Am I Ebenezer Scrooge, Master?

“Master? Am I Ebenezer?”

“Kitty? What? Of course not,” Master Pravus said, a hint of laughter in his voice, “You don’t have a top hat and you’re not a landlord.”

“I’m seriously. Do you? Do I ruin Xmas every year, because I’m an annoying Grinch. Am I? Still Lovable?”

He spun around in his chair.

“You’re still plenty lovable. No matter how grinchy. And you’re not as grinchy as you think.”

I don’t understand Xmas. I don’t have good Xmas memories, and that fact probably stems from my inability to understand Xmas as a whole. I’ve never really met another person like me, who doesn’t understand Xmas, and this has been a problem that’s gone on since I was itty-bitty. I just… Don’t get it. I don’t understand. I have tried to understand, and have never really received a satisfying answer.

Now, it’s not an animosity I harbor. I just, as I said… I don’t get it. I’m an atheist. So I don’t feel compelled to celebrate a holiday that doesn’t belong to me. It just… It doesn’t belong to me. My Master? He likes celebrating Xmas and Easter, I think because of his upbringing. He has good memories. My Dragon likes Xmas too. They have nice memories as well. My brother-in-law has THREE Xmas trees for goodness sakes! I think, for people who don’t understand why or how I don’t understand, they want me to be caught up in the magic. And I feel magical about so many things in my life.. But I don’t understand Xmas magic. I never did.

I remember when I was little. I mean, really, really little. Xmas wasn’t ever fun. I never felt like I wanted anything specific for my birthday or for Xmas, so when the time came that Ma wanted me to sit down and make a list of things that I wanted, I always said I had nothing I wanted. I mean, I literally… I didn’t need a ton of.. Things? And I’d get in trouble for trying to cause a disturbance. I just? I couldn’t think of things and it was a thing to be punished over. I just. I didn’t really want. It’s always been that way. “Can’t I just have a nice day? I want that!” That wasn’t a thing to want. TROUBLEMAKER.

I didn’t want to haul out of bed early for the prospect of pressies. Pressies are nice and all but I didn’t wanna go to bed early for them either. I wanted things to be normal. I wanted my usual schedule.

We didn’t eat breakfast that day, because we ate a huge dinner, although my Dad would usually sneak me a piece of toast because he disagreed with the rest of the family on the whole “not eating now, in order to eat more later” thing. But then, me and my Dad always went against the grain on a lot of things.

I remember when I was itty-bitty Kitty I didn’t really understand the day. I mean. “Is the point just the presents? We don’t do anything else particularly different on this day?” We weren’t churchgoers. We didn’t have an event like a movie or anything we went to see. What was the purpose of Xmas? What? “It’s a day for family!” They would all shout back at me angrily, like I was stupid and missing the point.

Well, if it’s a day for family, then I am missing the point. Watching everyone split off, and play with their toys, I definitely didn’t get it. It seemed like they just cared about.. Things? We were together every single day. And in that one day where businesses were shut down, no one was really playing together or doing things together. It didn’t seem like.. A family thing. It seemed like “Who got the best?” “Or biggest?” Or.. Whatever..

I think part of why Xmas is weird in my mind is that I’m the type of person who just. If I see a pressie I want a person to have, I just get it for them and give it to them. If I want to spend time with someone, I put intention into doing that. I’ll do these things in the middle of April, or January, or October. I don’t need a holiday in the middle of December to tell me to give somebody a present and cook them a ham.

But.

I also recognise that my family wasn’t wonderful growing up and that I didn’t have a good time. I’m deliberately leaving out a lot of the worst parts of the day because this is my blog, however, that doesn’t mean that I don’t want my loved ones to be loved and to feel my love regardless of what I have always felt or understood. Every year I have friends and family ask me what I want for Xmas, and every year when I am faced with this question, I tell them the same thing: I want them to be OK. I’m not being difficult. I’m serious. My friends and family, my loved ones are so important to me, and I want them to take excellent care of themselves. The best care they can. It’s what I would tell my Ma when I was growing up:

“Faete, I need to know what to tell Santa!”

“Tell him, that I want to be healthy. Tell him make my brothers and sisters healthy. Tell him we can have a fun day!”

“NO! Stop being annoying. There has to be a doll! Don’t you want a doll?”

There is no doll. If you ask me this question, I’m not putting you off. And for those who tolerate me as the Ebenezer Scrooge I can sometimes be.. And you love me regardless: Thank you. Thank you for being here. For reading here, and for helping me learn. I may never truly understand Xmas. I really might not ever get it. I might always be really annoying, but I’ll do my best to keep learning. But some things will probably always be a mystery to me, I guess that’s OK too.