Staticfree Blog

"Merry Christmas!", but what's it really mean? Christmas to many people, like other holidays, are really a time of getting together with friends and family - spending time together, catching up on life, sharing an experience together.

I'm glad we're able to do this this year - my sibling, Cole, is in from Oregon where 'e's doing AmeriCorps. My younger brother's back from school, we're all at my dad's place and it's good. Well, almost. We're missing one person - my mom. She's gone off to her own world where she's left her family for someone who has made himself unwelcome in the presence of anyone else in her family.

It makes me sad, she has a new house in southern MA, but no one wants to visit a place where he lives with her. I wish she'd be able to see the mistake she has made by being with this guy, but that's really only something she can do. He's the kind of guy who would prevent her from reading this blog if he could, as it shows him in a negative light. He's the kind of person who expresses his anger through violence, the kind who irresponsibly takes drugs of varying legality and blames his misplacing of them on others. He's the kind who threatens people and makes them lock themselves into their rooms at night. Of course, she won't see this part of him - she's hopelessly blinded by his shiny façade and has lost sight of what really makes a family.

He may treat her how she likes, but what about everyone else? What about when times are rough? Is he the kind to leave when he no longer has incentive to stay? Is he the kind to help her be a better person? Is he the kind to pull himself out of the rut he's forcing her into? From what I've seen, the answers to these questions are: no. They're both without jobs (despite her having a job doing what she liked before they got a house together) and living off alimony. What kind of life is that?

So, despite the shining Christmas tree, good music on the stereo, and plethora of Border's gift certificates, Christmas just isn't the same. It won't be, I realize, but I'd really like to see her house, her Christmas tree, her life - not theirs.

On a related note: Gah! Why does the general American idea of Christmas generally involve such wasteful glutton? I really could do without cheap plastic schlock "made in China". Polluting my life with marginally useful single-function things like wooden pencil sharpeners in novelty shapes only makes me sad at the state of the world. I'm not ungrateful for the thought of the person for getting said items, but it's akin to not being ungrateful for someone who wastes a month of their life running in circles for you. The thought is well, but ultimately it's just unnecessary.