A Christmas of Firsts

Dec 29. , 2008 0 Comments

After things settled down from a crazy several days, I began to realize that this Christmas, for me, was in many ways a Christmas of firsts. Below is a list of some of those firsts which stand out in my mind.

Note: Please excuse the lack of line breaks in the lengthier list items. For some reason, any method I tried to use to put in line breaks were stripped out in half of the paragraphs.

This was the first Christmas in a few years where my daughter didn’t finish opening presents only to say, disapprovingly, “Is that all?” I was quite proud of her.
My daughter received her first iPod (a Nano that shuffles songs when you shake it).
The first time I saw my father since last year.
The first time my grandmothers have been in the same room since possibly before I was born (there is lingering bad blood there…). And you betcha, we took pictures!
The first time my wife and I were able to buy gifts for each other for several years.
My wife bought me two tickets to see “Phantom of the Opera” in San Francisco this upcoming Friday. Every since first hearing the music in grade school, I’ve always wanted to go and see the stage performance and this will be my first time going.
My uncle was at my sister’s house on Christmas day. He is my dad’s older brother and when I was a baby, I’m told, he would come over and spend hours laying on the floor playing with me and talking to me. Shortly afterward he became afflicted with epilepsy and thus began decades of seclusion, testing, botched prescriptions which only compounded the condition. He would go from being extremely paranoid of germs, so much so that he would not hug you and would spend most of his time holed up in his bedroom or washing his hands repeatedly, to exhibiting very bad anorexia-like symptoms, to being very lethargic and unwilling to get up off of the couch. Trying to hold a conversation with him was always, for me, an exercise in futility because his mind would wander and he would ramble on about seemingly random things. This Christmas, however, was the first time, in my entire life, that I was able to have a normal conversation with him. He told me how he always thinks about me and he made sure to tell me that he never forgot about me. The realization that, through all of his medical issues and doctor-assigned drugs, my Uncle Chris was still always there under the layers of drug-induced personality changes, was unexpected. For some many years he seemed to be lost. I feel so bad for him. He’s in his 50s and in many ways, he seems to just now be able to enjoy life and be himself. Even my dad commented to me how it seems like he finally has his big brother back.
This was the first time since my childhood where I actually felt connected to my extended family. I spoke with the only grandfather I’ve ever known on Christmas night and we visited with my aunt and uncle at their house for several hours the day after Christmas. For various petty and child-like reasons, my extended family has always had drama which more often than not resulted in us missing out on holidays with them, a lack of phone calls or cards on special occasions, etc. Hopefully, it seems like we’re all ready to put all of that behind us and try, again, to reconnect after all these years.
Every once in a while you have to do something to remind your wife that you can be manly and nostalgic. I cracked open my dad’s old shoe shine kit and polished up a pair of shoes I had which were very scuffed and faded. When I was done, not only was my wife impressed, but I felt like I had a brand new pair of shoes. This was definitely a first in those two ways. I haven’t shined a pair of shoes in many, many years! Shining a pair of shoes is a pretty easy process and with some minimal expense up front, can save you potentially hundreds of dollars in the long run. To learn how to shine a pair of shoes, a great place to start is by reading “Shine Your Shoes Like A Soldier“. One tip that’s not in that article, which was a trick my father learned during his Navy days, is to take a lighter or match and light the shoe polish on fire, for just a few seconds, before applying it to your shoes. This warms up the polish, which helps it apply and adhere better.