'Tis the Season

"I can't believe you did this," I deadpanned.

"Brandi, don't you think you're being unreasonable?"

"No. Frankly, I can't believe you've ruined my childhood Christmas memories."

My mother stared at me incredulously. "Brandi!"

"Grinch!"

Let me tell you the story. When I was a young 'un, we couldn't afford to buy many movies. So many times, my parents would buy blank VHS tapes and record movies from TV. Unfortunately, this came with commercials and scenes would be cut out. By my teens, our "store-bought" movies had began to outnumber our "home made" movies, so mom began to replace the home made with their store bought counterparts and throw away the old ones.

Now, that being said. There was a tape. The tape was simply labled in mom's handwriting in 20 year old Sharpie "CHRISTMAS". This tape had Rudolph The Red Nose Reindeer, followed by A Charlie Brown Christmas, followed by A Garfield Christmas, followed by Twas The Night Before Christmas (the cutest Christmas show about mice you'll ever see). I watched this tape every year for 19 years. I had it memorized. I would sing along with the "If I Could Be Like Mike" Gatorade commercials, smile at Shaquille O'Neil as he suffered from Taco Neck Syndrome, and chuckle at the Coca Cola polar bears. I knew that after Rudolph ended I had ten minutes to run and grab eggnogg from the fridge because the first ten minutes of A Charlie Brown Christmas were static thanks to Mom's flimsy VCR.

Last year, I was at my friend Corey's house and he suggested watching Rudolph. I was all for it until halfway through his DVD, I realized there were two scenes I had never seen before. And I missed my commercials. But I sat politely. I planned to grab my mom's tape later, but forgot about it. This year, November 1st, I decided it was time to revive my tape.

But as I searched through the five cases of DVDs and VHSs, I couldn't find it. I finally asked Mom if she knew where it was. She rummaged for a minute and produced DVDs for Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Garfield Holiday Celebrations, and Charlie Brown Holiday Celebrations. "Twas the Night Before Christmas hasn't been released on DVD yet," she shrugged.

"That's not my tape," I said, flatly.

"I know; I threw it out. This is better," she said, confused.

I still can not believe she said those words to me.

Sometimes, adults and kids don't necessarily agree with what is important about the holidays. Regarding cheesy holiday specials, it was simply important to mom that I had seen them. But it was the imperfections and the memorization of that particular tape that was special to me.

I am 21. I can't expect my mom to keep everything the same just to conform to what I want to revisit from my childhood. It would be nice if my mom's house looked and smelled the same 20 years from now as it did 20 years ago and I always had the same home base. It would be nice if the tape still existed and the same false tree was still being put up with the same ornaments as from when I was a kid. But that's unrealistic.

I suppose I can't expect all of her decisions to revolve around me.

I suppose I have to decide to be an adult about this.

Even if I still want my tape.