A Christmas Ronicle

For you, dear friend who loves The Ronicles!

The thing about exes is that it’s easy to remember all the bad stuff. It’s harder to remember the good times. Especially with an ex that is as, shall we say, “special” as mine was.

But he wasn’t all bad. Especially at Christmas. That man loved him some Christmas as I recall, though I didn’t discover this until much later. (I'm still paying for some of them.) That first Christmas we almost didn’t even have a tree…or a dinner.

We married on Dec. 3, 1994. He had just taken a job in Louisville, Ga., and was driving an hour to work each way in a car I’m convinced was held together with leaking oil, spray paint and brake dust. No, really. The back seat had been removed, the door handle was a bungee cord and he drove with a blanket over his lap because there was no heater. *Sigh* I popped my first clutch in this car. Mashing it to change gears was completely optional.  Yep, this was the first car I ever had to push start. I think.

Ah, good times. We lived in a tiny two-bedroom house near Thermal Ceramics. It sunk in the middle. If you look at it from the street, it makes an interesting U shape from floor to ceiling. I want to say rent was about $325, but the landlord never collected a dime. Not because we didn’t try to pay him (to my knowledge), but we could never find the guy. At least that’s what I was told. I do know we did some work on the place. Ron repainted, rearranged the bathroom, replaced the water heater and tried to repair the heater. There were no appliances, and we couldn’t afford to buy any, but we did find a gas stove on the back porch. Ron cleaned it up and managed to get two burners working enough for me to cook on. I had to light them with a long lighter. The oven didn’t work at all, but we managed.

To me the house was beautiful. Well, maybe not beautiful, but it was mine. I had a family, like I wanted so badly to have, and as far as I was concerned this place was just a stepping stone to new and better things. We can’t all start out in grand homes, can we? (Don’t answer that.)

Anyway, so there we were, broke newlyweds and Christmas was coming. I believe we said we weren’t going to buy each other gifts. Decorations cost money we didn’t have. But on Christmas Eve, he went out and bought us a little 4-foot Christmas tree and a few decorations. I don’t believe I bought him anything. I honestly can’t remember. But the tree was my present, and I relished decorating it. On Christmas morning I opened an oversized Snoopy sweatshirt that I wore all winter. It had plenty of room for my growing belly. There were other small, dollar-store presents, but I don’t remember anymore what they were.

But the funniest thing that year – I don’t remember if this was Christmas Eve or Christmas Day — was the Christmas ham. His boss had given it to him as a bonus and we froze it. Novice housewife that I was, I didn’t think to put it into the fridge to thaw a few days before. I mean, why would I? We didn’t have an oven to cook it in. But Ron decided he wanted ham for dinner. It was Christmas, after all, and we could at least cook a couple of ham steaks in the frying pan. So he commenced to sawing on this frozen ham with a hacksaw. No, really. Not even a butcher knife. A blue hacksaw! I wish I could assure you this thing hadn’t been used before, that he at least went out and bought a new, clean one. I don’t remember, but I really don't think so! An whole hour later he managed to cut a lovely scratch into it. A deep one, sure, but a scratch nonetheless.

We ate Salisbury steaks for Christmas dinner…and I believe we threw the ham away.