It is Christmas Eve. I’m at my parents’ place, the place where I grew up. Being brought up in a catholic home and having a father who sings in the church choir it is evident we will go to church tonight.
We are only three instead of five. By arrival, my father walks upstairs to the choir while my mother and I go inside, automatically extending our arms to the left to reach for the holy water. It is insanely crowded, even twenty minutes before mass – and this in a church where on a regular Sunday more acolytes help out than actual visitors attend. We find a spot in front, third row, in between a man with no ears and a young couple quietly arguing over Christmas dinner. The singing behind us commences softly. If I listen close enough I can hear my father’s voice. But I open my eyes and take in the scene around me. The church, a building from the late 30s, has undergone quite a monstrous makeover, painted in a black-grey-white color scheme. It feels like being in one of those wannabe nouveau riche hotels where shiny polished black dinner tables are lit by shiny polished black chandeliers. The painting of the Last Judgment above the altar is dark and gloomy, picking up every hint of those black walls that are so uncalled for. The black, however, has another side effect that makes all the flowers, candles, Christmas trees and decorations seem hyper real. The red and gold and Maria’s electric blue head scarf in the nativity scene actually hurt my eyes, like some virtual reality where everything is extra slick and overdone. I’m trying to find a comfortable seating position. Did this bench shrink? I’ve grown into a clumsy giant and everything around me feels small and precious. It moves me to be this disoriented by a scene that I’ve witnessed every Sunday for the first 16 years of my life, until I moved out of my parents’ home. Or maybe I’m moved by how this entire town feels the need for redemption around Christmas time. Or maybe it’s just because I’m sitting here, next to my mother, listening to my father’s voice.