I remember when my children were wee boys and we lived in Vanuatu, a tropical island in the South Pacific. It was the strangest experience to be singing Christmas carols and wiping the sweat off our foreheads at the same time. Since Vanuatu is south of the equator by quite a bit, Christmas happens in summer, a very novel and incongruent experience to those of us raised in North America. I was struck with the contrast of the holidays and how weather affects the whole thing. Not only the opposite season but it seems we had to make up what Christmas would be like: the ornaments, the tree, the presents in this tropical paradise. The ornaments for the tree had to be made from scratch. I was challenged to use my imagination to know what to do. And so we ended up with red and green food-colored macaroni glued to candy canes cut out from cardboard boxes. I smile to myself as I reflect back on how long ago and how not so long ago my son and I were decorating that first tropical tree together.
Twenty two years later, a few days before Christmas, I now am writing with my son. In 1986 he was 3 years old. Back then we were dancing before dinner and now we are writing before breakfast. Neither of us can be bothered to drag out our tree from storage with boxed up Christmas ornaments. Andrew goes to CVS and buys a small artificial tree with tiny lights and balls. It does the job and we are now officially with a tree.
Christmas with grown children at home can be a time of deep reflection and knowing each other on a different level. There is friendship now instead of parenting. There is joy and mutual admiration. We both write in our own style and reflect on the past and the future. How interesting the process is to me that we negotiate the stages of life….from parent to friend, fellow writer, companion. And yet I’m still the Mom. Weird.