Christmas has passed. The time of year where shiny festive bulbs, garland and Christmas ornaments could be seen everywhere you turned. Store windows were adorned with faux snow, glitter and festive scenes. Christmas classics were playing over the airways and there was a frenzy of shoppers as they searched for that ‘perfect’ gift.
However, in many Indigenous homes, there was no ‘merry’ Christmas. Instead, sounds of violence as fights ensued from alcoholic rage and possible drug addiction or merely due to the stress and pressure of the winter holiday and ongoing poverty. Even in the absence of violence, there may have been overwhelming states of poor mental health and grief from tragic losses of loved ones over the years. In many homes, no stockings were hung, only fear and sadness were left hanging in the air.
According to Gabor Mate, addiction is a response to pain rather than a choice. In his notable work with the downtown East Side in Vancouver, Mate speaks about how every addicted patient he worked with suffered from adverse childhood effects. Essentially, that they were harmed during their childhood – physically, mentally, sexually and/or emotionally. “No one ever chooses to be abused, so the addiction then, is the attempt to soothe the pain, that is imposed by childhood trauma” Mate states. He declares further, “Nobody wakes up one day and says, ‘my ambition is to wake up addicted and break the law.’”
Many of our Indigenous people have turned to alcohol and or drug addiction to soothe the memories of the horrific abuse, pain and suffering endured throughout the generations since colonization, particularly the 139 years of residential schools.
My father went to St. Michaels residential school in Alert Bay. My mother went to Port Alberni residential school. I have heard both their stories. To escape the pain my father and mother both turned to alcohol. My father was a raging alcoholic, leaving my mother to sleep in churches with us children or in bushes near our home to escape my violent father.
Sadly, our childhood experiences continue to be the norm for many Indigenous families. CBC News states, “For those experiencing domestic violence, the holidays can be a dangerous time, experts say. . . . The rate of violent victimization among Indigenous people was more than double that of non Indigenous people.”
I never understood growing up why my mother would go to great lengths to celebrate a holiday that centers itself around a jolly fat old “white man’ in a red suit. A holiday that enslaves us to the colonized rituals of celebrating a religion that sanctioned the genocide of our people. A holiday that requires money that we do not have and to give gifts we cannot afford to give.
However, growing up, our home was like stepping into the Sears catalog every year. A train set that whistled and went round and round the base of the tree, little ceramic towns with lit up houses, the perfect Christmas tree with bubbling lights, animated wind-up ornaments that would play jolly tunes, the ceiling adorned with festive ornaments, handmade stockings filled with treats, and beautifully wrapped gifts under the tree.
I understand now as an adult, after hearing her story and many like hers, my mother never had a Christmas growing up. My mother never left Port Alberni school once she arrived, ever, until she aged out. My mother probably vowed to never miss Christmas again and probably swore she would make sure we never did either. What my mother didn’t account for was the violence that followed her and my father, the abuse that haunted them.
Like my parents, as a colonized people, we find our wounded selves, still wanting to equate ourselves worthy of a ‘white’ Christmas. In the gift giving, decorations, and colonized Christmas traditions, we aspire to find common ground with our oppressors as we seek to redeem our ‘heathen’ selves in the watchful eyes of those who have already judged us. A time where we aspire, just for a moment to feel ‘normal’ and even human. One thing we forget is that we can never be what is expected of us since the beginning of colonization. We can never be ‘white.’
“For people to change who they are, they need to become who they are.” Gabor Mate says. How do we begin to see our Indigenous selves in a world that continues to turn a blind eye to the hurt and suffering that has ensued and continues based on the color of our skin and our ethnicity. We do not need to change; the world needs to change. The world needs to make space for us Indigenous people to be who we need to be. Society needs to give back all that has been stolen from us, starting with our dignity. There are reasons for why our people have succumbed to the numbing of their pain and why the cycle of abuse continues.
It’s 2025, intergenerational cycles need to be broken. When opportunities arise to learn, embrace them, but more importantly, when opportunities arise to embody and experience healing and growth, leap. It starts with us, individually, when we know better, we have to do better.