None Of My Christmas Memories Are Gifts
None of my Christmas memories are gifts. We tore through wrapping paper like holiday bloodsport, and left slaughtered trees splayed on vinyl runners. Our aunties dem would get their socks caught on Scotch tape tumbleweeds and scold our silliness. JJ demolished the bubble wrap so I couldn’t get to it. He learned that cruel game from me though. I didn’t much like watches or socks or sweatpants, especially not wrapped up in much more exciting boxes. Although I was fond of the bike my mother built when I turned 9, and loved the easel she gave me at 10 -- knowing I’d make best use there -- the items didn’t make me feel anything. Not like how knowing her love made me feel.
The cousins compared money and loot, of course. That was our time to pretend fight, and Andrene would act like I was the favorite when I swore I wasn’t (until she showed me her purse of winnings and I had to admit hers was light). We became friends with midnight suspense. My grandma must have entertained the Santa thing for one or two years, mostly for the cookie benefits. We were too tough and too Black and too New York to believe in shit like Santa Claus and we didn’t think his fat ass could fit down an incinerator; plus: wouldn’t he burn up with the rest of the garbage if he did?
In any case, the floppy Claus hat commenced serious business. We hustled over to the plastic embalmed couch no one could sit on, which served as “the tree,” for the ceremony.
“HO! HO! HO! MERRRRRRY…” and all that.
The Santa Claus hat could only befit the most honorific family member. Whoever hosted or bought the most gifts or baked the black cakes. So basically Grandma. She only left the kitchen to be Santa because the black cakes needed a thousand very necessary and very Caribbean steps that she was exclusively qualified to do. She would remind us of her core competence, usually when we touched the oven like some dummies. I never knew the tragedy people call “fruitcake.” My childhood guarded me from ugly ills like American food or gift worship. Christmas wasn’t some kitschy sweater joke nor any religious brainwashing. Dry skin in itchy sweaters maybe. We got together for loving time and no gift was small so your ass better had a damn card. CVS open on Christmas.
I would read cards aloud politely, and then toss ‘em in the big Macy’s bag where I filed them. Kept the Jacksons slick folded between my knuckles as I dumped the cards too. The five-gallon basin of cake batter got us drunk off licking. The rum and red wine penalized us for not knowing their magic. We ran size 7 tracks into the carpet knots, wanting to be sober about our shit but definitely lit and out of control. Granny was pouring the final mix into silver tins and side-eyeing us the whole night because we were clearly about to break the apartment. Since Santa wasn’t real, and this had no bearing on The List or whatever, we indulged as properly behaved Jamaican kids would: laughing til we felt vomit rumble up in chocolate burps. Until someone told us “Me nuh business wid de running up and down like some damn fool fool pickney pon de Lord’s day! Unnu too haunted! People live downstairs, yuh know! Chuh!” Challenged on what we knew when we didn’t know shit. Parents present paradoxes.
For real, I don’t remember any toys or wanting them. I wanted my Aunt Lu to hug me inside of her powder-smelling starchy bosom, and congratulate me on reading so much. I was corny. I wanted to fog the 6th floor front window looking for frost, tracing the flakes from clouds to the Brooklyn chimney line. I wanted fucking snow, and the no shame snow-fights where one yellow-streaked ball of fury could turn play-play into real life slap-boxing for the respect. I wanted to go caroling so we could hear and feel our loved ones echo in our lungs, conceding that harmony felt fine. So that again, we could eat cookies. The third house from the end on East 22nd, where we sang on Christmas Eve, made us fresh-baked batches until Mr. Henderson, the owner, died. Then it was just a house on cold nights. None of my Christmas memories are gifts.