Murray Krima

I just completed my 1st non-Christmas December 25th. Interesting.

I have a friend who is always concerned about how I navigate the holidays. I’m a widow and I do not have family in Georgia. People mean well. I understand that. But they should be more respectful of my boundaries. Read on…

I go to my girlfriend’s home, for what she markets to me as a “Card Party.” I told old girl that I was not doing Christmas anymore. She was like it’s cool, her family didn’t either. I go over at 6:30 (the scheduled start time) and nothing is ready. As a matter of fact, there is garbage all over the floor. So I smile and help her quickly clean the rest of her apartment. Another thing that threw me was that my friend lived in the projects. I do not have any problems with folks that live in the projects, but I don’t think there is anything amiss in sharing that with someone when you invite them to your home for thw first time. There was no food either and only 1 table in the spot. Hmmmm? How are you going to have a card party with just 1 table? That 1 table then went into the living room and received a tablecloth. Damn! No cards. This should have been my 1st clue. Then all these people started arriving. Now this is confusing to me, because there are not enough chairs for all these re people. But that must have been discussed, because folks are arriving with folding chairs and food for the table.

Now you are probably thinking I should have taken my leave, but I like colorful people and my friend seemed really happy that I was there. Then she pulls out a box and asks me to put up her Christmas tree. This is when colorful annoyance turns to anger. If I say that I am not celebrating Christmas, then I ain’t celebrating it. Her uncle (with a full complement of gold upper teeth, not a grill) came to her rescue and put it up and also put some space between us because she couldn’t understand why I was salty. Then the festivities began to start. There was no less than 15 babies under age 10 in the house and they all participated in a bootie shaking contest. WOW. Not a dancing contest, B-O-O-T-I-E SHAKING contest. Then all the children ate on the floor like a nest of rodents. Then they were shipped off to the bedroom without adult supervision. But they weren’t allowed to close the door. I don’t have children, but I’m not understanding why you would not allow cousins to be to themselves. All my same age cousins were boys and we were always left alone to our devices with only minimal damages.

The food…. everything they offered had swine in it. SMH. I ain’t playing. The cake was made with lard and the pasta salad was made with chitterlings. WHO DOES THAT? I was scared to eat anything there but a store bought cake. I wasn’t right. But it was humor there too. There was so many people there that doors had to be opened. Knowing Black folk as I know them, I took my seat next to the front door (with all my possessions), JIC. There was a Dave Chappell-ish crackhead running periodically up and down the stairs outside the door. Everytime he/she/it moved passed the door, it wished us a “Murray Krima.” Then there was a phantom grandmother calling everyone’s cell phone calling them whores and rogues. The lady sitting nest to me was telling me about how she was going to get up in the morning and visit one of her sons in prison and another in the halfway house. She also said how she had to be leaving soon because she had to go home and finish Krima dinner for her ’old man.’ I ain’t making this up, y’all. I left because you know I had too. More and more people were filtering into this 2 bedroom apartment and I know family can get when they gather and get some liquor in them. When I started looking for th friend who invited me, I found her taking a shower. There had to be 50 people in her home and it was 9:30 at night, and she was taking a shower? Unbelievable...

I felt betrayed. She misrepresented her event. I know she was only trying to be kind to me and she didn’t want me depressed on the holidays, but she should taken me at my word when I said that I was cool with it. I have spoken with a few folks who don’t celebrate and they pretty much isolate themselves from the world proper during this time. I had wondered why they took this approach. But now I can see the wisdom in this approach.

What have I learned from this experience? (1) Always host my own parties. This way I can control the environment. (2) Do not be ashamed of my lifestyle. Those people were crazy and tripping, but they checked themselves when they got within 3 feet of me. (3) There I nothing wrong with setting and maintaining my boundaries. No matter how masculine that makes me.


Peace