Being a recovering Catholic on Christmas has its own special fragrance of irony. Roman Catholics disdain that universal badge of Christianity that might have sustained me when I realized that the church itself contributed to the derailment of my emotional stability. But no: Catholics hold themselves out as a different breed. When you walk away from the church, you leave a cult and all its trappings behind your weary self.

What does Christmas become, when it’s not a celebration of the birth of the son of an immigrant visited by an angel with news that a divine child would come to her? The secular holiday has Santa, an outgrowth of a Catholic Saint; and little elves who serve him while a rosy-cheeked Mrs. Claus beams from the sidelines. You can do that, of course. You haul the artificial tree home from the box store and scatter the family ornaments through its branches. You invent traditions and borrow a few from your childhood with which to delight your offspring. The Tree Elf brings a present on the first night that the tree twinkles in your living room. Santa uses the same paper every year, to distinguish his gifts from yours. You sprinkle silver Hershey’s Kisses on the front walk, and explain that one of the elves must have dragged the red bag across the snow and worn a hole in it. Every year a train circles the floor and a small stuffed animal peeks out of the stocking.

But what does it mean? As the single mother of an only child, I cultivated families to get a little of the group cheer that flavored my childhood Decembers. We went caroling with the daycare group one year. During pre-school, we got invited to people’s homes where wine flowed freely and steaming mugs of chocolate smelled like peppermint. Every undertaking smacked of frantic efforts to stave off despair, or failure. Would my son remember those days with fondness, or would he consider that he had been deprived of normalcy? Should I have taken him to Mass? He seemed reluctant to sit on Santa’s lap at the mall. Had I explained that tradition well enough to make it fun?

I understand that I have romanticized the holidays of my memory. I know the grimness of certain immutable aspects of our household. The vagaries of our home life drove the scarcity of commercial trappings. Our mother could only afford to give us small presents. Anything of value certainly originated with my father’s mother or the S&H green stamps redemption program. I never felt cheated, though. Everything under the tree delighted us. The cookies on the aluminum tray tasted sweet and billowy. Wonderful scents filled the night air as we walked to midnight Mass. If anything awful happened on any given Christmas, I have thankfully suppressed any recollection of it. Only the lingering strains of “Silent Night” run through my mind, its serene melody mingling with the lively bounce of songs about Rudolph and his gang of reindeers.

My son came to California a few days after I moved here to help me unpack and celebrate Christmas. He had a little tree delivered from Amazon. We hung lights from the one big window and went to Christmas dinner at the home of some folks that I knew who lived in Windsor. I got him a banjo. I don’t remember what he gave me, but I’m sure he put a lot of thought into its selection; he always does. We rode the train to San Francisco on Christmas Eve and went to the top of Coit Tower. We walked the city streets until we found an open Chinese restaurant, where we feasted on our favorite things. I have to say, that Christmas shines as one of my best.

This year, I will spend Christmas with my sister Joyce, following which I will drive to Kansas City to see my old friends. I saw my son last year for Christmas and this summer for his birthday, so we won’t be together this year. I think he has plans, though, which I am hoping will bring joy to his life.

When my son was three or four, we went to church with some friends on Christmas. I stood around feeling awkward and out of place while Patrick visited with a few well-appointed ladies who found his curls charming. One of them bent down and said, “Do you know whose birthday is today, little boy?”

Patrick chortled. “Of course!” he exclaimed. “It’s Uncle Steve’s birthday!”

I can’t say which expression I more clearly remember, the shock on the woman’s face or the delight on my son’s little cherub countenance. He was right, of course. This year, my baby brother would have turned 66, had he not died alone one summer’s day in 1997. The day will always have that bittersweet note of a lost loved one for me, another birthday he will not see, another German chocolate cake that won’t get baked, another dance that none of us enjoy as the music swells around us and your friend and mine, Stephen Patrick Corley, kicks up his fancy leather-shod heels.

So, this is Christmas. Another year over and a new one nearly begun. I sit in the shop that I founded in the small, struggling town of Isleton, in the California Delta, and listen to Bing Crosby on my Bluetooth speaker outside. I had a rash of customers mid-day, before the Sunday act started at the local beer room. It’s quiet now, and gloom begins to gather as the sun struggles to finish its duty from behind the clouds. The sky spans gray, but it won’t snow. It might rain, though; but with any luck, I will make it home before the downpour.

Mugwumpishly tendered,

Corinne Corley

The Missouri Mugwump®