I Am This Woman

As promised, this entry will recall a “best” from my childhood.

Except as I think back, I cannot remember one particular Christmas as a whole. There are moments and glimmers and little videotape replays of great moments, and if I try even just a little bit, I can remember disappointments. So much of my childhood was spent coping with disappointment. My family didn’t understand me, apparently.

Yes, I wanted a BB gun, so how come my brother got one, and I didn’t?

Yes, I wanted Barbies… after all, my girlfriends all had them and *they* were magically happy. It must be the Barbies. I got Midge instead. In retrospect, Midge was a logical choice: she was the tanner, frecklier, less sexy friend to Barbie. And that was me, through and through. I was the more active, tanner and less sexy friend to all of my Barbie-collecting friends. Without the freckles.

But moreover, I wanted a pony. I mean, really and truly, I wanted a pony. We had a big enough yard. I had read every single book on horsemanship and horses in the library (both school and public). C’mon folks, WHAT WAS THE BIG DEAL?

I did get Breyer horses, but IT’S NOT THE SAME. (Stomp.)

The tank set was a huge disappointment. SUCH a large box, and it was just tanks?! cruel joke on a nine year old who was imagining fairy princess unicorn rainbow castles AT LAST, instead of some disappointing sensible (and fun) present. I would much have preferred an entire western town, hmmm? something a little more HORSE related? Hello! Family! I like horses and dogs! you cannot go wrong with those! If not a pony, what about a puppy? Puppies are nice! and I promise I’ll walk her every day.

I wondered if I would ever be given proper gifts. But cumulatively over the years, I was given gifts that were deemed proper by my family. Our Christmas tradition had several themes which, as I think back, were fairly constant over the 25-30 odd years I celebrated with my brother(s) and my parents. Humor (dry, satire, printed or recorded); German (non-kitsch, organs, marzipan, church bells, Bach, Beethoven); finer things (brandy, real leather, Chanel No. 5, pipe tobacco, prime rib, chocolate); reading material (brainy, beautiful, classic and imaginative literature, photography, art); music (Errol Garner, Duke Ellington, Vivaldi, The Beatles); ballistics (cannons, guns, fireworks, bullets, weapons of warfare). During the years we lived in snow: sleds, saucers and devices to go very very fast down a hill.

When we lived in snow country, a saucer or sled was often under the tree and half of the day was spent battling cold, snow in the face (thanks, brother dear) and blazing speeds down the little hill in our front yard onto the iced over driveway and into the neighbor’s. If we played it just right, we could scoot all the way out to the street, bumping off the terraced wall into the STREET. (And get yelled at by a grown-up, if one was foolhardy enough to be about. Most of the grown-ups were, however, inside drinking and recovering from late night subterfuge.)

There was one year that my mother and I conspired to get my father his much-coveted Spanish brandy Fundador. I was thrilled to bits to be included in the secret! He was going to be so HAPPY! I was HAPPY! so happy that I revised a Christmas tune and sang it for the few days leading up to Christmas Day:

O Fundador, O Fundador

la la la la la la-la!

Yes, he heard me. And for years after that, the joke was on me though this was a family joke that didn’t sting. The gift wasn’t spoiled, really. He enjoyed my stupid singing as much as the brandy, and we sang it for many Christmases after.

But if I’m pressed to name a single Best Christmas Ever, it would have to be Christmas 1963. That year, I got three dolls, several stuffed animals, and my brother got a toy “pom-pom” gun. The dollies were great because they were Normal. That’s what you are supposed to get for Christmas, right? I was 5 and, as everyone knows, five year old girls a) rule the world, and b) are all about the rules. My dolls were Greenus, Pinkus and Wendy — a newborn dressed in green, a pretty baby doll in a pink dress, and a strange unbendable doll with those eyes that close when you lay her down. It is possible that Peter Pan (the animated movie) had just been released, hence the name. She was able to stand by the cradle that Greenus came in, and unblinkingly rock her. Longsuffering older sister Wendy. All of them probably ended up naked and tossed on the floor of my closet eventually, in favor of the stuffed animals.

Between the dolls and the pom-pom gun, what I remember about those few hours in our Kansas base housing living room is that my brother and I got along. We played together and had fun. Christmas cheer animating him past his introvert’s comfort zone, we shot things out of the gun. IN THE LIVING ROOM. And it is the one Christmas that he recalls with great fondness. If I talk to him today (and I might), he will again light up like a Christmas tree to recall that memory. In fact, it’s a really wonderful Christmas until he lights up about something.

I looked for a toy pom-pom gun to give to my younger brother this year. I failed. I’ll make a donation to a veteran’s assistance group instead in his name, but still, a pom-pom gun would have been really nice.

ps I can’t wait to show him this video!

pps god, I hope he’s not as nostalgic as me, and I hope he’s not sending me a pony!