Happy Happy!
12/23/00
HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!! I hope everyone is enjoying this time off as much as me. Though I admit, I’m astonished that it’s already so late in December and it’s hard to feel particularly christmassy without snow. I hunger for snow.
I’m feeling nostalgic for those days when I used to romp about with mittens, hats, and scarves that mom would knit for us, roasted chestnuts (yup, we really used to do this in the fireplace before we realized how much more convenient it was to do in the microwave after shaving off a piece of the shell so they wouldn’t’ explode) and shovel the walk & driveway.
Either my brother or I would shovel our neighbor Mrs. K’s drive as well since she lived alone (aside from devil cujo dog named “Happy”).
You’re impervious to the cold when you’re younger. I love the sound that snow makes when you crunch the virgin stillness with your boots, tight from 3 layers of socks. Mike & I would make forts, burrow ourselves within them and pretend we were guards for some imperial castle. We would have snowball fits (fits, not fights) once in a while, but he always packed his snowballs too tightly and I’d be a crybaby and go running inside. So instead I’d hop out tot he field behind our house, and make crisp snow angles, taking extra care to fall down carefully and not have my butt groove lopsided or too short.
I remember coming inside and having mom and dad force hot and bitter ginseng tea down our throats and how we’d out wit each other for the closest spot near the fireplace to dry and warm our backs.
The same artificial evergreen tree would be hauled up from our dungeon of a basement every year and redecorated with the same old lights, tinsel and ornaments including one I’d made out of thick tin foil in kindergarten and colored with permanent markers.
We’d take family photos, open our gifts, and smile. Then settle down, pulling all the cushions from the sofa to squat down on the floor, with blankets, and a heated floor mat from Korea, and watch Holiday films. We’d pray, eat, laugh and eat some more.
Sounds like I’m homesick huh? Maybe I am a little. But I know that even were I back in Michigan, it wouldn’t quite be the same. Since Mom died, we’ve never pulled back up the tree nor decorated it or the bushes in front of the house. That’s the thing I miss about Livonia. The extravagance and somewhat tackiness of holiday lawn decorations. Sometimes we’d take the long way back from Midnight Christmas mass to swing by neighborhoods and streets all alight, blinking and cheerful.
Holiday presents come with no ceremony but the love we express for each other now is more generous in spite of the lack of ceremony and the distance… and that’s nice. With how far apart we all are, it’s been a long long time since we’ve all been together for Christmas. Mike’s in Korea, I’m in Californian and Home, home is always waiting with chestnuts and driveways that need to be shoveled back in Michigan.
I like my stepmom a lot. She’s super cool and I recall the first Christmas she spent with my father as I went home that year. Dad and I had a fight regarding the boyfriend that I had at the time and insisted on telling my father about. I recall my dad’s words as he gripped the steering wheel, spouting hot steam of indignant rage.
“He not Korean? He Chinese? No China Boy for you! You must marry Korean, always Korean. You my daughter, you know this.”
To which I retorted. “Dad, it’s *your fault*. You brought me to this country. You sent me to all girls schools which made me think independently and make my own choices. If you really had wanted me to marry only Korean, then it’s your dang fault for brining me and Mike here in the first place”
Steam was rising off of both of our heads as we sat, driving through the crunchy snow home from midnight mass. Several minutes passed and the tension was taught. The windows were steamed from our fight and then crystallizing into fascinating designs.
Suddenly from the back, Monica peeked her head through the front seats. She looked at my father, and then looked at me. Looked at my father again, and then looked at me.
Then she leaned back. Pointed both fingers at me as if she were casting a sports judgment and called out clearly in her sweet and comic voice
“*DING! Point, Min Jung.”
Both Dad and I were so stunned by that comment that we started cracking up in spite of our fuming anger.He told her to be quiet as he was still trying to be angry, but failed miserably. We went home, had a glass of wine, kissed each other Merry Christmas and tucked ourselves in.
After four years, I have yet to meet her daughter who lives in Florida, as we always seem to select different holidays to travel up and see our parents. Odd huh? *Shrug*. But as wonderful as Monica is, she’s not my mom. She’s good for my dad though, and loves me which is great. She doesn’t nag my dad to decorate the house and if they drag up the old tree, I don’t’ know, though I wonder at how she would feel about placing ornaments on it that she has no memory of having been brought home by a gleeful 6 year old in pigtails.
Peace out & Happy Holidays!
Stay warm and safe!
___________
Three guesses what movie I saw today. No cheating.
Seriously though, it totally rocked.
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