Arts and crafts II

Now that I've spent far too long playing with photoshop, it's time to do some work. But I do think the result was worth the humor. This picture is more than simple heartache. This one is a reminder of some of what sucked. Let me tell you the story of Very Secret Santa.

It was christmas 2004. My ex (Tom, played by Ashton Kutcher) and I were together for what would be our last christmas. The year before we had spent a financially, emotionally, and physically draining christmas in Vermont for his brother's ski wedding extravaganza. I had told Tom that this year I really wanted, no, needed to keep christmas low key. He assured me he did too. I reminded him that this meant with his family. He agreed with me, but somehow we still had a fight about why I was so critical of his family.

Some time in the Fall of 2004, Tom's family had decided that it was too expensive for everyone to buy everyone else a present. They weren't broke, not by any means. His parents took about 6 vacations a year. Past vacations have included Hawaii, several caribbean islands, Iceland, Alaska, various boat trips on a friend's yacht, and ski trips to Aspen as well as the small nearly weekly side trips to ski in Vermont throughout the winter. I however was broke and didn't really like christmas all that much anyhow. Christmas downsizing sounded like a marvelous idea to me so I was pretty happy when Tom told me that his family had decided we'd all pick a name at Thanskgiving for Secret Santa.

Soon after this announcement, I was told Secret Santa had been amended so that you got three things for the person whose name you drew. One homemade present (cookies, pie, etc), one small present, and one larger present. Um...ok. It seemed a little complicated but I figured if this was what they wanted then I'd go along with it. Then some time later, after he had been on the phone with his Gram, Tom told me that Secret Santa had been canceled, mostly because Tom's father and uncle had been upset at the thought of not getting the usual tons of presents from other people. Tom was annoyed, I was annoyed, Tom was annoyed that I was annoyed. We had another argument about his family.

Thanskgiving came. Later in the evening, I found myself stranded in the living room with my ex's sister, mother, grandmother, and various aunts and female friends of the family. I was tucked into the couch between Gram and Tom's sister when Gram said to me "Oh! You haven't drawn a name for Secret Santa!"

This provoked flurry of discussion among the women present about whether or not I had drawn a name, whether or not names had been drawn in general, and when other people would be or had been drawing names. I was confused and said so to Gram. It turns out I should have just smiled and made a non-committal noise because Gram reacted as if I had jumped up onto the coffee table and hollered "Fuck Secret Santa!" She was offended but tried to come across as concerned. "If you didn't want to do it, why didn't you say something? Tom didn't tell me you didn't want to do Secret Santa," she exclaimed, placing her hand on my arm. I tried to explain "No, it's not that I don't want to. I do, I mean it's your family. It's only that Tom told me, I mean, I thought Tom said you guys weren't doing it and that everyone was just going to get everyone presents." Gram's eyes widened and her grip tightened. Other people stopped talking and were paying attention to the drama on the couch. I continued, addressing the room as a whole, "I mean I thought everyone who normally gets everyone presents would, I mean, I'm not trying to tell you what to do..." Oh god. Now I felt like I was saying I wanted every single one of his family members to buy me a present. Picture Meet the Parents. I was like Greg. Everything I did made it worse.

Tom's grandmother said loudly "If you don't want to do Secret Santa (PFG), we don't have to do it. We didn't know you didn't want to exchange presents!" This started another round of discussion among the women about whether or not we should do Secret Santa, who wanted to originally, who wanted to still, and an evolution of the entire decision process by way of a reiteration of all the private arguments presented (mostly by the men) for and against Secret Santa which had been communicated through the network of women. "If (PFG) doesn't want to do it, maybe we shouldn't." "Oh but Wes really wanted to." "Mom, I can't afford to buy you ALL presents. It's not fair for Allen and me to have to buy presents for everyone." "(PFG) and Tom didn't get a present for Marilyn and Richard last year..." "Brian always gets presents for everyone (awwww he's so sweet yes he is isn't he) and he really doesn't have much money." "We just thought that with Dave and Aimee buying a new house it would be easier on everyone if we did it this way" "But if you don't want to..."

This was perhaps one of the more socially uncomfortable situations I've ever been in. Mostly because my normal tendency is to meet this kind of escalating foolishness with a proportionally increased level of blunt decisive discourse in order to cut through the bullshit. But with these people, direct speech only made things worse. Finally I couldn't take it. I nearly yelled "NO! I'm fine with doing it. Really, it's ok! I just didn't understand because...Look, please, everyone - just do whatever you want. It's your christmas - I'm just along for the ride."

More discussion. More gripping of my arm. More subtle accusations that I wanted to hijack the family christmas with my grinchy selfish ways.

Finally, Tom's mother had the sense to retrieve Tom from the kitchen where he had been hanging out with the men folk. He was brought in like some witness for the prosecution. "Tom!" his grandmother said shifting her attention from me but keeping her hand firmly clenched on my now sore forearm. "Why does (PFG) think we aren't doing Secret Santa?" Tom looked horrified. "Oh shit," he turned to me "Oh babes, I'm sorry. I forgot to tell you. They decided to do it." Later, Tom explained to me that the family decided to do Secret Santa as well as get presents for everyone. "So what does the name drawing mean?" I asked. "Well if you draw someone's name you get that person the three special presents" he explained. "So basically, I have to get three presents for whoever I pick and I have to get presents for everyone else, same as usual, in addition to those presents. Wow. That's fucking great. Thanks for telling me." And so Very Secret Santa, a new tradition, was born.

I drew and got Tom's mother. For the rest of the night and all through the holiday season, I was asked repeatedly by Tom's female relatives if I was ok with Secret Santa and told that if I didn't want to do it they could always tell everyone who wanted to that I didn't want to and we wouldn't do it.

Tom and I fought about his family at least once a week in the run up to christmas. I had an epiphany after so much forced contemplation about why I was so critical of his family. I realized I was mad at them for having dropping the ball repeatedly and in big ways when Tom had been sick the year before. That alone would have been ok I guess, I could have seen them as a hands off kind of family. Except that they expected nearly precognitive adherence to the constantly shifting manifestations of family convention and expectation when it came to stuff like buying christmas presents. As each new round of family Simon Says came up, it only reinforced my perception of them as largely selfish people who mistook control for intimacy and who believed unquestioning conformity to trivial superficial details was a sign of affection and respect.

The realization hit me one day while Tom and I were driving to school together and arguing about his family. After we had finished up for the day, we met at the coffee shop near the campus garage. We were having the usual reconcilliation talk, the one where we were genuinely apologetic for hurting one another's feelings, where we tried to explain what we really meant and not what we sounded like we meant. I communicated the gist of my epiphany to Tom. I was quite happy that I had realized the source of my frustration with his family because I felt like it put it in perspective. I hoped talking about it would be a first step on the path to putting our relationship back together again after the serious shake ups it had gone through. Tom was not impressed. He told me "It sounds like you're saying you didn't get thanked enough."

Not thanked enough for doing everything that I did to take care of Tom while he had been in and out of the emergency room and hospital during a lengthy diagnosis of gallbladder disease the year before. Not thanked enough for taking care of him in his extremely demanding post-op state while I myself was still recovering from neuro-Lyme. Not thanked enough for trying repect his parents' stated desire to "help out" and be kept up to date on his progress through what seemed like one medical mishap after another only to find that when I called them, they had left on another vacation or couldn't come to the phone because they were too drunk. Not thanked enough for listening while he complained about his family and being supportive of his building early adult conflicts with them. Yeah Tom, I thought, I didn't get thanked enough. That's what this is all about.

It sounds corny and cliche, but here's what it felt like. When he said that, I felt a cold wind blowing through me. I felt like someone had opened a window inside me and the ice and snow had come blasting in, coating everything with brittle sparkly frost. Grief came late to warm me up. At that moment though, I was all and only cold.

Which brings me to this picture, taken only a few days after that conversation. It was one of the most excruciating christmases I've ever had. I removed myself from his family as much as possible. This picture is of me and Tom (played by Mr. Kutcher) at his parent's house in my very brief christmas appearance that year. I spent most of the party outside smoking, listening to the snow squeak and crunch beneath my feet, and counting the sparkly far away stars. Before I left that night, Tom's parents insisted on a picture of me and Tom in front of the family christmas tree. While I was working with this photo today, I noticed two things. One is that Tom looks very stiffly posed. The other is that I look less like I'm smiling and more like I'm clenching my teeth.