Growing Into
It was the day after. Always on the day after Christmas there was a lovely quiet. Some people went to the mall for the great Boxing Day sales. A repeat of the Christmas shopping madness and yet a screeching reverse. Bobby hated it. She had vowed five Christmas’s ago to not participate in either. Why five? Because it was the year that she graduated from high school, got her first job and her first apartment. In the fall when people gearing up for Christmas she decided that her holiday season was going to be exactly that - a holiday season. The shopping trips that her mother had insisted on were going to stop.
Bobby loved decorating her apartment in reds and greens, gold and silver, bells and angels. She and her girlfriends had made parties out of decorating each other’s apartments. Oh, they did go shopping. But Bobby, and her friend Emelda, always was finished before the others. They would go to lunch, take their finds home and spent the rest of their afternooons wrapping their gifts. That first Christmas, when she woke up Christmas morning, in her quiet apartment, it had totally felt weird. She didn’t stay home long. She ripped open one of her presents, put all the rest of them in a glossy red and white shopping bag, and jumped in the shower. All showered and dressed in a brand new Christmas outfit she drove quickly across town to her parents home where she spent the day unwrapping and squealing over her gifts, as though she were still a teenager.
That first Boxing Day was when she felt the quiet. Her adult life was taking shape. She had slept in, as she planned. Made a special breakfast of waffles, strawberries and whipped cream for herself, as planned. Then in her pyjamas, with a cup of tea, she curled up on her her ratty old sofa with a new book and her old quilt from home. James Taylor on the stereo and sunshine in the window, she dozed. She had planned to go the Boxing Day sales, but cozy warmth enveloping her held her fast. Her phone played a bit of jazz. A text message from Emelda and Rheina calling her for a movie was the only thing that stirred her. At the end of that first day, including the movie, her perceptions about how to ‘do’ Christmas began to change. Since that time, the Christmas season was still exciting and fun. She went to church with her parents for services on Christmas Eve and felt at peace. Boxing Day had become her own special day to revel in ~ without sales and frenzied, crowded malls. Reading a new Christmas book, walking in crisp winter air, a movie with friends, learning what it was to grow into her own life.
Bobby loved decorating her apartment in reds and greens, gold and silver, bells and angels. She and her girlfriends had made parties out of decorating each other’s apartments. Oh, they did go shopping. But Bobby, and her friend Emelda, always was finished before the others. They would go to lunch, take their finds home and spent the rest of their afternooons wrapping their gifts. That first Christmas, when she woke up Christmas morning, in her quiet apartment, it had totally felt weird. She didn’t stay home long. She ripped open one of her presents, put all the rest of them in a glossy red and white shopping bag, and jumped in the shower. All showered and dressed in a brand new Christmas outfit she drove quickly across town to her parents home where she spent the day unwrapping and squealing over her gifts, as though she were still a teenager.
“Don’t try to make me grow up before my time…”
~ Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
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