Christmas 2007
Dec. 29th, 2007 03:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
porphyryChristmas is our favorite holiday in my family. The holiday preparations always start the day after Thanksgiving, and instead of going shopping (I wouldn’t be caught dead shopping on the day after Thanksgiving; I hate crowds), we decorate. Before we had the children, this could be finished within half a day or so but now takes longer because the whole project is constantly interrupted by taking care of the kids. Still, we adhere to our Christmas traditions because, on my side of the family at least, traditions are important, a measure of familial security.
And so out comes the tree (I am very sorry we don’t have live trees anymore; we used to, but it’s time-consuming to go cut one’s own tree and I don’t like pre-cut trees from lots, and in the interest of time we’ve stopped doing that for now, but when the children are older, I would like to do it again), the ornaments, the bows, the lights, the garland. Our tree is not themed and color-coordinated; rather, it chronicles a family history—some of the ornaments belonged to my beloved grandparents, now dead; some I made as a child: a jack-in-the-box, a rocking horse, a bell—no matter how dilapidated these ornaments become, I shall always keep them. Some mark annual grammar school art class projects, losing more of their glued-on glitter and sequins every year. Then there are the ones marking the children’s Christmases with their names and the year on them; and some mark events like vacations—the sand dollar snowman from Florida; the saguaro cactus with a Santa hat from Arizona. And some merely reflect our personal interests—a nice fat opera singer, a Gothic cathedral, lots of penguins, a Frog Prince, anything resembling Victoriana, and a star and crescent Christmas ornament we bought at a discount store whose manufacturer must have been laboring under the deepest misunderstanding. And the joke ornaments, some of our own choosing and some from friends: a Santa kneeling in worship of the baby Jesus; a Santa wearing a Groucho Marx pair of glasses, complete with moustache. The mantel to the fireplace is cleared and for five weeks of the year occupied by various Christmas guests: a Christmas goose (not a live one), Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, Frosty the Snowman leading a parade of penguins, the Nutcracker and Mouse King, sugarplums, the stockings all hung in a row. Out comes the Nativity set I bought in Assisi, Italy, which at one time was very nice, but between moves over the years and the box being dropped a few times, the donkey is now missing an ear and the whole back of Joseph’s head, once shattered and painstakingly glued back together by me, minus a piece or two I couldn’t find. “What’s wrong with his head, Mama?” Andrew asked me. “He had a lobotomy,” I replied. But Joseph takes his protective place next to the infant Jesus anyway, head surgery or no. Perhaps it’s not the most aesthetically pleasing group of decorations, all haphazard in its design, but it’s important to us, and we love it when annually it’s time to get out all these things.
But there are other traditions to which my family adheres, particular only to our family. For example, one involves my father and his ragged old sweatshirt he wears only on Christmas. The sweatshirt must be at least twenty-five years old, maybe older—I remember buying it for him while I was still an undergraduate—and when he first received it, he wore it so often that within a few years the collar and cuffs were getting so frayed my mother claimed she was embarrassed to be seen in public with him wearing it. My father, however, true Scot that he is, refused to give it up. “Nothing wrong with it,” my father declared, and so my mother gave up for a while, maybe another year or two. Still, even after that, Dad resisted giving or throwing it away. “Why don’t you wear it when you change the oil in the car or paint or something, then?” my mother suggested. “And ruin it?” my father asked, horrified. Finally, after years and years of pleading and threats, my father compromised. “I’ll only wear it on Christmas,” he said, and that’s exactly what he’s done for many years now, giving all of us our once-a-year reminder from Chief Seattle: “The deer, the bear, the great eagle. These are our brothers.”
This year, Andrew was easy to buy for because he wants most everything he sees on television due to all the damnable commercials. “I want that,” he said, referring to some toy which, to my mind, looked vaguely like a thousand others just like it. “Do you think Santa will bring it to me if I’m good?” “I doubt it,” I replied. “How come, Mama?” “I think that toy causes brain rot or something.” That’s the funny thing about my four-year-old son: the expression on his face is initially easily read as belief and surprise, then clouds over as he weighs Mama-as-God versus his own wants and desires. Andrew doubts us more and more—Malkhos has had numerous discussions with him about how “cool” is a temperature rather than a state of being he should not strive to become, but Andrew persists in using the term—relying on his own opinions about things. “I still want that toy,” was his final pronouncement in spite of my dire prediction. Madeline, on the other hand, is much harder to buy for; two is a very difficult age because she no longer needs things babies need, but so many of the more interesting toys are too mature for her. She’s also somewhat destructive in ways her brother never was. In addition, she is very much the tomboy, content enough to play with trains and Lincoln Logs. My sister-in-law beat me to buying Madeline an art table—Madeline loves to color and draw—and although I approved of the gift, I just cringed inwardly, imagining how much damage the child could do to the house with markers.
And Malkhos—ha! Ever since I’ve known him, he’s made this utterly ridiculous claim that he’s a Stoic, indifferent to all things of this earth; bodily and material needs are things to be indifferent to, when in fact he’s like a big child at the mere hint of cold and has a “Wish List” on Amazon that grows and grows. “If you are a Stoic, you are the most hypocritical one I’ve ever seen,” I tell him. “You actually think you possess the divine right of kings.” In his lame defense, Malkhos replies, “Chrysippos never saw a CD for Baroque opera listed on Amazon; Xeno never saw a Fritz Lang DVD.” And Christmas, of course, brings out his neediness even more; he’s a veritable vortex of need. And to top it all off, he’s constantly reminding me of the sacrifices he makes when he purchases a bundle of cigars costing $40.00 rather than “the $100.00 I could have spent.”
And then I have to have my twice a year conversation with my mother, once at my birthday and once at Christmas.
“What do you want for Christmas?” she asks me.
“Nothing,” I reply. “I appreciate it, but it’s not necessary. There’s nothing I need.”
“You must want something,” she says.
“Nope.”
“Clothes?”
“I don’t need them.”
“Something for the house?”
“I’m fine.”
“Come on,” she says, exasperated. “There must be something.”
I sigh. No one ever seems to understand that I really, really, really don’t care if I get gifts either for my birthday or Christmas. The whole rest of my life could pass and if I never received another present, I wouldn’t care.
“Mom, look—donate something to charity in my name. Buy yourself something instead, or the kids, or Dad, or some stranger on the street. I really can’t think of anything. You know I’m a need-based buyer like Dad.”
After a little more pressing, she finally gives up. I know she’ll bring it up again two or three times before Christmas and then say no more, finally getting me—as everyone does—a gift card, which will wind up in my wallet with all the other gift cards I still have from my birthday last June and Christmas last year. When I die, my children quite possibly could inherit thousands of dollars in unused gift cards.
I did, however, buy something for myself. Every once in a while, I come across something that strikes my odd fancy and I become obsessed with it. This year, it was two sets of Fisher-Price Little People. I already had a North Pole Christmas Village from a couple years back. This year, the toy company issued two new sets, both which I just had to have, the same way women who are shoe girls become so taken with a certain pair of shoes, the shoes must be gotten no matter what.
And so my collection is rounded out:
For my Jewish friends, we have the Hanukkah set, complete with menorah (if you push it down, you hear a charming little Jewish folk tune, and the menorah lights up), braided chollo bread and matzo crackers on the table (but no gefilte fish; I think that’s a Passover staple anyway), yarmulkes for the men and head coverings for the women; Grandpa’s yarmulke is slightly off-center because he’s bald on top. For my Christian friends, there is the Nativity: Mary, Joseph (oddly cast as a shepherd), Baby Jesus, a seraphim, the appropriate animal entourage, and Three Wise Men bearing gifts. And of course the older Christmas Village for the secular materialists: Santa, Mrs. Claus, an elf (whom we named Elrond and whose motto is: “Santa, I have seen the Light of the Two Trees! What do I care for your goddam toys?”), a light industrial park with three little buildings; namely, a post office, bakery, and toy making sweatshop (this is where Elrond works now that he no longer resides at Rivendell).
Sadly, I have no Kwanzaa set. I have e-mailed Fisher-Price about their blatant oversight but have heard nothing back. Maybe I’ll threaten a lawsuit. The children can’t understand why I won’t share my toys with them.
On Christmas morning, I was awake by 5:30 and very nervous. All the children’s toys were still downstairs and still boxed.
“Santa better get her ass moving,” I said to myself, climbing out of my warm nest. I drank some coffee quickly and by 5:45 I had run up and down the steps with armfuls of toys four times and managed to place them around the tree as if some jolly old elf really had been there. I stuffed the stockings with little gifts and candy. I nibbled Santa’s cookie a little bit and poured the milk down the drain. Now all I had to do was see if I could quickly shower and dress before the children woke up and all hell broke loose.
Madeline awakened first, as usual. Before she even left the bedroom, I heard Andrew heading up the stairs with his aunt and uncle. The proverbial hell was beginning to break loose.
Madeline’s Highlights: She got a new tricycle. The streamers on the handlebars lasted for maybe a minute and a half once she discovered they could be pulled out and they all became so much confetti. She loved her art table but quickly covered her own hands and stomach with ink, but also drew several beautiful pictures on paper. Then she upended the table and tried it out as an indoor slide. She quickly figured out the stool could be used for other, less artistic endeavors than sitting on in order to create masterpieces, such as climbing on to reach things she shouldn’t, i.e., knives. She loved her pet stuffed bunny who came complete with hutch, carrot, brush, and bottle; she fed him his carrot and bottle, brushed his fur a little bit, then tossed him aside and moved on to other things. As the day progressed, Madeline, when she reaches heightened states of excitement, enters into a state that can only be described as religious fervor (she once pranced up the hilly part of the driveway on her knees, just like a penitent at Lourdes). Today she was a whirling dervish. She would not take a nap in the afternoon and literally—literally—ran all day long, well into the evening, stopping to eat only by taking bits of food from others off the table. “We should have named her Helen Keller,” I told Malkhos. “At least, before the water breakthrough.”
Andrew’s Highlights: One thing Andrew wanted very badly this year was a toy called Squawker McCaw. It’s a stuffed animal that looks like a macaw but whose features include teaching it to talk, and the thing is programmed even to reply to questions. Sometime during Christmas morning, while I was picking up some mess or other, I heard Andrew and his uncle, my youngest brother, laughing uproariously. I could also hear Squawker McCaw. Paying closer attention, I heard my brother—a newly-minted PhD in European history, no less—say, “Wait! Wait!” and then—ah, sorry to those with delicate sensibilities—fart loudly. The bird did the same, and Andrew fell over laughing. My father got in on the fun, too, and the three of them sat around Squawker, teaching him to fart and curse. Finally, I went to the door of the room and reminded all three of them that the directions to the toy said to be responsible with the bird. They all looked at me as if I were speaking some language they didn’t understand and returned to their fun. Andrew also decided (because he’s inherited his father’s sense of superiority) that while he didn’t have to share his toys with Madeline, she had to share hers with him. Andrew also heartily approved of his new bedroom slippers, which I accidentally stole. When I bought (or attempted to buy) the slippers, Andrew was with me, and so I had hidden the slippers in the cart under my purse because they were approximately the same color. Andrew didn’t notice the slippers at all, and neither did the cashier. I had completely forgotten about them myself after shopping, paying, loading bags into the cart, shepherding two children out to the car, buckling them into their car seats, and loading the bags into the trunk. When I picked up my bag, there the slippers were. I thought about just leaving them in the cart but decided somebody else would probably steal them, and the thought of having to go back inside to pay for them, after unbuckling the children—who were by this time getting tired and testy—and taking them back into the store with me—exhausted me. I tossed the slippers into the car. We live, after all, in a fallen world.
Malkhos was happy with his partially-fulfilled Wish List. As for me, the day was a blur. I picked up a lot of bows and shredded paper; I remember that. I also recall peeling endless potatoes and baking a Christmas tree-shaped cake, letting Andrew put the candy sprinkles on it and me desperately trying to correct the puddles of candies he made and spread them out more, then giving up. I recollect washing endless amounts of dishes and loading the dishwasher numerous times. I drank a lot of coffee. I negotiated a few peace treaties between the children. Oh—and I added about half a dozen gift cards to my collection in my wallet. And I didn’t mind all this a bit. It suits my Catholic sensibilities, without which my existence would be soulless.
And so out comes the tree (I am very sorry we don’t have live trees anymore; we used to, but it’s time-consuming to go cut one’s own tree and I don’t like pre-cut trees from lots, and in the interest of time we’ve stopped doing that for now, but when the children are older, I would like to do it again), the ornaments, the bows, the lights, the garland. Our tree is not themed and color-coordinated; rather, it chronicles a family history—some of the ornaments belonged to my beloved grandparents, now dead; some I made as a child: a jack-in-the-box, a rocking horse, a bell—no matter how dilapidated these ornaments become, I shall always keep them. Some mark annual grammar school art class projects, losing more of their glued-on glitter and sequins every year. Then there are the ones marking the children’s Christmases with their names and the year on them; and some mark events like vacations—the sand dollar snowman from Florida; the saguaro cactus with a Santa hat from Arizona. And some merely reflect our personal interests—a nice fat opera singer, a Gothic cathedral, lots of penguins, a Frog Prince, anything resembling Victoriana, and a star and crescent Christmas ornament we bought at a discount store whose manufacturer must have been laboring under the deepest misunderstanding. And the joke ornaments, some of our own choosing and some from friends: a Santa kneeling in worship of the baby Jesus; a Santa wearing a Groucho Marx pair of glasses, complete with moustache. The mantel to the fireplace is cleared and for five weeks of the year occupied by various Christmas guests: a Christmas goose (not a live one), Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer, Frosty the Snowman leading a parade of penguins, the Nutcracker and Mouse King, sugarplums, the stockings all hung in a row. Out comes the Nativity set I bought in Assisi, Italy, which at one time was very nice, but between moves over the years and the box being dropped a few times, the donkey is now missing an ear and the whole back of Joseph’s head, once shattered and painstakingly glued back together by me, minus a piece or two I couldn’t find. “What’s wrong with his head, Mama?” Andrew asked me. “He had a lobotomy,” I replied. But Joseph takes his protective place next to the infant Jesus anyway, head surgery or no. Perhaps it’s not the most aesthetically pleasing group of decorations, all haphazard in its design, but it’s important to us, and we love it when annually it’s time to get out all these things.
But there are other traditions to which my family adheres, particular only to our family. For example, one involves my father and his ragged old sweatshirt he wears only on Christmas. The sweatshirt must be at least twenty-five years old, maybe older—I remember buying it for him while I was still an undergraduate—and when he first received it, he wore it so often that within a few years the collar and cuffs were getting so frayed my mother claimed she was embarrassed to be seen in public with him wearing it. My father, however, true Scot that he is, refused to give it up. “Nothing wrong with it,” my father declared, and so my mother gave up for a while, maybe another year or two. Still, even after that, Dad resisted giving or throwing it away. “Why don’t you wear it when you change the oil in the car or paint or something, then?” my mother suggested. “And ruin it?” my father asked, horrified. Finally, after years and years of pleading and threats, my father compromised. “I’ll only wear it on Christmas,” he said, and that’s exactly what he’s done for many years now, giving all of us our once-a-year reminder from Chief Seattle: “The deer, the bear, the great eagle. These are our brothers.”
This year, Andrew was easy to buy for because he wants most everything he sees on television due to all the damnable commercials. “I want that,” he said, referring to some toy which, to my mind, looked vaguely like a thousand others just like it. “Do you think Santa will bring it to me if I’m good?” “I doubt it,” I replied. “How come, Mama?” “I think that toy causes brain rot or something.” That’s the funny thing about my four-year-old son: the expression on his face is initially easily read as belief and surprise, then clouds over as he weighs Mama-as-God versus his own wants and desires. Andrew doubts us more and more—Malkhos has had numerous discussions with him about how “cool” is a temperature rather than a state of being he should not strive to become, but Andrew persists in using the term—relying on his own opinions about things. “I still want that toy,” was his final pronouncement in spite of my dire prediction. Madeline, on the other hand, is much harder to buy for; two is a very difficult age because she no longer needs things babies need, but so many of the more interesting toys are too mature for her. She’s also somewhat destructive in ways her brother never was. In addition, she is very much the tomboy, content enough to play with trains and Lincoln Logs. My sister-in-law beat me to buying Madeline an art table—Madeline loves to color and draw—and although I approved of the gift, I just cringed inwardly, imagining how much damage the child could do to the house with markers.
And Malkhos—ha! Ever since I’ve known him, he’s made this utterly ridiculous claim that he’s a Stoic, indifferent to all things of this earth; bodily and material needs are things to be indifferent to, when in fact he’s like a big child at the mere hint of cold and has a “Wish List” on Amazon that grows and grows. “If you are a Stoic, you are the most hypocritical one I’ve ever seen,” I tell him. “You actually think you possess the divine right of kings.” In his lame defense, Malkhos replies, “Chrysippos never saw a CD for Baroque opera listed on Amazon; Xeno never saw a Fritz Lang DVD.” And Christmas, of course, brings out his neediness even more; he’s a veritable vortex of need. And to top it all off, he’s constantly reminding me of the sacrifices he makes when he purchases a bundle of cigars costing $40.00 rather than “the $100.00 I could have spent.”
And then I have to have my twice a year conversation with my mother, once at my birthday and once at Christmas.
“What do you want for Christmas?” she asks me.
“Nothing,” I reply. “I appreciate it, but it’s not necessary. There’s nothing I need.”
“You must want something,” she says.
“Nope.”
“Clothes?”
“I don’t need them.”
“Something for the house?”
“I’m fine.”
“Come on,” she says, exasperated. “There must be something.”
I sigh. No one ever seems to understand that I really, really, really don’t care if I get gifts either for my birthday or Christmas. The whole rest of my life could pass and if I never received another present, I wouldn’t care.
“Mom, look—donate something to charity in my name. Buy yourself something instead, or the kids, or Dad, or some stranger on the street. I really can’t think of anything. You know I’m a need-based buyer like Dad.”
After a little more pressing, she finally gives up. I know she’ll bring it up again two or three times before Christmas and then say no more, finally getting me—as everyone does—a gift card, which will wind up in my wallet with all the other gift cards I still have from my birthday last June and Christmas last year. When I die, my children quite possibly could inherit thousands of dollars in unused gift cards.
I did, however, buy something for myself. Every once in a while, I come across something that strikes my odd fancy and I become obsessed with it. This year, it was two sets of Fisher-Price Little People. I already had a North Pole Christmas Village from a couple years back. This year, the toy company issued two new sets, both which I just had to have, the same way women who are shoe girls become so taken with a certain pair of shoes, the shoes must be gotten no matter what.
And so my collection is rounded out:
For my Jewish friends, we have the Hanukkah set, complete with menorah (if you push it down, you hear a charming little Jewish folk tune, and the menorah lights up), braided chollo bread and matzo crackers on the table (but no gefilte fish; I think that’s a Passover staple anyway), yarmulkes for the men and head coverings for the women; Grandpa’s yarmulke is slightly off-center because he’s bald on top. For my Christian friends, there is the Nativity: Mary, Joseph (oddly cast as a shepherd), Baby Jesus, a seraphim, the appropriate animal entourage, and Three Wise Men bearing gifts. And of course the older Christmas Village for the secular materialists: Santa, Mrs. Claus, an elf (whom we named Elrond and whose motto is: “Santa, I have seen the Light of the Two Trees! What do I care for your goddam toys?”), a light industrial park with three little buildings; namely, a post office, bakery, and toy making sweatshop (this is where Elrond works now that he no longer resides at Rivendell).
Sadly, I have no Kwanzaa set. I have e-mailed Fisher-Price about their blatant oversight but have heard nothing back. Maybe I’ll threaten a lawsuit. The children can’t understand why I won’t share my toys with them.
On Christmas morning, I was awake by 5:30 and very nervous. All the children’s toys were still downstairs and still boxed.
“Santa better get her ass moving,” I said to myself, climbing out of my warm nest. I drank some coffee quickly and by 5:45 I had run up and down the steps with armfuls of toys four times and managed to place them around the tree as if some jolly old elf really had been there. I stuffed the stockings with little gifts and candy. I nibbled Santa’s cookie a little bit and poured the milk down the drain. Now all I had to do was see if I could quickly shower and dress before the children woke up and all hell broke loose.
Madeline awakened first, as usual. Before she even left the bedroom, I heard Andrew heading up the stairs with his aunt and uncle. The proverbial hell was beginning to break loose.
Madeline’s Highlights: She got a new tricycle. The streamers on the handlebars lasted for maybe a minute and a half once she discovered they could be pulled out and they all became so much confetti. She loved her art table but quickly covered her own hands and stomach with ink, but also drew several beautiful pictures on paper. Then she upended the table and tried it out as an indoor slide. She quickly figured out the stool could be used for other, less artistic endeavors than sitting on in order to create masterpieces, such as climbing on to reach things she shouldn’t, i.e., knives. She loved her pet stuffed bunny who came complete with hutch, carrot, brush, and bottle; she fed him his carrot and bottle, brushed his fur a little bit, then tossed him aside and moved on to other things. As the day progressed, Madeline, when she reaches heightened states of excitement, enters into a state that can only be described as religious fervor (she once pranced up the hilly part of the driveway on her knees, just like a penitent at Lourdes). Today she was a whirling dervish. She would not take a nap in the afternoon and literally—literally—ran all day long, well into the evening, stopping to eat only by taking bits of food from others off the table. “We should have named her Helen Keller,” I told Malkhos. “At least, before the water breakthrough.”
Andrew’s Highlights: One thing Andrew wanted very badly this year was a toy called Squawker McCaw. It’s a stuffed animal that looks like a macaw but whose features include teaching it to talk, and the thing is programmed even to reply to questions. Sometime during Christmas morning, while I was picking up some mess or other, I heard Andrew and his uncle, my youngest brother, laughing uproariously. I could also hear Squawker McCaw. Paying closer attention, I heard my brother—a newly-minted PhD in European history, no less—say, “Wait! Wait!” and then—ah, sorry to those with delicate sensibilities—fart loudly. The bird did the same, and Andrew fell over laughing. My father got in on the fun, too, and the three of them sat around Squawker, teaching him to fart and curse. Finally, I went to the door of the room and reminded all three of them that the directions to the toy said to be responsible with the bird. They all looked at me as if I were speaking some language they didn’t understand and returned to their fun. Andrew also decided (because he’s inherited his father’s sense of superiority) that while he didn’t have to share his toys with Madeline, she had to share hers with him. Andrew also heartily approved of his new bedroom slippers, which I accidentally stole. When I bought (or attempted to buy) the slippers, Andrew was with me, and so I had hidden the slippers in the cart under my purse because they were approximately the same color. Andrew didn’t notice the slippers at all, and neither did the cashier. I had completely forgotten about them myself after shopping, paying, loading bags into the cart, shepherding two children out to the car, buckling them into their car seats, and loading the bags into the trunk. When I picked up my bag, there the slippers were. I thought about just leaving them in the cart but decided somebody else would probably steal them, and the thought of having to go back inside to pay for them, after unbuckling the children—who were by this time getting tired and testy—and taking them back into the store with me—exhausted me. I tossed the slippers into the car. We live, after all, in a fallen world.
Malkhos was happy with his partially-fulfilled Wish List. As for me, the day was a blur. I picked up a lot of bows and shredded paper; I remember that. I also recall peeling endless potatoes and baking a Christmas tree-shaped cake, letting Andrew put the candy sprinkles on it and me desperately trying to correct the puddles of candies he made and spread them out more, then giving up. I recollect washing endless amounts of dishes and loading the dishwasher numerous times. I drank a lot of coffee. I negotiated a few peace treaties between the children. Oh—and I added about half a dozen gift cards to my collection in my wallet. And I didn’t mind all this a bit. It suits my Catholic sensibilities, without which my existence would be soulless.
