Revolutionary

“Jules, smile!”

            Christmas morning always brings the video camera.  More than birthdays, more than choir concerts, more than events like the day I learned how to tie my shoes.  Every December the 25^th, my dad’s hand brushes off the hard, black, twenty pound plastic case that holds the gargantuan icon of our holiday season.

Even though they all look the same, Simmons Christmases must be recorded.  To miss one, even one, would be disastrous.

            “Jules, say something.  The camera is on.  This one takes video, not pictures.”

            The relatives also come out from their dusty hiding places whenever the end of the year brings the smell of Christmas cookies to our tiny kitchen.  They’ll be arriving decked out in their finest lumpy, scratchy, red and green sweaters later in the afternoon, burdened with boxes of food and hurriedly wrapped packages of plastic toys destined to be torn apart by my younger brother and I. 

Even though they don’t care and have never cared what our house looks like, Mom seems to think they’ll notice the dust that’s collected behind the picture frames on the entryway table.  She’s been scurrying around the house with a frantic pace in her socks and gray sweat pants, vacuuming and wiping and rearranging surfaces in the house that only the resident miller moths have ever paid much attention to.  Now she’s upstairs, getting the sleepy Tyler, never a morning person, to come down and open presents with his impatient sister. 

            I’ve been waiting for the last two hours for it to be the appropriate time to open presents.  I’m always awake as soon as any hint of light makes it through the yellowed metal blinds in my room on this most anxious of mornings.  The sound of mom and dad’s creaking bedroom door as it joyously announces they are finally awake sends me flying down the staircase in my footy pajamas to sit, straight-backed, on the cold tile in front of the fireplace.  From here, I can have a perfect view of the tree, positioned proudly by the front windows so that all the neighbors can see our multicolored Walmart lights, the tree under which all happiness lies shrouded in pine-scented mystery.

            Except that dad blocks my view.  The video camera has once again emerged to interrupt my attempts at guessing what surprises the wrapped boxes might contain.  And this time, it’s also ratted me out.  The big black eye and the blinking red light have caught me, frozen, with my finger up my nose. 

            “Julie, take your finger out of your nose and smile for the camera,” Dad coaxes in a voice that only barely betrays his frustration and embarrassment for my sake.  Only the fringes of his tousled curly hair are visible behind the monstrosity of the camera, so I can’t guess his expression.

            The instant I realized I had been caught, I didn’t know what to do.  A good scolding usually followed the revelation of the crime, especially recently, since my parents didn’t want me to pull out a big green one in front of the relatives.  Putting the video camera in between me and Dad seemed to have changed something.  He couldn’t scold me.  And I couldn’t react in a customary pouty way, with a frown and a prominent bottom lip.  Not only that, but even though I didn’t want to drop the habit, I still had some understanding that I should be embarrassed.  But Dad was asking me to smile.  None of it fit.

            So I froze, hoping that I would fail to capture the attention of the all-seeing eye if I just did nothing long enough.  With my finger up my nose, I made a defiant stand against the tyranny of the video camera like no one ever had before and no one ever has since.  After those few agonizing minutes and several nervous laughs from my dad, its horrible gaze finally shifted to focus on Ty and Mom as they descended the stairs.  I had won, or so I thought.

            I lost in the long run.  Though I resisted the demands of the camera, it had marked me as a nonconformist in the records of Simmons Christmases for the rest of time.  Nearly every Christmas now, the tape of me staring blankly into the lens with my finger up my nose plays on the television for the entire family.  Instead of being recognized as a picture of the beautiful realities that are not a part of our Christmas because of the tyranny of the video camera, the clip instead perpetuates the way things always have been by teaching the youngest generations what not to do when they’re asked to smile for the camera.