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MIRTH
IN YOUR MAILBOX! |
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The
plan was to spend Christmas alone
this year. And why not? Things
needed doing, and now that I'm a
responsible adult, two days off
for Christmas is about the only
time I have to do them anymore.
Besides, these days my family is
spread out across the country
like Cheerios on linoleum, and my
siblings have families and
friends and therapists of their
own to pester. So
it seems as though the annual
Keller Christmas trainwreck has
fallen extinct. Strangely, I had
made peace with that. The things
were always exhausting and
traumatic and expensive anyway,
and what's more, my closet was
starting to look like I was
giving out free storage space to
the mentally ill. You
know the sensation you get when
you've called someone up and the
phone rings long enough that you
start mentally composing a
message to leave on the machine,
only when you've come up with the
single best answering machine
message known to mankind, the
person you're calling picks up?
That unsettling sensation can
crop up elsewhere, I've found.
For example, I had just about
adjusted myself to the idea that
I was going to be spending the
anniversary of Christ's Birth
rearranging my video tape
collection, and in fact begun to
feel the peculiar sort of
happiness that comes from
checking some longstanding task
of little or no significance off
your To Do list when Michelle
called up. "No,"
she said, "you're coming with us.
If that's all right with you."
Now, I've known Michelle for
fully a decade now, back to when
she was a teenager in high school
and I was an enormous pair of
feet with pimples. What was I
going to say? "Thanks, but I'm
going to alphabetize my
T-shirts"? Michelle's
grandparents live in Hubbard, a
little burg so idyllic you
practically expect it to be in
black and white. The big news
around town was still the gas
main that had ruptured a few days
earlier, so, of course, the trip
had to include a brief foray down
Main Street to ooh and ahh at the
rubble. It looked a little like
someone had tried to recreate
wartorn Bosnia right where the
corner green grocer used to be,
but since I live in a state where
tornadoes have to be
differentiated by day of the week
and I hadn't seen the Before to
this After, I can't really admit
all that much in the way of
interest. As
we approached the house, it
occurred to me suddenly that I
was now the kid with the fresh
cast on his leg. We were the
first to arrive, and as such, I
would inevitably have to do a lot
of repeating who I was and how I
had managed to invade an intimate
family gathering. This caused me
to completely overcompensate with
the first few folks I was
introduced to, giving them an
in-depth life story, up to and
including my most recent
vaccinations, but after I relaxed
a little, I started getting the
impression that my presence was
the most natural, expected thing
in the world. So much so that I
forgot to introduce myself to a
few late-comers, which didn't
seem to bother them much. It
almost seemed like they would
have been suspicious if I wasn't
there. Not
that I had much time to dwell.
After stepping inside, we were in
the thrall of more holiday
traditions than you could stick a
shake at. I probably could have
used a manual or some sort of
primer, as I was constantly out
of step. I had just caught on to
the munchies-grazing/family
gossip phase when, without I
looked up and everyone was in the
other room. Reluctantly
abandoning the Chex Mix, I headed
in the direction of the rest of
the troops for dinner, which
started with, apparently, three
varieties of homemade soup. I
picked the one nearest my setting
and dug in. A nice start to the
meal, I thought, and before long
I was anxiously awaiting the main
course. It was right about then
that Michelle's aunt asked me
what I wanted for dessert.
Another bowl of soup was not one
of the options. (Ordinarily,
this is where one inserts some
sort of broad generalization
about one's ethnic background and
boast that "Now, we
[blank]s know how to eat
a Christmas meal! We have sixteen
courses and at least two whole
cows, dammit!" but Michelle's
family is German just like mine,
so the only conclusion I can draw
is that my relatives are a bunch
of pigs.) Once
dessert was done away with, we
moved on to possibly the most
unusual tradition of all, the
Christmas Eve opening of gifts,
something that seemed impossibly
anticlimactic to me. All my life,
I'd been forced to endure many a
sleepless Christmas Eve while I
pondered my parents latest
attempt at convincing me that it
had been a rough winter and I was
only going to be getting the one
or possibly two small rocks this
year. Opening presents the night
before just deprives parents of
all that valuable psychological
torture. The
gift-giving began, as it always
does, in the patience-trying
manner of allowing each family
member to open one of their own,
starting with the youngest. (Ah!
So they're not completely
unfamiliar with psychological
torture...) But that quickly
broke down after the kids made
some bad tactical choices and
opened the clothes and other
non-toy gifts first. (At least in
my family, we had the presence of
mind to find out the contents of
as many of our presents as
possible days in advance to
maximize our presents-opening
experience.) All structure was
abandoned, and before long, there
were kids everywhere making
airplane noises and doing all
sorts of things that could put
eyes out. It
was right about then that I felt
the first pangs of melancholy.
What was this? Could I be missing
my family, my nieces and nephews,
my chaos? So it seemed. I found
myself yearning for the
take-no-prisoners card games and
the elaborate traditions that
come from equal parts sadism and
love. I resented my brothers and
sisters for not having the time
or the energy or the money to do
that anymore. It's not their
faults, really, I know. But as
the youngest of nine, much as I
try to get used to feeling like I
just got up to speed right when
everyone else was moving on, I
still resent it. But
maybe it just means that my
brothers and sisters are out
there creating their own
traditions and tormenting their
own kids, and it's time for me to
find my own. (Traditions. Not
kids. Not yet.) Could be. Could
be. But for a subtle reminder, I
probably wouldn't have known I
was missing anything but a clean
closet.
Also
featured in the not-so
latest: All
contents of this web site -- even the
periods -- are TM & © Patrick
Keller, Gern Blansten Productions, so
don't try to steal 'em. Any unlawful
distribution, copying or non-educational
use is highly frowned upon, and will be
prosecuted when I get enough money to hire
a lawyer. Violators will be spanked.
Shoplifters will be persecuted.
Prosecutors will be violated. |
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