“David, you could use a coffeemaker,” my mother said, when she visited one evening after doing some Christmas shopping.
“But, Mom, I don’t drink coffee.”
“What about when company comes over?” she replied. “Your brother drinks coffee.”
“Gerald lives seven hundred miles away,” I said. “He’s never been to my apartment. If he happens to stop by, I’ll take him out to the Starbucks around the corner.”
My mother nodded. “Still, a coffeemaker is a nice thing to have.”
So, on Christmas morning when we opened gifts, I got a coffeemaker, a dictionary and four packs of socks.
You know what Gerald got? A subscription to Entertainment Weekly magazine and a card full of cash.
Cash!
I get socks, he gets cash.
“We weren’t sure what you needed,” my mother said to Gerald. “We figured you could find a way to have some fun with the money.”
“Hey, if you want fun,” I said, holding up my dictionary. “Maybe we can look up the definitions to words. How about “irritate” or “animosity?”
But no one heard me since they were too busy watching Gerald count out his cash.
After our meal I cleared off the table and my mother sang “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” off-key while she loaded the dishwasher. Dad and Gerald sat in the living room watching football.
I wasn’t interested in the game, so I wandered upstairs, on the premise that I was going to use the bathroom.
At the top of the stairs I passed my parents’ bedroom and looked into Gerald’s old room.
I secretly called it “The Wonder Boy Shrine” since my mother hadn’t moved a thing in the six years since Gerald had left. His bed, desk and lamp were there. His school yearbooks were on the shelf; his posters were on the wall. For all I knew there could still be a pair of his dirty underwear stuck under the bed.
Crossing the hall, I walked into my old room, now referred to as “the guest room.” The room had been stripped the weekend after I moved out: new curtains, new paint, new carpeting, new bedspread. My old things were stored in the attic.
Cold, heavy raindrops splattered against the window. I looked out at the plastic illuminated snowman my father set up in the front yard. He’d been putting that thing out there every year for as long as I could remember. Glowing brightly, the snowman was leaning to one side. His red top hat was faded and a thick wad of duct tape held the back of his head together. I knew how he felt. Christmas around this house had the same effect on me.
Why did this have to be so difficult? I probably would have been happy to see Gerald if my parents showed a bit more appreciation towards me for all that I did around here.
I was the one who was here all year long. I helped plant their Impatiens and Geraniums in the spring and never forgot their birthdays and always took them out to dinner on Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. I even came over at Easter and watched the entire Ten Commandments with them every year! I was here whenever they needed me.
But they couldn’t get enough of Gerald.
“David, what are you doing up here?” My mother startled me from my mental tirade. “I thought you were downstairs watching TV.”
I shrugged my shoulders and looked back out the window.
“You must have lots of memories in this room,” she said, sitting down on the bed. “It’s good having you both back home. But, you know something?” She took a deep breath and then sighed.
I gritted my teeth. I knew what was coming next—another ode to Gerald. Perhaps she could sing it to the tune of a Christmas carol. Would it be “Gerald We Have Heard On High” or “Joy to the Gerald?”
“I wish your brother could be more like you.”
I turned to look at her. I couldn’t believe it. “What?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” said my mother. “I love Gerald dearly, but I wish he was more responsible, more mature, more hard-working, like you are. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about him so much. I hate to even touch his bedroom because I’m always worried he’ll need to move back home. He’s not like you at all.”
I shook my head. “But I always thought...” I shook my head again. “You wish Gerald was more like me?”
“Of course I do.” My mother stood up and gave me a hug. “You’re a good son, David. And a wonderful person. I don’t know what your father and I would do without you.”
I hugged her back. “Thanks, Mom.”
“I’m going downstairs,” she said. “I’m going to try to get your father to turn the channel so I can watch It’s a Wonderful Life.”
Talk about a Christmas miracle. This year she had actually given me a gift that I wanted; her approval.
She liked me.
She appreciated what I did.
She thought I was as good as Gerald.
That night when I got back to my apartment, I made a pot of coffee and looked up the word “family” in my dictionary.
The definition read: “A group of related things.”
With my family, that might be as close as we’d ever get. But as strange as it seemed, I was actually looking forward to next Christmas and hoping my brother would be able to make it home.
I guess knowing that my parents really did appreciate me was just enough for Christmas.
~David J. Hull
Our Own Tiny Family
There is no such cozy combination as man and wife.
~Menander
“You’re not going to be with family?” The question was whispered across delectable cups of hot chocolate, almost carried away in the faint wisps of steam curling up from the mugs. But it couldn’t evaporate completely, weighed down as it was by a rather heavy dollop of disbelief, and it reached my ears loud and clear.
“I’m going to be with my husband,” I answered gamely, not yet aware that this could possibly be the worst answer I could give.
Three pairs of eyes looked back at me, full of confusion and questions. Friends I had known for years suddenly began evaluating me in an entirely new light.
“But that’s just your husband,” one of them ventured. “What about your family?”
“Or his family?” another put in, glancing at the others for confirmation.
They all nodded in unison. Family, it seemed to be agreed upon by everyone, was crucial for Christmas morning.
“Well,” I said slowly, suddenly feeling as if I was walking on the ice that coated the canal outside the coffee shop’s window, “my husband is my family. As long as we’re together we’re happy.”
They all exchanged a look.
“What am I missing?” I asked, slightly miffed that they all seemed to share a secret knowledge from which I never even knew I was excluded.
“It’s just, well, won’t it be a little... quiet on Christmas morning?”
I considered this. Compared to being around my husband’s two parents, four siblings, three nephews and niece it might be a little quiet. Compared to being around my grandfather, two parents, three siblings and one almost brother-in-law it might be a little quiet. But in order to get to any of this festive commotion we’d have to travel several hours either by plane or train. And after a year of very bad health, major surgery, working overtime and paying the healthcare bills, my husband and I had very little time, energy, budget or inclination to travel.
So for the first time ever, we planned to spend the entire stretch of holidays, from Christmas Eve right through New Year’s Day, in our own home. I thought what we were doing was best for us as our own little family, but maybe I’d thought wrong? Maybe Christmas wouldn’t really be Christmas without a big family meal and lots of noise and wrapping paper and bad sing-alongs and fights for the bathroom?
I turned these questions over in my mind as I walked home that afternoon, and again as I planned our holiday menus. Was I making too much food? Would we feel pathetic, just the two of us, trying to get through a turkey and several sides? How many Christmas cookies were too many Christmas cooki
es? Should I just make restaurant reservations instead, to spare us the potential embarrassment of a table full of food and no one to eat it?
As I shopped for my husband’s presents more questions crept into my mind. How many presents would be needed to keep the tree from looking bare? How could we prolong present opening so that it didn’t feel pitifully short? Should I buy fancy wrapping paper and bows and ribbons so that there would be enough spread around the room as we tore through the gifts? Should I practice shrieking and jumping up and down in case we needed that little edge of Christmas clamor? (I discarded that last idea pretty quickly.)
It wasn’t until Christmas Eve afternoon, while my husband wrapped gifts and I set out platters of snacks, that the doubts began to disappear. We had a Christmas movie marathon ready to be watched, candy canes ready to swirl in our hot chocolate and cinnamon-scented candles ready to be lit. That evening we ate ourselves silly and worked through our own private film festival. We also tracked Santa on the NORAD website and even watched him pay a quick visit to the International Space Station. We bantered back and forth with our siblings using e-mail, instant messenger, text messages and digital photos. At midnight we wished each other a Merry Christmas and then slept for ten long, luxurious hours.
The next day we put on Christmas carols, cooked up a storm and opened our presents with lots of love and laughter. That is, until my husband surprised me with the little leather wallet I’d been lusting after. I cried then, but from happiness rather than sadness.
“Is it okay?” he asked anxiously. “Is everything okay?”
I leaned over to kiss his cheek and wiped away my tears.
“It’s perfect. Everything’s perfect. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
As the wind whipped outside and beautiful voices sang about the holy night my husband put his arm around me.
“Neither would I,” he said.
We may not have had a noisy Christmas, or a Christmas packed with relatives or a Christmas that would be remembered for convivial confusion or cheerful chaos but we had our Christmas. We celebrated as our own tiny family, and that was more than either of us needed.
~Beth Morrissey
I’ll Be Home for Christmas
It takes hands to build a house, but only hearts can build a home.
~Author Unknown
I drove back toward our rental, our temporary location, listening to the radio. While I usually reserved Christmas music for the day after Thanksgiving, I needed the kind of joy only Jewel singing “Winter Wonderland” can bring.
“I’m dreaming of a place I love” came through the speakers of my white 2001 RX300. Tears started to fall as I kept my eyes on the road. It was a road I had driven nearly every day for the past three years. It was on this road three months ago that I had seen smoke coming from our neighborhood, making my heart quicken and my foot hit the accelerator pedal. We had left our dog, Shade, inside that night.
My husband, Dan, tried to reassure me that the fire wasn’t near our house and that everything was fine. I was not easily persuaded.
“See, it’s in the field below the house,” Dan said as we drove past our neighborhood trying to find the fastest way back home.
“Are you sure?” I asked. “Okay.”
I looked again.
“Are you sure?”
As we pulled into our neighborhood I nearly hit a fire engine with my car because the smoke was so thick. I sent Dan into the fire to get the animals and the photos, which he did.
Hours later we learned that was all we had left.
Our three-bedroom suburban house had been redone in custom tile and it had a kitchen that was made to feel like a diner. It had a pass-through bar and cabinets that seemed to float in the air, with several feet between them and the top of the vaulted ceiling. The previous owners had left plastic tube lighting, which seemed corny, but they gave the room a unique ambience, and so I kept them.
Dan and I had redone parts of the house, updating light fixtures, repainting walls, and building a custom 750-square foot deck in 100-degree heat. I had just finished our son Kellen’s nursery, as he was due a month after the fire.
In the months since, I dreamed of that house. It was the only way to get back to the place I loved.
I had imagined our first Christmas with our new baby even before he was conceived. Even though Kellen would only be a couple of months old at Christmas, I knew he would have new pajamas under the tree and would play with the boxes. He would sit on my lap as we tore through the wrapping paper and uncovered Christmas treasures. The weekend prior to losing our house, I had finished making Dan’s stocking while watching the closing ceremonies of the Beijing games. It was a crazy quilted rugged stocking and I was just starting on Kellen’s which I had hoped he would keep his entire life the way that I had mine. I imagined that Kellen’s stocking that first Christmas would have pacifiers, rattles, and a Christmas ornament in it. I had collected ornaments, one each year since I had been in elementary school and I had looked forward to starting the tradition with my son.
Christmas for me had always brought immense joy. I loved the smell of fresh pine. I loved the emotions of the music, which even in the sadness of songs like “Christmas Shoes” could bring joy in believing in the goodness of humanity. That, for me, was the true spirit of the season. I loved the ornaments, especially those that had been handmade by my mom and grandmother and great-grandmother. I loved wrapping gifts, maybe even more than giving them. I loved the feel of crisp paper and straight lines. I loved the whooshing sound of scissors shearing the colored paper into rectangles. I loved folding the paper down and creating edges that showed I had put effort into the beauty of the present. I made bows and tags. It was my holiday. And I loved it.
Instead of joy, however, this year brought sadness. I would have no tree in my living room, no generational ornaments, no scraps of wrapping paper from years past. Our stockings were gone. Our first house, the one I envisioned spending my first Christmas in as a family of three, was in ashes. And all I had now were floorboards and the outline of a new home.
“I’ll be home for Christmas” continued over the car’s speakers. Only in my dreams.
I knew that the house wouldn’t be finished. Even though Dan was working as the general contractor and pushing sub-contractors through at a nearly record-setting pace, construction was expected to last until at least January. I had cried to them about this date, but I knew it was the most realistic. I didn’t want to be home only in my dreams though. It wasn’t enough.
When I got back to the rental, a place I refused to call my house much less home, I told Dan my plan.
“I want to spend Christmas at the new house,” I said.
We talked about the logistics, like heat, and decided we could make it happen.
I started making plans for our Christmas at home. We bought a tree in the middle of December. They were being offered free to the ten families who lost their homes in our neighborhood’s fire. While I had thought about not getting one, knowing that I could put it in my new, unfinished house made it okay. Boxes of gifts from friends, family, and strangers continued to arrive. Old family ornaments were graciously given to me by my mom and sister even though we had already divided them a few years ago. My mom’s book club in Virginia shipped ornaments across the country. Though simple, one of my favorites said “Joy” in white, covered lightly with glitter. I may not have felt it fully in my heart yet, but I knew that joy would come.
I prepared stuffed French toast Christmas Eve to take to the house in the morning. We bought a hot pot for coffee and a few other snack items. We had invited friends, family, and some of the community to the house Christmas morning. We packed up the gifts and stockings and drove up the hill from our rental to our house.
There was heat and there were walls but not much else. We hung garland from the unfinished banister on the stairs. We set up a folding table where the kitchen would soon be, and I unfolded my reindeer table cloth from Pottery Barn. We placed
folding chairs in the living room which had no carpet or paint.
Friends and family came through the house throughout the day, and we showed them around, pointing out where I envisioned our Christmas tree would go in subsequent years. We listened to Christmas songs and found solace in the sound of laughter throughout our house.
It wasn’t the Christmas at home I had expected but we were home. And there was peace and joy that Christmas day.
~Brooke Linville
Christmas Eve Chili
Things may change us, but we start and end with the family.
~Anthony Brandt
“Don’t push it,” my mother said to me that afternoon. Her voice crackled on the phone with the static of the storm that was icing and blowing and snowing somewhere west of New England. “Wait for the storm to pass and then come home. You’ll be here on Christmas. That’s what’s important.”
Maybe, I said to myself, as I hung up the phone and looked out the window of my Boston apartment, up at the gathering clouds. It wasn’t snowing. And if I left now—right now—I might beat the storm to New York and be home in time for the chili, cornbread and tree decorating that had become my family’s tradition for Christmas Eve. Besides, my mother was a weather worrier, calling us in from the snow before the first flake hit the grass and handing us umbrellas when clouds were tinted any shade of gray.
What I didn’t tell her, she wouldn’t worry about. And when I walked in the house she’d see that I was an adult who could make decisions for myself.
And so, minutes later I was in the front seat of my 1974 Oldsmobile Omega that had been given to me by my grandmother “Ging Ging” the year before she died. It was an armored tank of a car with doors that closed with a decisive thunk and an engine that roared with power, plus a muffler that probably needed replacement.
I worried less about cars than I did about the weather. A pigheaded certainty was another of Ging Ging’s legacies.
So that’s how I came to be on the Massachusetts Turnpike at dusk with snow and ice hammering at my windows, the heater flashing on and off and an ominous pause whenever my wipers hit the top of their arc.