The trouble with missing Christmas.

i hope i change when i have kids otherwise they're gonna have a real stingy, cynical and basically crappy father, that's all i gotta say. Sometimes i'd like to change. I'd like to not hate happy people. I'd like to look forward to the big holidays especially Christmas. And i wasnt always like this. Far from it. But one dark christmas night, everything changed.

When i was seven years old, snowy winter in Ottawa most of my family still living together (minus my mom), my dad came down to the living room and announced, very proudly," This christmas, i have a very special gift for a certain someone that's done us proud recently. A really cool gift, that cost over $100." Ooooh. He added the last part to really get our attention cos i can tell you, in 1990, 100 bucks was alot of money especially to a 7 year old kid. So i knew it was me my dad was talking about; of course it was me, i was the favourite! I was the pride and joy, the apple in my dad's eye. I was the big potato!

It wasn't me.

My dad was telling the truth. There really was a $100 gift. I unwrapped my gift with an inspired haste that christmas morning, literally tore the wrapping paper to shreds and opened the box: a sweater. Hum? That's odd? Why would anyone buy a 7 year old kid a $100 sweater? I couldn't understand it. Then i heard my big brother's shout of joy; my dad had bought him a Nintendo! My head was on overdrive trying to work the equation out... then suddenly the pieces fell in place. My sweater didnt cost no $100! Not a fruit of the loom sweater. No, the big gift that night wasnt mine; it was my brother's. Heartborken and disillusioned, reality crumbled at my feet. I might have lost out on the cool gift that night but you know who the big loser was? Christmas.

Never again would christmas mean anything even slightly joyful to me. No, it became the day the big potato was fried. The day the apple in my dad's eye was pitted. The day i had fallen from grace. That's the last time i can remember associating anything of significance to Christmas or a birthday.