Y'know what's worse than being a Thanksgiving orphan? Being a christmas orphan. Sadly, that's been my fate more times than I care to admit.
Way, way back, when I was a little girl...I remember charging down the stairs with my big brother to find a livingroom full of presents. We didn't have a tree, of course, since the family was supposed to be Jewish (again, don't forget, i'm adopted) but that's just how we rolled, apparently.
Once my father died that ended. The christmas after his death was spent at my mother's wedding...my birthday (dec. 30) on their honeymoon. I was eight and pretty disappointed that I had to spend my birthday like that, but then, I'm pretty sure that was the year I got the My Little Pony stable so I let it go.
After that...I don't have any memories of christmas until I was about sixteen. The years in between were spent receiving those general gifts you keep around just in case company comes over...a make up bag...a nail file (when i was clearly a nail biter)...and once, a bottle of my mother's perfume...which she promplty bought back from me for $80. I'm pretty sure by then I was a drug addict and welcomed the cash. I SURE wasn't about the perfume! Ha ha...
Anyway...the christmas I turned sixteen stands out in my mind as one of the best ever. Which is funny because I was spending it in juvie, where I'd been for about a year or so.
Most of the kids had been given holiday passes and had headed home to commit whatever crimes were their favorites...to do WAY too many drugs...and probably be beaten by their parents. Y'know...the usual.
Some of us were not welcome at home and therefore stayed behind.
I remember being pretty upset that I was going to spend christmas bunked in someone elses room in someone else's dorm, but that's the way they did holidays in juvie...they took the few kids left behind and consolidated them all.
I suppose they tried to create the christmas spirit. The place was decorated...each living room of the dorm had a christmas tree and all that. But for me, I couldn't let it go that I wasn't in my own bed.
The first christmas miracle to occur for me that year was that at the last minute the staff decided to send us all back to our own dorms. It seems like a really small thing, but when you've got nothing to call your own...the little things become pretty important.
So, christmas eve, we packed up our stuff and headed 'home' and I slept happily in my own bed.
The next morning as I was heading out to have my first cigarette of the day I noticed something different about the living room. There were a pile of presents under our tree! And some of them even had my name on them!!!
I might have been something of a junkie and a criminal...but something about that warmed my little heart.
Once the other kids started waking up and venturing out to smoke...I was told that those presents were indeed intended for us. Not just empty boxes wrapped up with bows...but real presents. As it turned out, staff members were doled out a small sum of cash for each of us left behind and put in charge of buying presents.
I remember I got a new journal, a pair of guitar pick earings with little peace signs hanging off them (shut up, it was the early 90's!) and a collection of other little things.
What struck me about the gifts, is that even though they were bought upon instruction from the higher ups...they were obviously well thought out and exactly the kinds of things I'd want. And for a kid, junkie, criminal or not...being lost in the system means losing your identity. So for someone to show that they could see me for who I was touched me more than I can put into words.
Christmas memories disappear for some years after that...until I started being taken in by a friend's family, who loved me like one of their own. They even had a stocking hung up just for me... Christmas became one of my favorite days of the year.
Until this past year when my friend's step mother passed away from pancreatic cancer.
If she hadn't, I"d probably be on a plane right now back to New York to spend the holidays with them.
But I'm not...and I can't tell you in how many ways that breaks my heart.
Way, way back, when I was a little girl...I remember charging down the stairs with my big brother to find a livingroom full of presents. We didn't have a tree, of course, since the family was supposed to be Jewish (again, don't forget, i'm adopted) but that's just how we rolled, apparently.
Once my father died that ended. The christmas after his death was spent at my mother's wedding...my birthday (dec. 30) on their honeymoon. I was eight and pretty disappointed that I had to spend my birthday like that, but then, I'm pretty sure that was the year I got the My Little Pony stable so I let it go.
After that...I don't have any memories of christmas until I was about sixteen. The years in between were spent receiving those general gifts you keep around just in case company comes over...a make up bag...a nail file (when i was clearly a nail biter)...and once, a bottle of my mother's perfume...which she promplty bought back from me for $80. I'm pretty sure by then I was a drug addict and welcomed the cash. I SURE wasn't about the perfume! Ha ha...
Anyway...the christmas I turned sixteen stands out in my mind as one of the best ever. Which is funny because I was spending it in juvie, where I'd been for about a year or so.
Most of the kids had been given holiday passes and had headed home to commit whatever crimes were their favorites...to do WAY too many drugs...and probably be beaten by their parents. Y'know...the usual.
Some of us were not welcome at home and therefore stayed behind.
I remember being pretty upset that I was going to spend christmas bunked in someone elses room in someone else's dorm, but that's the way they did holidays in juvie...they took the few kids left behind and consolidated them all.
I suppose they tried to create the christmas spirit. The place was decorated...each living room of the dorm had a christmas tree and all that. But for me, I couldn't let it go that I wasn't in my own bed.
The first christmas miracle to occur for me that year was that at the last minute the staff decided to send us all back to our own dorms. It seems like a really small thing, but when you've got nothing to call your own...the little things become pretty important.
So, christmas eve, we packed up our stuff and headed 'home' and I slept happily in my own bed.
The next morning as I was heading out to have my first cigarette of the day I noticed something different about the living room. There were a pile of presents under our tree! And some of them even had my name on them!!!
I might have been something of a junkie and a criminal...but something about that warmed my little heart.
Once the other kids started waking up and venturing out to smoke...I was told that those presents were indeed intended for us. Not just empty boxes wrapped up with bows...but real presents. As it turned out, staff members were doled out a small sum of cash for each of us left behind and put in charge of buying presents.
I remember I got a new journal, a pair of guitar pick earings with little peace signs hanging off them (shut up, it was the early 90's!) and a collection of other little things.
What struck me about the gifts, is that even though they were bought upon instruction from the higher ups...they were obviously well thought out and exactly the kinds of things I'd want. And for a kid, junkie, criminal or not...being lost in the system means losing your identity. So for someone to show that they could see me for who I was touched me more than I can put into words.
Christmas memories disappear for some years after that...until I started being taken in by a friend's family, who loved me like one of their own. They even had a stocking hung up just for me... Christmas became one of my favorite days of the year.
Until this past year when my friend's step mother passed away from pancreatic cancer.
If she hadn't, I"d probably be on a plane right now back to New York to spend the holidays with them.
But I'm not...and I can't tell you in how many ways that breaks my heart.
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and don't forget about me when you get back!!
love and christmas hugs!!