Holiday Visitations...
"So if you could do it, would you?"
"Would I what?"
"Get visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past?"
"Okay, first off how dare you. Scrooge gets the ghost treatment because he's an asshole. Second, he didn't get to choose. It was Marley that chose for him to try and stop him from continuing being an asshole."
"Okay, yeah sure, but if you had the choice would you? Say you got a chance to go revisit things from your past, just to see them, you couldn't change them, but, like for every good memory you chose you had to relive a random day in 7th grade."
"Why 7th grade?"
"I don't know, just 7th grade seems to be peak awful middle school experience. It seems like no matter what day you chose out of 7th grade there would be something you'd like to crawl under a rock and forget about."
"So in your version of A Christmas Carol you don't get visited by the three spirits to try and make you see how you need to change your ways, you just get to go back and see things you want to as long as you are willing to put up with seeing things you wish you never had?"
"Yeah, I think that's about right."
"And why would I choose this?"
"Well like you could go back and see your parents again. And not just see them, but see them when they were younger. And see them not through the eyes of you as a child but as an adult. So you'd really see them, you know?"
"I'm not sure I want to do that. I mean, say you go back to the Christmas you were 6 and it is the best Christmas you can remember ever having. You still believed in Santa but were sort of figuring it out so your parents went the extra mile to get that extra year or two out of you. You got the gifts you wanted, the food was delicious, the lights were beautiful, your parents were so happy. All of this is ingrained in your memory."
"Sounds great."
"Except, you're a parent now and you know how tight money was when you were little. The stress your parents were under that you never noticed at 6 you would see instantly now. How tired your dad looked, the stress lines around your mother's mouth as she tried to force a smile for your grandmother who was telling her how she really did use too much butter in the mashed potatoes.
You would see that those lights that were the prettiest you have ever seen were just cheap K-Mart specials that you would never put up now. Those gifts that you remember loving? You would also remember that half of them were broken by January 1st and the rest were forgotten about by summer.
So now your memory of the best Christmas you ever had, just isn't that great anymore. And all you want to do is call your parents and make sure they know how much you appreciate everything they did for you, but it's too late."
"Wow. Well, that's not at all what I had in mind."
"I'm sure, but you can't go back and see what you used to see. I mean, that's kind of the whole point of A Christmas Carol, right? He goes back and sees what his life used to be but with the eyes of who he is now."
"But maybe it wouldn't be bad like you think. Maybe it would sort of work the way it does with Scrooge? Maybe it would remind you to embrace Christmas with childlike wonder again?"
"Except you aren't a child anymore. I mean the reason why you think Christmas was so much better when you were a kid is because you didn't have to do anything. It all just sort of happened around you. Gifts showed up, food was prepared, family wasn't terrible yet. There's a reason it used to be great, and that's not coming back. Well, maybe it will when you get to be really old and everyone starts treating you like a child again."
"I still think it might be wonderful."
"Okay, so say that it is. Say you get to go back and see that Big Wheel with the giant bow on it again. But now you're plopped back into 7th grade and you get to relive a day that you've spent thousands of dollars in therapy to stop reliving at 2 am when you can't sleep."
"You've spent thousands of dollars on therapy because of the 7th grade?"
"Not necessarily me specifically, the you is a general you. Like you said, 7th grade is peak awful. So why would you subject yourself to that?"
"Well, wouldn't it be like what you are saying but sort of opposite? You would be seeing the memory but through eyes of an adult. So that devastating moment when Monica Amroff told you that your dress made you look like a grape would be met with the memory that Monica peaked in high school. Wouldn't that make you feel better?"
"Probably not. I already hated Monica Amroff and was already telling myself that she was just jealous of my cool purple dress and that's why she was awful. It wouldn't have made being called Grape Girl for the next two years any easier."
"Yeah, you still don't wear purple."
"I do not."
"Okay, but I think I'd still do it."
"I didn't say I wouldn't do it. I just said I don't think it would be what you think."
"You just said all the ways it would be awful, why would you do it?"
"Because I'd get to see my parents again. I think I'd put up with a lot for that."
"Even the purple dress?"
"Even the purple dress. Who knows, maybe I actually looked really cute in it and she really was just jealous."
"Well..."