Why Christmas Always Failed Me

By Ingrid Albuquerque-Solomon –

The biggest Christmas Day disappointment came my way when I was five years old.

A few days prior to that, my parents had in a roundabout way tried to find out what I wanted for Christmas. I threw my arms around mama in a very Louisa Mary Alcott style and whispered, “A cycle.” The day before Christmas, when it was evident my parents were secretly packing gifts to put before the hallowed tree, I caught my mother’s eye and my expression was a question. She nodded, and I wanted to burst. Right through midnight mass at the Immaculate Conception Church in Ajmer taluka, I could only think of my cycle and wonder whether my feet would reach the pedals.

When after breakfast, we began to receive our gifts, I was given a small golden palm sized box. The key? No. When I opened it, it was a toy cycle in a paper box. I looked with horror at my ma, but she was preoccupied with giving gifts to the other siblings. I guess when you are the second youngest among six robust, noisy children, there is no real scope for quality time with each child which would help parents to know what lay in each little heart.

Ten years later, the next Christmas horror. I was fifteen by then, and a sixteen year old sister who was my closest friend and guide, closed her eyes and died on Christmas eve. We were not allowed to keep her body for The Wake for too long. Within a few hours, the parish priest came with his team, blessed the body, took it to church blessed it again, then the coffin was buried in the graveyard as the “dead bells” chimed and chilled the soul. The reason for the rush was because the next day was Christmas Day, and, like the priest informed us, “We can’t have a funeral on Christmas day.”

After that, I hated even the sound of the word Christmas. The rest of the year was manageable, especially after I fled out of Ajmer taluka and went to Bombay shaher. I got a good job and was even able to go to a counselor to find out how to survive Christmas day. He suggested I have a “little Brandy” on Christmas eve to get me through the night of 24 December. Little? I would buy a quart of Doctor’s Brandy, put it to my lips and drink without stopping (like the coke ads), bracing myself against the burning of my intestines and don’t know which other organs as the liquid ran its numbing course. Sure enough, after a while, I was out for the count. But when my eyes opened, the emotional pain had tripled, and I could still hear the dead bells ringing tauntingly.

“Things will get better once you have children,” –this comforting line came from a dear friend Gordon Rodericks, lover of jazz and fish (the sport not the dish). He was right. Three children popped up, one after the other, and Christmas became an exciting affair of trees, gifts, and uncontrollable overeating. That’s when I decided Christmas should be a life-changing day. From one extreme, I moved to another, especially in the workplace, and here are just a few glimpses of the Christmas changes I tried to propagate as writer and editor in the marketplace:

• In one Christmas issue, we roped in Cooking Czarina Tarla Dalal for a special feature. The first double spread in the magazine showed Tarla ben clutching the stage curtain tight close, very mysteriously. In the next double spread, the curtain had been flung open with Tarla throwing out inviting hands which matched the headline – THIS CHRISTMAS LETS GO VEG! Beautiful idea, astounding first-time new vegetarian dishes accompanied by written recipes. Though it was applauded as a creative idea, I knew it was a total flop by the fact that my own Christmas table was creaking with every non veg dish Christmas can think of including sorpatel, mutton roast, chilly beef, tangy prawns, chicken biryani, to name a few. How dare I export what I myself would never import!
• The next Christmas we tried something different. We took 4 or 5 destitute children off the street, washed and bathed them, touched up their faces with light makeup, then got leading designers who came with their tailors and magically produced amazing attire upon the children. By then, they looked like they’d descended from the host which announced the birth of Christ to the shepherds on that first Christmas morn. We floated on heavenly clouds thinking how smart and savvy we were, until Devika Bhojwani, friend of the magazine, asked us a simple question, “And now what? You are going to put them back on the streets?” Strange that none of us had thought of that?
• The desire to have creative Christmases continued after we moved with bori-bistar to Bangalore, to a new job and garden city celebrations. Once we decided to give the money that was to be spent on gifts to orphanages and the underprivileged children; the next time we filled the car with clothes and blankets which we distributed lovingly to those sleeping and shivering on sidewalks.

Through it all, one could not help getting the feeling that somewhere, we were missing the point, that Christmas had nothing to do with any of this.

Like the magic coin which finally connects caller and callee on a faulty public telephone, the truth about why my Christmases would constantly flop and fail, suddenly jumped at me like Jack out of the box. They failed because hitherto Christmas was always about me, my perceptions, my indulgences, and my fun. That is as faulty a picture as little baby Jesus in the crib and on Christmas cards. For heaven’s sake, take a reality check. The baby grew up, crossed 30 years of age, was nailed to a cross where He gave up His ghost. Take a second look – the cradle is empty, and the cross is bare – the Man himself rose up and out of the grave, is now sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and smiling in bafflement as He watches memory celebrations of His significant birthday. What’s your age now? How would you respond if your parents were to circulate a ‘baby picture’ of you on your 20,30,40^th birthday picture among the guests?

Christmas day is to remember how the Son of God laid aside His divinity – all the perks and pleasures of being the darling of heaven, to come to earth as the poorest of poor men, no house, no place to lay his head, occasionally no food to eat. God or no God, why anyone would do that never made sense to me until I heard the story of the ant: There was a pioneer who created a colony of ants. The ants were running themselves into all kinds of dangers and some were moving dangerously toward the edge of the desk where they could fall and be stamped. Frantic, the pioneer wanted to save their lives but he was aware of how thin-ice the line was between life and death. If he caught the ant in hand, the pressure on the little thing might kill it. If he were to shout out a warning, the sound might give the poor thing a heart attack (does an ant have a heart?).

The pioneer took the only option available to his mighty self: He became an ant himself and walked before the ants of his colony, to lead them to safety, where nothing and no one could hurt them.

I finally understood what Christmas was really about –Jesus becoming an ant to save the rest of us human ants of creation from self-destructing. And those who have not understood that and are not following Him in word and deed, dare not talk of Christmas or its tree, cake, roast turkey, and pudding.

---

Ingrid Albuquerque is an author, journalist, trainer, and Bible teacher. She is part of the mainstream media for over 47 years.