Hard Candy Christmas
(Hall, C) Performed by Dolly Parton
Hey, maybe I'll dye my hair
Maybe I'll move somewhere
Maybe I'll get a car
Maybe I'll drive so far
That I'll lose track
Me, I'll bounce right back
Maybe I'll sleep real late
Maybe I'll lose some weight
Maybe I'll clear my junk
Maybe I'll just get drunk on apple wine
Me, I'll be just
Fine and dandy
Lord it's like a hard candy Christmas
I'm barely getting through tomorrow
But still I won't let
Sorrow bring me way down
I'll be fine and dandy
Lord it's like a hard candy Christmas
I'm barely getting through tomorrow
But still I won't let
Sorrow get me way down
Hey, maybe I'll learn to sew
Maybe I'll just lie low
Maybe I'll hit the bars
Maybe I'll count the stars until dawn
Me, I will go on
Maybe I'll settle down
Maybe I'll just leave town
Maybe I'll have some fun
Maybe I'll meet someone
And make him mine
Me, I'll be just
Fine and dandy
Lord it's like a hard candy Christmas
I'm barely getting through tomorrow
But still I won't let
Sorrow bring me way down
I'll be fine and dandy
Lord it's like a hard candy Christmas
I'm barely getting through tomorrow
But still I won't let
Sorrow bring me way down
I'll be fine and dandy
Lord it's like a hard candy Christmas
I'm barely getting through tomorrow
But still I won't let
Sorrow bring me way down
'Cause I'll be fine
(I'll be fine)
Oh, I'll be fine
I suppose it's a "poor-me-I-never-ever-got-what-I-wanted-for-Christmas" type self-pity thing, but this is the one song that triggers true Christmas nostalgia for me, and when my girls asked me, years ago, what my favourite carol is, I named Hard Candy Christmas without hesitation (despite it not really being a Christmas carol). And I say that knowing full well that plenty of poor children had sadder Christmases than I did, but as a naturally self-pitying kid, I may as well have been the Little Match Girl, staring through the frosted windows at warm and happy families with their presents and feasts. This week, I want to start with a story my mother told me.
Growing up in post-WWII Prince Edward Island, my mother's family was poor: my grandfather was a delivery truck driver, and as good Irish Catholics, he and my grandmother had more children (five) than they could comfortably feed. Mum has stories about all five kids sharing one orange in their school lunch; that kind of thing. Yet, they weren't the poorest family in Charlottetown by any means, and Mum told me that before Christmas every year, her father would go through the meagre collection of his own children's toys and choose the ones he could fix up and donate to the children who wouldn't be getting anything at all. Mum tried to be understanding and charitable about this as a kid, but she had so little that she couldn't help but feel some resentment; and then, as a good Irish Catholic, she'd feel guilt and shame.
Now, my grandfather was a woodworking hobbyist -- his materials of choice were cheap plywood and yellowy varnish, so while he loved the making of things and was proud of his results, even as a kid I could see that it was all a bit cheap looking -- and one year he decided to make some extra money on the sly to buy my grandmother a special present. He went down to his shop and knocked out a pile of mailboxes and birdhouses, and when he was done, he enlisted my mother to help him sell them. According to Mum, her father was too shy to actually knock on anyone's door and show off his wares, so she would go along with him and do the actual door-to-door selling while he waited in the car and nervously smoked his pipe. When everything was eventually sold, my Pop had the money to go to a jeweller's and buy my grandmother a coral ring.
On Christmas morning, my grandmother nearly started crying when saw the ring box in Pop's hands, and Mum was bursting with joy at the small part she had in the surprise. But when my grandmother opened the box, her whole body deflated and she had trouble masking her crushing disappointment: I don't know if my mother knew it then or later, but her mother had been hoping for a diamond, and she rarely wore that coral ring throughout the years.
After my grandmother died, just a few years ago now, there was a bit of a tussle among the five siblings over their parents' effects, and as the person with the most comfortable retirement setup, my mother was expected to take less than her share. Although she had been secretly hoping to get the "gate-legged table and chairs set", my aunts actually suggested that my mother should throw back into the inheritance mix anything their parents had already given her over the years. In particular, my Aunt Judi -- who I assume ended up getting that table and chairs -- wanted my mother to offer up an antique spinning wheel and wool winder pair that their Dad had given my Mum back in the 70s; a rickety-looking set that he had found and repaired with his trusty plywood and varnish and that Mum had proudly displayed throughout the years. Mum didn't give them back, gave up her hopes of getting "the one thing she had ever wanted" (the table and chairs), and instead asked for just the photo album she had made for her parents after taking them on a trip to Ireland in the 80s (something my Aunt Carole said "must have been thrown out at some point" because she swore she could't find it) and the coral ring that she had helped their Dad earn. When she brought up the ring and reminded her sisters of the door-to-door selling story (their brothers are much younger and wouldn't have remembered any of this), my aunts told her that she was remembering everything wrong; Mum never teamed up with their father for anything, their mother would never have betrayed disappointment on Christmas, and besides, the ring probably came from somewhere else. Although my grandmother did eventually get her diamonds, and my aunts divvied them up amongst themselves, they resisted letting Mum have that plain coral ring. I don't actually know if they ever let Mum have it; I first heard this story while the estate was in limbo and I haven't wanted to pick at any scabs by asking how the whole thing turned out.
Mum told me once that she was always grateful at Christmas time that us kids didn't get upset about how little we got, but the thing was, I was always upset on the inside. Mum's rule as Christmas approached every year was "if you ask for anything, that's the thing you'll be sure not to get". Now, I completely appreciate that she was doing the best she could with what little she had, but by not letting us talk about our heart's desires, she never had the chance to fulfill them: I never once got the one thing that would have made me happy; I felt unknown, and as a naturally self-pitying kid, I felt unloved. On the other hand, Dave's parents had even less money than mine, but they prioritised Christmas: Dave and Rudy would look through the Sears catalogue, circle their favourite items, and write letters to Santa. And every year, much of what they wanted was under the tree. Christmas at their house was magic, laughing children and a day of togetherness as their Dad would help them assemble (and play with) toys and their Mom would be rushing back and forth from the door as friends and family dropped by for a visit. Christmas at my house was a brave face as the gifts were unwrapped and then the kids told to go amuse ourselves until we were called to dinner. Yes, we were fed and clothed and kept safe, but we were a house without joy and cheer and love; no friends stopping by, no family close enough to visit.
Hard Candy Christmas captures some of this for me -- and yes, we would be given yucky hard candy, unwrapped and usually covered in fuzz from where it stuck to the inside of one of my Dad's grey work socks, which is what we used for stockings -- and it's hard to draw a lesson from this story of family Christmases through the years (except that maybe it explains why Dave and I both can't stop picking up every little thing that we think our girls might like to find under the tree themselves). Mum remembers selling those mailboxes and birdhouses door-to-door and the special bond that forged between her and her father, but that didn't lead to a super-close family that wouldn't eventually squabble over their inheritance. And just like they didn't really care if they spent Christmas Day with their families or even us kids, Mum and Dad have never come back to visit us for Christmas in the 15+ years that they've been retired on the lake in Nova Scotia. They've rarely come back to visit us at all, whereas Dave's parents will be coming here, like every year, to have Christmas morning with their grandchildren. And me, I'll be just fine.
I'll be fine and dandy
Lord it's like a hard candy Christmas
I'm barely getting through tomorrow
But still I won't let
Sorrow bring me way down
And as an aside: Dad has never asked me to sell anything for him, but one Christmas he did ask me to wrap an awkwardly shaped present for him to give to Mum. We were living in Alberta at the time and maybe that explains why he got her a tooled leather purse that had a saddle on the top edge, with a pommel horn and there may have even been little stirrups hanging down the sides. I thought it was a weird looking thing, but I wrapped it up nice, and when Mum opened it on Christmas, she actually laughed at how ugly it was. And then she burst into tears and ran away for having laughed, and that was just one more weird Christmas in a line of many.
And as a further aside: Dad may have never asked me to sell anything for him, but we did once watch The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas together on TV (awkward), which would have been the first time I ever heard Hard Candy Christmas. I have no idea if that is significant or not.