Dear Santa . . . Dear God . . .

There's a journal on here that's dedicated completely to letting people write letters to Santa. Rather than writing one on there, here goes. (Okay, in retrospect of writing this letter, it became more of a prayer to God, which I think is more suiting anyway.)

Dear Santa,
  I know you exist only in the generous, merry spirit of the season. You represent goodwill toward all, albeit less than the true star of the season, my Savior. I stopped believing in you when I was little; I don't remember when, exactly, I just remember hearing people make fun of the idea that you were real at school. I laughed with them, because I decided that they must have been right about it. It wasn't traumatic to me to think of my parents bringing me presents instead of an old man who would have to walk in our front door anyway.

My dad always left the back door unlocked so that you could walk in, since we had no chimney (and the Santa Claus hadn't come out yet, or maybe we would have thought that you made one appear). We would leave not only milk and cookies for you, but also baby carrots for your reindeer. Ironically, one morning I woke up to see that half of a couple of carrots was left. The milk and cookies were gone, and the tooth marks on the carrots didn't look like any reindeer teeth that I could imagine. I knew instinctively that these were the teeth of my dad, who got a very uncomfortable look on his face when I asked him why he had eaten the carrots. "What do you mean?" he answered. "Maybe the reindeer were just full from carrots at all the other houses and didn't want to finish them." I couldn't reason why you or the reindeer would walk back down from the roof to put the half-carrots back on the plate. I checked the snow, and there was a definite absence of reindeer tracks. Someday, maybe I'll have someone walk a real reindeer across my lawn for my kids. :) Maybe it was a bit of the farm girl in me, but I also knew that if an animal is going to eat part of a carrot, or part of a handful of hay, it will eat all of that carrot or that hay. 

Then there was our puppy, Sarge, who was delivered by 'you' on Christmas morning. I remember actually believing at that point, just for the moment. It didn't matter whether you were real, the little game of pretending was wonderful in and of itself, so much so that you might as well have delivered the dog. Later, Cody and I asked my dad where he got Sarge from. "From the So-and-Sos," he answered, "the same place where the Stonemans bought their dog." My mom shot him a dirty look as I smirked and reminded him that he had said that Santa had delivered the puppy.

Anyway, it's obvious that I don't believe that you bring gifts to people, except for the spirit of goodwill and kindness spread to many through little children's wide eyes and bells and thank-yous as you kindly urge us to share what we have with those who have no real Santa to bring them new shoes or clothes or even jobs or homes. So this letter is only an idealistic fancy.

Santa, this year, I don't know if I've been good or bad. I would say I've been pretty bad, losing control of practically everything in my life. And you know that I'm used to being the pacifier between my rambunctious and sometimes vengeful family. We're pretty broken up lately, although my mom seems to have found true happiness with a man that seems to be working hard to win her affections and ours. 

My dad isn't happy. He's still always contemplating breaking it off with his girlfriend. We're a lot alike, in a lot of ways. We both fail miserably because we can't live in the moment and fix things when they're broken. Instead, we move onto the next great idea, the next great career, the next great friend (or lover, in his case). We can't deal with our own failures, so we start new tasks, invest ourselves in new interests, new people, new far-fetched schemes. We cut and run while we're ahead; actually, more often, we think about cutting and running, but stay out of sheer stubbornness, until at last the Titanic tilts upside down and we're forced to bail out or sink. 

My parents and I are all going through major money crises. My dad has offered to pay for my tuition next year, but between all the other loans he's got to pay off, the house he's remodeling, the ridiculous schemes he's invested in, and the fact that the majority of his closings have fallen through over the past two months -- he's broke. It's such a blessing that my tuition has been cut by 1/3 for the entire year, but he's still going to have to take out a loan. He doesn't want me to, and in a way, I don't blame him. I've got $35,000, at the least, in my name. I know money is really tight for my mom, too, between supporting my brother and I when she can with gas or a little money in our accounts here and there, paying for college of her own, and trying to pay the bills on a 114-year-old farm house. I really hope she doesn't sell that house if she marries Bob. It's been her dream, although I know it's become unmanageable. I think the day will come when my brother and I will have to realize that she will need to leave that house. It would be selfish to try to convince her to stay there just because of our sentimentality. I've got my own financial problems because of a credit card bill that is so high I can barely whittle it down, living expenses, fuel costs, and a boss who calls me frequently, only hours beforehand, to tell me that the hours of work I had been depending on to pay my bills will not happen, or will be fewer in number than expected. I really need a new job, but I need one that will be flexible, too. If only bosses worked around their employees' schedules very often.

I hate change. My family is now a shattered mirror, with shards of us lying here and there all across the county and two states. The damage has a finality to it. Things don't seem like they will ever be the same, even father-to-daughter, or mother-to-son, or grandparent-to-grandchild. My parents and grandparents have done and said terrible things to my brother and I (and to each other), and vice versa. We have all either moved to a period of stubborn refusal to forgive or a sort of cover-up denial that any altercations had occurred. The only true difference, that I can see, is that my mom has finally admitted, somewhat and only to me, that she feels badly for kicking Cody out of the house that night last summer (and warning him that he was not allowed back until Christmas break, but that's only part of the Rhynard-Biddinger family soap opera). My brother thinks that she's working me over while my dad and I can't stand each other, but I only know that it feels nice to have a relationship of mostly peace, a place where I can rest my head with finality and not worry about the next argument or the cords of bitter tension between us. If that is truly only temporary, then so be it. It is what I need from my family right now. I need one healed relationship. I will not feel guilty or used for that. Take your crap elsewhere.

I miss the way it used to be, when I could only hate either of my parents temporarily. The only benefit now is that Cody and I are closer, and we are both wiser and more aware of what's going on to be able to understand, comfort, advise, and even confront each other. The down sides, well -- Christmas isn't the same merry occasion that it was when we were little. It's honestly, mostly sad for me now. (I'm tearing up as I write this.) We've all gone through so much, we've done so much to each other, and we haven't healed from it. We haven't come out better for it. I resent my dad, and beneath all of his trying to buy or demand my love, I think he feels the very same way about me. My brother seems to use a wiser form of my way of thinking with my dad when I was in middle school -- he's a jerk now, but that's just the way he is, he won't change so you just get used to it, you just have to know how to handle him, don't be afraid to confront him but then move on, etc. The resentment is temporary. I just can't separate the man from the mood swings, the control, the temper anymore. The only times I see him, there is no soft, emotional, "daddy's-girl" kind of dad anymore. He is so absorbed in his problems of the day, the week, the month, even the moment anymore, and in my problems, too, that he doesn't ever seem to just be able to enjoy my presence when I was little. And I do the same thing to him. And so we have all of these expectations and demands for each other and no actual good feelings toward each other. I think he gets a temporary puffed-up pride now and then, but that's a temporary fix for his own low self esteem and often leads to his demanding a report of my life, my finances, my grades, and whatever else there is so that he can bark orders and puff himself back up in his self esteem by being in control of me (his pride, his joy, the object of his bitter rages). 

My brother and my dad used to build snow forts in the yard. They used to love to go snowmobiling together. We used to ride around on the ice up at Tip Up Town. Cody and I used to make these tacky little Christmas ornaments as presents for our parents. The ugliest that I remember were made by coloring on clear, plastic cups with the markers for the overhead projectors. They were melted in the microwave, and a hook was stuck through the side. I don't know where those ornaments are now. They're all gone somewhere, maybe out in the grainary. 

For some reason, I can remember Cody roller skating around on these tacky play-school roller skates in the back room, or even roller blades, later. I know that we got them for Christmas one year, but I think they got brought out the subsequent year to roller skate in the back room on the tight, dense carpet while Christmas music played on the stereo in the huge cabinet in the back of the room. The reindeer wreath on the door would play music that would clash with the music around the room when you activated the motion sensor. There were lights everywhere, and my brother would hang the leftover tinsel (of the ugliest colors!) in his room on his bunk bed, and we would watch those terrible old Christmas movies on TV. I remember Penny sleeping under the tree and Blackie always climbing up the tree (and breaking my mom's most precious ornaments). Penny would break them off with her tail or when we were roughhousing near the tree. She would alsobreak into the Peppermint Patties that would sit, in a huge box from Sam's Club, at the top of the cabinet by the stained glass in the back room -- and then she would throw them up, wrappers and all, in the bathroom later on. I would practice Christmas songs on the piano while my mom would bake frozen sugar cookies from Gordon's Food Service that usually carried the slightest taste of lemon. Or, if we were really lucky, she'd make the ones from Siler's with the Christmas trees in the middle. Those ones tasted the best. I remember making our own cookies a few times with the cookie cutters under the counter with the phone (right by the sliding glass doors) and decorating them with frosting later. Ty and George Conn would decorate their yard to the hilt next door, with the customary Santa's sleigh and reindeer on the roof every year. My Grandma Rhynard, when she could still see well enough to drive and still lived in the Shepherd house, drove my brother and I around to see the Christmas lights in Mt. Pleasant before taking us to a post-light show feast at Arby's. I will never forget that.

I remember songs in the car with my parents. My dad always listened to Mannheim Steamroller, and my mom always listened to the Christmas stations. The Carpenters' song "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" will always remind me of her, no matter where I am. At the time, I resented her voice, which reminded me more of a choir than the voices I heard on the radio, and I would get mad when she sang. It's funny, though, now, because I know how to sing harmony to most of those old songs. I think we used to drive Cody nuts with our Christmas harmonization. He would complain loudly from the back seat as we drove to my Grandma and Grandpa Aldrich's on Christmas Eve.

We had the same traditions every year. We would go to my great grandparents' for the Aldrich Family Christmas every Christmas Eve (my brother and I eventually ended up helping Dad move round bales from Grimm's farm, deliver a calf or take a near-frozen one home, bust up frozen waterers, feed the cattle, or add fresh bedding in the barns, up until the very last minute, often later than the last minute). I remember that this was always a really tense time between my parents, because my mom wanted my brother and I to be at the Christmas party, and my dad always "made her look bad" when we arrived late. In reality, I remember understanding that, although I didn't like making a late entrance either, the cattle had to be taken care of, holiday or not. It was uncanny, though, how farm emergencies always came up when we were already in a rush to get back for Christmas Eve. It wasn't my dad's fault, just a long series of coincidences. I also remember reminding my dad constantly that we had to get back on time, which made things tense between him and my brother and I. The man was honestly not good at budgeting his time, and so my brother and I would get frustrated with him. At the same time, though, I knew instinctively that that entire day, he felt like he couldn't meet the standards of the Aldrich and Biddinger families -- or my mom's. Because as much as she was trying to avoid being impolite, I also knew she was trying to avoid having to defend her husband AGAIN -- which amounted, to me, that she was ashamed of him in front of her family. Oh, family. Gotta love it. The tensest good time you'll ever have, like a party where you only know two people.

We would come back home, put on our new pajamas (we usually got some for Christmas), put out the milk, cookies, and carrots, and go to bed. My brother and I (usually just Cody, because I liked my sleep) would take forever to fall asleep and then would run out to the back room -- later to the living room -- and see if "Santa" had come yet. Usually, around 4:30 or 5 am, my brother would run into my room and wake me up, telling me that Santa had come and that we should now go open our presents. I would tell him to go back to sleep, we would argue, and then my parents would argue and make him go back to bed. We would open presents around 6:30 or 7 am, I think, especially when he was really little. One time, he told me that he had seen dad walking out to the tree and thought that Dad was Santa. 

On Christmas night, we would go to the Biddinger family Christmas. That was pretty self explanatory. I don't remember when my dad started bringing fudge and peanut butter balls, but that wasn't always the case. My mom had always made her 7 layer salad, though, for as long as I can remember. My brother and I would deliver the gifts to everyone, since Jonathan was only a baby. Later, I remember Jonathan helping when Ashton and Amanda were babies. Then, the buck got passed to JD, Ashton, and Amanda, and my brother and I got to sit and talk with the adults. I would play songs on the piano, and my aunts and my grandma would come in and listen and sing. Grandpa Biddinger yelled at me about the noise and told me to stop when I was little, but as I got better, he allowed it. My brother never got good enough where he stopped getting yelled at. I guess he gave up the piano beforehand, and he always hated my grandpa for playing favorites with us. Later on, my cousins became the favorites, except for the temporary time when Cody became the newest family hunter/farmer/handiman. 

I think it was the day after Christmas when we went to my Grandma Rhynard's. Everybody would meet at her house, originally, and we'd all crowd around the table in her dining room. We'd have a huge feast there, too, but the place was always really crowded. We had a couple family Christmases (maybe even with the Stephensons?) at our house, too. We ended up moving to my Uncle Russ and Aunt Kenna's house later, I think around the year that Ian was born. As my Grandma Rhynard's health declined, my mom would help her get ready at the apartment or the assisted living place (or our house, if we picked her up earlier) and drive her there. I remember parties at Uncle Russ and Aunt Cheryl's, too, because I remember the hallway and the piano by the wall where Rick would chase the cat, while my dad watched from the couch across the room. I don't remember if that was at Christmas or not, though. We went to Iowa once for Christmas, and it was incredibly boring, because I didn't know Nate or Matt very well, and they were so much older that all there was to do was play ping-pong and 2-person Euchre, which my mom taught to TJ and I (I think she taught Blake and Cody, too, but I didn't pay much attention to Blake then, although I remember playing with Cody). TJ and I had been really good friends when we were little, but because of my dad's worries over his sadistic side with my brother and our mixed gender, as well as the fact that Christmas and Easter were the only times we spent together, by that time I barely knew him. I think it was about then that TJ started identifying with Nate and Matt, whom I was uncomfortable around, and I got stuck by myself or hanging out with my brother (who would rather hang out with Blake and Ian). I stopped enjoying family gatherings on the Rhynard side about then.

I miss those days. I miss "TAKE OFF! To the Great White North, TAKE OFF!" and "Feliz Navidad" with Dad. I miss the Carpenters and Johnny  Mathis songs with Mom. I miss Cody's tacky garland in his room, dancing and skating around the back yard, even that miserable cold in Grimm's back fields on Christmas Eve and picking up garland strands from the carpets so that the cats and dogs wouldn't swallow them after we all decorated the tree. I miss garland on the bar and fake poinsettias around the kitchen sink, watching the snow fall on the porch in the back yard, all of that. At least we were together. It was nice. But I can't go back there. Which is why Christmas this year is sad.

So Santa, away from my reminiscing and back to my letter to you -- I think that Christmas is so much more than anything financial, and I don't think that Santa takes care of finances anyway. But I wish for my parents and myself that we can all survive financially and maybe even find a way to have some left over. I still need to be able to afford gas, my credit card bill payment at the end of the month, paying off my checking account (it's in the red), and buy my brother and my roommates Christmas presents (I wasn't going to get them anything, but now they've gone and given me something). I can't afford to get anything for the boys I babysit, but it sounds like they've got plenty coming anyway. I really wanted to be able to get something perfect and individualized for each of the people on my list this year -- my parents, my brother, Steve, and Jael -- something like my mom's quilt. Not like my Dad's Bible. Or whatever I'm going to be able to buy my brother. I don't know what I'm going to do. I want to not drown in debt or overwhelm myself this holiday season.

I wish for my dad to finally find stability in himself, instead of always looking for outside forces to do it for him. I wish he would just cut off some debts and some grand ideas, simplify, and be able to relax a little. I wish he would stop expecting Lori or even us to complete him. I wish he could be happy where he is (or get rid of some stuff and be happy where he was). I want Cody and my mom to get along and for Cody to find a good job next semester. I want my mom to be ok financially so she can stop worry. I wish she didn't have to take out this loan for next semester. I hope she and my dad both find a love that will treat them with respect, love, maturity, and PEACE, and I hope that Lori is not that person for my dad, as hard as that would be for them both. I hope that her son, Keegan, has a peaceful Christmas without my dad or Cody and I being forced on him. I hope things don't move too quickly between my mom and Bob, because I still need time to adjust; Cody will need more. I hope Kristyn gets along with her mom and her brother/his girlfriend and actually enjoys her holidays. I hope Jael and Jonah have a relaxing time at home and Jonah can find himself again. I hope that Keren's loss only sits in the mouths of the ones she left behind as a soft, reminiscent, sadness, instead of an acute, stabbing pain. I hope Gerson and his family will hold each other a little closer and with a renewed sense of appreciation. I pray to God for his comfort this holiday, as well as his parents' and so many of Keren's family and friends. God, I hope you hold her closely to you on Christmas, because she will be held so tightly in memory and loss here that it might pull her back to us, if that were possible. I wish for things to work out between Steve and Emily, as much as that will sadden me with the changing relationship of my best friend and I. I wish for his utmost happiness, and I pray that this girl is the kind of girl he deserves, not the kind he has met in the past. I wish for his safe travel and for rest and rejuvenation for him this season. God, give him a break where he can fill up his tank again before next semester. And God, give me the same, except that let me let YOU fill my tank back up to overflowing. I wish for my faith to come back, in you and in myself, even in other people and in love and kindness. I pray for safe travel for everyone I know and for those I don't, here at AU and everywhere. I pray for smart decisions of giving up the keys, moderation with alcohol, and cautious driving this season. 

I  pray for my heart not to break for what I've lost, what I've broken and ruined, and what my family has lost this Christmas season. I pray that you would start to heal my heart, God. I pray that you get me on track and show me how to continue to follow you from that new path. I pray that you would call to Steve, God. It's so hard to remember that he's not rejecting me, but he's rejected you. God, break through like only you can. I pray you'd give him clarity on things like personal sin and the Bible and truth. I pray that you would show me more of who I am. Renew a right spirit in me. I wish I could help those who don't have anything in some way. I pray that you protect those without heat, without food, without homes, and that you provide for them more than for the sparrows, God. They are worth far more than many sparrows, in your own words. Help us stop spinning and look to you for our beauty and covering, our provision and shelter. And help us to remember why we have this season, not for presents but for generosity shown to others in gratitude for our own receipt of the greatest gift ever.

MUSIC: "Happy Christmas (War Is Over)" - Maroon 5