. On the other hand, I enjoy the opportunity to be in touch with friends who are spread across the country. Fortunately, the tradition of writing newsy accounts of the year is alive and well; otherwise, I might never hear of the good things that have happened. I also use the time to reflect and count my blessings for my relationship with Sid, for the health of the people I love, and the fact that I have a home and enough to eat. During this season, I share what I can with the charities serving the poor. Other than this, I retreat to my cave and remember how things used to be.

That’s why I find the case of the thrown shoes so interesting. The reporter must have reflected on what he owed our peerless leader at this holy season and felt that the great decider deserved only footwear, surely the presidential equivalent of a lump of coal. What a comment this is. The reporter will undoubtedly apologize. He will have to: punishment in that part of the world is swift and unpleasant. But I, for one, will long remember the image of the president ducking shoes; my bet is that it will appear in myriad history books in the future. Too bad it wasn’t a lump of coal given the mining he wanted in our shrinking wilderness, but—what the heck?—shoes are better than nothing.