She was still looking for a job, and still worried about
that. She'd seemed blue for several nights in a row, and a playful weekend – we
went to Golden Gate Park for a picnic, and rented three screwball comedies from
the video store – didn't raise her spirits.
My bright idea was
to take her to Union Square. That's a block-sized park
across the street from Macy's, the giant department store downtown. Macy's
wants you to shop in their store, especially as Christmas approaches, so they put up a
ginormous and fully-decorated Christmas tree. When I suggested we
see the Christmas tree downtown, Stephanie didn't seem particularly interested, but
when we arrived at the Square it was just after dusk, and the tree — six or so
stories tall, with thousands of colorful electric lights — was impressive. She squeezed my hand tight and cried a little, but they were happy tears. She said the
huge tree gave her goose bumps and left her flush with Christmas spirit.
"Has something been troubling you, Steph?"
She shrugged, and looked at the tree.
"Yeah," she said, "Let's talk about it."
She took a deep breath. "The tree is beautiful. Thank you for thinking to
bring me here and see it. We need to talk about Christmas."
"I'm all ears."
"If you don't want to do a great big Christmas, I'm
cool with that. We probably can't afford a great big Christmas anyway. But I'm
not OK with 'nothing'. I need more than just going to a movie and blowing off the
holiday."
We hadn't mentioned Christmas since our conversation in the
truck outside of Salt Lake City, a couple of weeks earlier. In my head, I
quickly replayed that dialogue, and Stephanie's odd silence afterwards.
"Oh, crap, Steph. When we talked about Christmas, I
was only saying what I've done in the past. I wasn't saying that's what our
Christmas had to be."
"You said you do 'nothing' for Christmas."
"'Nothing' is what I've done for Christmas for years,
but you're a special occasion. What I want for Christmas, is for you to have a
nice Christmas. Tell me what you want to do for Christmas, and that's what we'll
do." I drove a hard bargain. She squeezed my hand again, and her eyes were
still wet with tears.
"First, we're trading presents. Nothing big, and we're
poor so we should probably have a spending limit. Say, $25."
"That sounds good," I said. "It might even
be fun."
"And I need some twinkly Christmas lights."
"Do you want a tree to hang the lights on?"
"No, no tree. There's no place for a tree in our
little tiny room at the rez hotel. Just some twinkly lights, strung up in the
window."
"So far, so good. Anything else you need?"
"Stockings. I'll need one of your socks, preferably
clean, on Christmas Eve. Santa usually has all sorts of cool stuff in his
pockets, and he likes to pour his trinkets and candies into your socks."
"If they're hung by the chimney."
"With care."
"But Steph, we don't have a chimney. How will Santa
get in?"
"I'm a big believer in disbelief," she said with
a smile. "Whenever you're asked to accept something on faith, that's when
you should ask the most questions, and the hardest questions."
"OK, I have questions." I took a deep breath to start
with the questions, but she raised an index finger to shush me.
"But not with Santa. He's just for fun, so no
questions are allowed about Santa."
"And these are the ground rules for a Stephanie
Christmas?"
"Yes, these are the rules. I need a little bit of
Christmas. Not a lot, but – exactly this much."
She looked happier than I'd seen her in days, so I wasn't
inclined to argue. "Deal."
We sat on the bench and admired the tree for a long while. Then
we went to a Walgreens, and bought a single string of lightweight, colorful Christmas
lights. In our window at the Wallaby, though, the lights seemed lost in the electricity
of the city, so instead we tacked them to the ceiling.
"After I've taken off my glasses," Steph said, "I'm
lying here in bed and all I can see is the twinkles on the ceiling, out of
focus and ethereal. It's a little bit beautiful!" And indeed, it was a
lovely effect. We didn't do it every Christmas, but a string of lights on the
ceiling became a recurring motif.
Stephanie's brief blue period was over, and she resumed her ordinary mix of charming and cynical, funny and philosophical. When Christmas came, we traded little
gifts, and Santa left trinkets in both of our stockings. We said, "Merry
Christmas" and "I love you," and we kissed without needing any
mistletoe. I took her to a Jackie Chan double feature, where we bought popcorn and snuck in Milk Duds. It
was Stephanie's first Christmas away from her family, and we made it a merry
albeit low-budget Christmas.
We
celebrated Christmas every year, and every year it was
wonderful. Steph wasn't jolly old St Nicholas by any means — she didn't do
full-fledged Christmas like some folks do, but she wasn't on strike from the
Christmas spirit, like I had been. She liked Christmas, that's all. And she reminded
me to like it, too. The
much-talked-about but seldom seen "true meaning of Christmas"? It was
Stephanie. My favorite Christmas with Stephanie? Every Christmas with Stephanie.