Christmas Eve was a busy day around the O’Houllihan house.
There was all the baking to do, the last minute presents to wrap. And cleaning.
Everything has to be cleaned, dusted, vacuumed and polished a hundred and
eighty-six times over (according to Katie). What made it more unbearable was
that it had to be done to the sounds of that dumb, stupid Christmas music (also
according to Katie).
The Twelve Days of Christmas poured from the CD
player while Katie sat at the dinning room table polishing silverware. She
decided if she heard the swans a-swimming or the lords a-leaping just one more
time, she’d die. She’d absolutely die, right there in front of them all, under
the tree, on top of the presents, the blinkie lights blinking and the bubble
lights bubbling. Dead! Iced! Croaked! Room-temperature chick! All
because of those dumb, stupid maids a-milking.
That evening, Katie’s mother prepared their traditional
light Christmas Eve supper of dips, ham, cheese, Irish soda bread and various
nuts and candies. Katie and her sister, Colleen, were then allowed to open one
present, usually a box of candy their father mail-ordered from somewhere. This
year, he’d gotten each of them a large, solid chocolate kiss.
Just what I need, thought Katie contemplating the pound of chocolate in
front of her on the table. An express ticket to zit-city. If I eat this,
I’ll grow a zit so big it’ll get me on the ten o’clock news. With my luck,
it’ll appear right on the end of my nose. I’ll look like Rudolph the Reindeer.
Daddy’d love that! He could show me off all over Chicago and sing the Rudolph
song.
Katie broke off a small piece of the chocolate and began to nibble it. “Thanks, daddy,” she said imaging her nose glowing like the rising sun.
“Yeah, thanks, daddy,” echoed Colleen. She was trying to take a bite out of her giant kiss like it was an apple.
“You’re welcome, girls,” he responded as he stood from the table, gathering a few dishes to take to the kitchen. Katie’s mother was already in there loading the dishwasher. Katie turned to Colleen whose face was smeared with chocolate.
“Keep eating that,” said Katie, “and you’ll get zits before you get tits.”
Colleen opened her mouth and presented Katie her tongue upon which was a large wad of chewed chocolate.
“Gross, you tick!” said
Katie, disgustedly. Suddenly the house was filled with the sounds of Sleigh
bells ring, are you listening …
“Here it comes,” sighed Katie rising. She walked into the kitchen where her mother was rinsing dishes and loading the dishwasher.
“Hi, honey. Come to help with the dishes?”
Katie gave her mother “the look,” the one that asked, have you just returned from the Pyrenees Mountains?
“Just asking,” said her mom. Katie made an about face and left the kitchen. She went into the family room where her father sat in his chair, his eyes closed, listening to the music.
The room was her father’s idea of a Christmas fantasy. It was done in good taste – perhaps, overdone in good taste was a better description. There were small wreathes around all of the candle-style wall sconces. Fresh pine boughs and holly draped the mantle that held an assortment of family pictures. Hanging from the mantle were two large stockings. One had Katie’s name embroidered on it, the other had Colleen’s.
In one corner of the room, a miniature Christmas village right out of 19th Century Ireland ambled on a tabletop. Katie’s father built a landscape to represent a village of some size. All of the houses were lit from the inside. Miniature gas street lamps glowed on every corner. Her father even made a “sky” over it using black crepe and tiny white Christmas lights as stars.
In the large bay window stood the tree. It was eight feet tall and had hundreds of lights strung on it. It was filled with ornaments representing three generations of the O’Houllihan family. Many were antiques having come to this country with John O’Houllihan’s parents when they emigrated from Ireland as a young married couple.
Two large ornaments hung prominently at the front of the tree. They were ornate glass bulbs, each with a name spelled out in melted colored glass. One read Kathleen; the other read Colleen.
Katie approached the CD player and turned the volume down. Moving to the other side of the room, she picked up the TV remote and fired an invisible missile at the blank screen opposite her. The screen lit up with a Donny and Marie Osmond Christmas special. They were in the middle of their own version of Silver Bells – all teeth and snapping fingers.
“Is there no escape?” muttered Katie. She aimed the remote at the TV again and pressed the channel scanner button. Pictures flipped by until she landed on a rerun of Melrose Place. She sat on the couch and began watching it.
With a snort her father, who’d been dozing, opened his eyes. He stared a moment at the screen and then at Katie.
“Turn that off, young lady. It’s Christmas Eve.”
“But daddy, I wanna watch it.”
Her father rose from his chair, approached her and removed the remote from her hand.
“You’ve seen every episode of that silly show a dozen times.” He shot the TV with the remote, killing Heather Locklear in mid-sentence. “We’re going to have nothing but pretty Christmas music in this house tonight. He turned and left the room, placing the remote on the table by his chair.
Katie sat a moment staring at the blank screen. Her face was a mixture of total teen disgust and boredom. We Wish You a Merry Christmas was sounding from the stereo speakers. Katie looked from the stockings on the mantle to the miniature village to the tree, her eyes finally coming to rest on the stereo.
“This is living death!” she said aloud. “Jeeze!” She decided to go to her room and listen to some real music.
A few minutes later, Katie was stretched out on her bed with her head at its foot. She wore earphones attached to her small boom box, the sounds of a rap band smashing into her brain. She did not see or hear her mother come into the room until the woman was standing over her. From Katie’s perspective, she saw her mother’s lips moving but no sound was coming out. Katie smiled because it looked to her like her mother was singing the rap song booming through her head.
In an instant, her mother reached down and removed the earphones from Katie’s head, laid them on top of the stereo and snapped the machine off.
“Get a move on, young lady,” her mother said. “You’ve got to pick out what you’re going to wear and get dressed.”
“Dressed?” asked Katie. “Dressed for what?”
“For Midnight Mass, of course. Your father wants to leave a little early so we can drive around and look at Christmas decorations.”
Katie sat straight up on the bed facing her mother. “I’m not going to any Midnight Mass.”
“Oh yes you are. Now find something to wear and get dressed. And I don’t mean jeans and a sweater like you’re wearing now. It’s Christmas after all. It won’t kill you to wear a dress.”
“Mom, I’m not going to mass.”
“You’re going and that’s all there is to it. Now, get dressed.” Her mother turned and left the room, closing the door behind her. Katie swung her legs over the side of the bed, furious. First the music, then being cut off from her friends for two days, and now this: the final indignity. She’d have to sit with her parents in church like some dumb little kid. Everyone would see her!
Well, Katie wasn’t going to have any part of it. She’d throw the biggest fit of her life if she had to. This was going way too far. She folded her arms across her chest and sat tight.
A few minutes later, her mother passed her door, paused, and knocked a couple of times.
“Katie? Are you getting dressed?”
“No! I told you. I’m not going.”
“All right,” came the voice through the door, “we’ll just see what your father has to say about it.”
Katie heard her mother’s footsteps retreat down the hall. A few moments later she heard the heavier plodding of her father’s feet as they approached the door. He entered without knocking. Katie sat defiantly on the side of the bed, her arms still folded in front of her.
“What’s this about you not going to mass?” asked her father as he stepped in front of his daughter.
“I just don’t want to go, okay?” Her mother appeared in the door and stood there, watching the scene.
“But, Katie, It’s Christmas. You love Midnight Mass,” insisted her father.
“No I don’t. I hate it. I only go because you make me. It’s boring.”
“How can you say that, Katie?” asked her father, sitting next to her on the bed. “This is the best night of the year. And Midnight Mass is so beautiful with the organ and choir. Come on, now. Get dressed and let’s go.”
“No! I don’t want to go and you can’t make me!”
Katie’s mother glared at her across the room. Her father was totally perplexed at her behavior.
“Katie,” demanded her father, “why are you acting like this? It’s Christmas. All the family’s going to be here tomorrow. You don’t want to be an old puss on the Christmas day, do you?”
Katie whipped around and threw herself across the bed, screaming, “I hate Christmas. I hate your dumb, stupid music. I hate everybody being here. I wish you’d all just leave me alone. I’d rather be dead than have to go through it!”
“Honey, surely you can’t mean that?”
“Yes, daddy, I do! Now, please leave me alone!” She was sobbing into her pillow.
Katie’s mom took a few steps into the room saying, “What you need young lady, is a good swat on the bottom. I’ve never heard anyone talk that way about their family or Christmas.”
Her father rose from the bed and looked at his wife. “Let’s just leave her be. I’ll talk to her later.” Then, turning back to Katie, “All right, Katie. You stay home. But I don’t like your attitude and I’m not going to let it spoil Christmas for the rest of us. You can just stay in your room until you decide to act like a decent young lady.”
Katie’s parents started out of the room. Before her father got to the hall, he turned back towards the bed where Katie still lay. “You stay put in here until we get back from mass, you hear? No telephone, no TV. Is that understood?
Katie, whose face was still buried in the pillow, nodded.
“We’ll be home about two,” he said leaving the room and shutting the door behind him.
Katie lay on her bed until she heard the car pull out of the driveway. She got up walked over to the mirror and studied herself. The outburst of emotion had streaked her face with tears. She grabbed a tissue and dabbed at her eyes.
“Jeeze! What did they expect me to do? They want me to act just like them with all their dumb ‘ho-ho-ho-ing.’ Well, I’m not going to. Christmas is just a dumb, stupid holiday, anyway.”
Katie felt a small pang go through her at the thought. She knew she’d hurt her parents by what she said. But, it had to be said. To them, she was like a little girl who still believed in Santa Claus. That’s the way they treated her, anyway.
Katie began to dread having to face her father later, though. After all, she said some pretty mean things. For just an instant, remorse coursed through her heart, but she forced it back and spoke to the red-eyed girl in the mirror.
“no! I’m right. Christmas is for dumb kids like Colleen and parents who get to act like dumb kids once a year.”
She left her room, going down stairs to get a Diet Coke. She brought it into the family room. Only the glow from the tree lit the room, most of the lights in the house being off. Katie sat on the sofa, sipping her soda in the silent house. Staring at the tree, she began to feel mixed up on the inside. Christmas was stupid and boring, but she didn’t have to be such a bitch about it.
With her gaze fixed on the tree, images of earlier Christmases began to come to her. She remembered being a little girl and coming downstairs on Christmas morning, eyes wide at the sight of Santa’s presents under the tree. She remembered the Christmas when she was eight and was sick to her stomach from too much candy. Grandma O’Houllihan rocked her forever, stroking her back, making her feel better.
The Christmas she got the bike. The Christmas Uncle Patrick got well into his cups too early and fell up the stairs. The Christmas when she was 13 and had a visit from her favorite cousin, Diedre, who she hadn’t see since she was nine. The Christmas …
Katie began blinking back tears. Suddenly, she slammed her soda on the coffee table, brownish spray going everywhere. Standing, she tried to shake the memories from her head saying, “Yeah, when you’re a stupid little kid, it’s all right because you don’t know any better!”
For reasons she could not understand, Katie wanted to cry. She ran from the room and fled up the stairs. Once inside her room, she flung herself on the bed, buried her head in the pillow and cried and cried. Sometimes, life is a maelstrom of emotions, one tumbling into the other – emotions which Katie thought, at times, would break her into a hundred pieces and nobody but her would care. Finally, Katie did the only thing a 15-year-old could do under the circumstances. She fell asleep.