For as long as I can remember, Christmas has been a big deal in my family. I suppose that’s not all that surprising, it is with most families after all. You’d have to be pretty cynical to not think of Christmas as a big deal! Unless of course, it’s for religious reasons, but that goes without saying.
My point is, Christmas is a time to share love, give gifts, help your fellow human beings and just be generally cheerful for no real reason. It’s the most wonderful time of the year after all, right? That’s why it’s been hard for me over the years to explain why I hate Christmas.
Now before you assume that I’m just some miserable scrooge, let me explain. I’m all about the lights, Christmas carols, gift giving, hell, I even have a few ugly sweaters in my closet. My reason for loathing this time of year is a little more complicated than that.
You see, ever since I was a little kid I’ve always…seen something every night on Christmas eve. No, it’s not Santa Claus or an elf or something stupid like that. What I see is well…I can’t really explain it. It is the only word I can use to explain what this thing is.
The first time I saw it, I couldn’t have been older than 7 or 8 years old. I was standing in the kitchen with my Mom as she was finishing making some warm cinnamon buns before we opened a present (a family tradition of ours) on the night of Christmas Eve.
It was a particularly dark night, with not a single star in the sky. I was looking out our kitchen window into the forest behind our house, taking in the sweet smell of the cinnamon buns as my mom took them into the living room. I was about to turn and walk into the living room when I saw…something. There was a figure in the darkness just outside of the woods, not a figure, but rather a mass. A dark mass.
At first, I thought it was an animal, but the way it moved, it was as if it simply glided over the ground, while its dark mass rolled over itself. My young mind was in overdrive, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. This was not an animal, it definitely wasn’t human, what the hell was it?
The more I stared, the more a creeping feeling of dread entered my heart. I began whimpering, I was so afraid and broken at that moment, then, suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder. It was my mom, she turned me around and hugged me asking what was wrong, I couldn’t speak. Words could not convey the pure unfiltered feeling of despair and terror that gripped my young heart. She brought me into the living room and sat me between my father and her, handing me my cinnamon buns. After what felt like hours of being in their warm presence, I started to feel like myself again.
The next morning I tried to tell my parents what I had seen, but they were skeptical. They assured me it must have been an animal, maybe a deer. My Dad took me outside to look for tracks, thinking he’d turn this into an educational moment, but much to his surprise there were no tracks, even though it hadn’t snowed the night before or that morning. He shrugged it off to my eyes playing tricks on me and we went inside.
After a few days, I had forgotten all about it. That was until, the following Christmas eve. Now, let me just say I never believed in any of the hokey stuff, from a young age my parents were always honest with me about Santa, life, and all that. I lost a Grandparent when I was quite young so death was a concept I understood and the feelings that came along with it. They also introduced me to the concept of fear pretty early on in the form of horror movies, they taught me that it was all fake. That these monsters or ghosts were just make-believe. I believed them too, which is what made this so much harder.
The following Christmas Eve, I was sitting in the kitchen again, this time I was finishing a drawing I had worked on to give to my mother for Christmas. She was a sap for that sort of thing. When I had finished, I stood up and stretched while casually glancing outside, and there it was. The dark mass, just outside of the trees, only this time it wasn’t moving, it stayed perfectly still, aside from the dark mass that seemed to continue to flow and crawl all over itself.
I couldn’t look away, I was terrified, and yet, I couldn’t take my eyes off the damn thing. Slowly, that feeling of dread returned. I began to whimper as terror, pain, and despair entered my heart yet again. I started to shake, my whole body was beginning to feel numb, my legs gave out and I fell to the floor with a crash, my dad came running in as he was just in the other room and tried to figure out what had happened.
I had no words to share with him, I just sobbed in his arms for a while. It took even longer this time for the feeling of dread in my heart to leave. It wasn’t until the next afternoon (and after a very long sleep) that I felt like myself again. My parents were concerned, but they couldn’t get a straight answer out of me. I didn’t want them to think there was something wrong with me, so I didn’t tell them about it.
So every year, it’s a similar story. The following year I decided to stay away from the kitchen, but I saw it outside of the living room window this time, just sitting there while its darkness seemed to crawl and ooze over itself. A couple of years after that, I just stayed in bed Christmas Eve night, but that was the worst because I saw it in my dreams and when I woke up, I saw its shadow on the ceiling of my bedroom.
No matter what I did, I couldn’t escape it, and the feeling that it would give me, got worse every year. This thing haunts me every Christmas eve, like a bad memory that I want to forget. Just when I think I was going to go a year without seeing it, there it was. After so many years, I guess you could say I got used to it. I would have that feeling of dread for days after, but it also left me.
I’m on my own now, trying to make my way into the world. I have a modest first-floor apartment in a duplex, nothing special but it’s mine ya know? I stopped decorating for Christmas when I went away to college, I just didn’t feel the need to celebrate anymore. No matter how hard I tried, once I saw it, my Christmas was ruined. That thing sucked all the joy and happiness right out of me, replacing it with a dark dread. Last year, however, the feeling never left.
All year round, I’ve been living with this constant despair in my heart, and numbness in my body that I just can’t. Food doesn’t taste as good, being around my family and friends doesn’t give me the same happiness it once did and physical affection leaves me feeling worse than ever before, I simply feel a deep numbing despair.
I know that it did this to me, I’ve had a lot of time to think and figure this out as I’ve been holed up in my room waiting for Christmas eve. The thing that has visited me every year on Christmas Eve ever since I was a little boy.
It is a hateful mirror of the world, a writhing mass of people’s darkness, fears, despair, and sadness. Yes, Christmas time is one of the happiest times for most people, but for some, there’s no worse time to be alive. It feeds off this, and it sucks the happiness from you like a parasite. That’s what it is, as to why it’s done to me, I don’t know but I suspect all these years it’s been feeding on me, and now I’m left with no happiness and joy of my own. God, I miss being able to feel genuine happiness.
It’s back now, only this time it’s right at my window, looking at me. It’s a hideous writhing mass of darkness pressing against my window. It’s hungry, I can feel it. It wants to finish off what’s left of me, of my joy, my good memories. I have so little left, I won’t let it take them away from me. I will let it starve. My only hope is that after reading this, others will know that if it visits you on Christmas Eve, look away, fight it and maybe there will be hope for you.
Don’t let it take your joy away. Don’t let it numb you to the goodness in life, don’t let it turn you into me.
Let. It. Starve.
To my parents, you were the best mom and dad I could ever ask for, I love you with all my heart. Please know nothing you could have ever done would have changed this and it’s not your fault. I won’t let it take what little I have left, this is the only move I have left to fight it.
Goodbye.