Die Hard, Christmas Past

The ghost of Christmas past, that jingle bell-busting bitch, dies hard. It’s not easy waking up an adult and realizing you’re responsible for creating a magical holiday experience for yourself and your family. It’s sort of like that WHOA feeling in the pit of your stomach at the low point of a roller coaster. But if you’re strapped in for the ride it’s going to happen whether you like it or not.

Growing up, our traditions began on Christmas Eve. We’d sip grasshoppers from bulbous wine glasses covered in holly berries and play games around the table until my youngest brother came crying from his room that if we didn’t go to bed Santa wouldn’t come. Later, when the only lights aglow were the twinkling bulbs on the Christmas tree, each of us kids would tiptoe into the living room to gaze at the pile of gifts that magically appeared during our first few hours of sleep. We couldn’t open stockings the next morning unless everyone was awake and Dad had brewed his coffee. He’d find The Christmas Story on TV and we’d tear into our presents while Ralphie vied for his precious Red Ryder B.B. Gun, until the floor was littered with wrapping shreds and Dad went hunting for batteries that Santa forgot to leave with Mikey’s racecar or my new C.D. player.

Fast forward through a few marriages, divorces, and deaths, and our Christmas tradition is fa la la la la la la la lost. If there’s no place like home for the holidays, what do the poor kids do when “home” is no more? When we know there’ll never be a Christmas more hilarious than when we wrapped gifts for my youngest brother from his own room or watched him take a sip of Jack Daniels that was actually flat Coca Cola? Or there’ll never be a Christmas Eve as charming as when, after a marathon of SkipBo and sloe gin, my sister threw up outside my bedroom door? And there’ll never be mornings more annoying than when I’d sleep as late as possible so everyone had to wait to open presents, and my grumpy, teenage butt refused to smile for the camera?

Since we’ll never wake up under one roof again to a Christmas ready-made by parents who dug deeper than their deepest pockets to give their kids the kind of day that truly only came once a year, if there’s to be any magic in this burned out carcass of a holiday season, we’re going to have to hike up our Christmas stockings and make it ourselves.

I like to start by letting Denis Leary cuss me into the holiday spirit in The Ref, and jingling my merry way through another rendition of Baby It’s Cold Outside whether I feel like pouring Christmas music down my gullet in November or not. Then I’ll light every candle in the bookcase and burn balsam incense so I can feel festive when I sip Tom and Jerry’s in front of the gas fireplace that sounds like a small airplane preparing for takeoff in our living room. This year I even made my husband help me decorate our tree, much to his chagrin, and I sat for a Christmas card photo with our dog dressed as Mrs. Claus, much to mine.

By mid-December the weeks are consumed by obligatory holiday travel where my hubs and I hastily try to satisfy the traditions of many families without missing a single gathering or going completely insane. This year we diverted slightly to embrace our inner Griswold by hosting my family’s Christmas dinner in our home.

That morning my hubs worked his way around our kitchen to Christmas polkas before the sun came up, while I mopped up after our dog who left dirty paw prints on my freshly-cleaned floors. The smell of coffee, fresh-baked ham, and whatever was charred and burning at the bottom of the stove lingered in every room, transporting me back to that old two-bedroom farmhouse with the bats in the attic and peat moss toilet, where Dad is just about to decide who gets to play Santa. Out of nowhere, the mop and vacuum come crashing to the hallway floor as if my old man was trying to remind me I had work to do. My sister arrived before I was dressed, but I didn’t care because I was just so damn happy to see her. We waited for one brother who never showed and face-timed with the other who stayed in Pennsylvania this year, and my stepmom in Arizona who made us jealous with her outdoor thermometer that read seventy-five degrees in December.

With more friends in attendance at our holiday soiree than actual blood relatives, we avoided the typical drama that seemed to accompany family gatherings—except for the reasonable bitching about the brother who never showed. We ate more food than any human should consume, drank cheap beer and wine like it was our job, and played card games we hadn’t thought about since college, until our dear pregnant friend took my hubs to the gas station for more cheap beer and came back with bags of curly fries that satiated the sudden hunger that only copious amounts of alcohol could entice after such an extravagant dinner.

There were no presents exchanged, save for a white elephant-style raffle, no kids bouncing off the walls from stocking candy, and no Old Man shuffling around in his sweat pants making breakfast, just a house full of family—and friends that may as well be—rolling out the barrel (and the Captain Morgan) to celebrate the holiday away from our original homes in the best way we knew how. This year was a reminder that the Christmases of old are gone, but even with only two (former) Rowe’s present, we had the ability to create something our kid selves wouldn’t recognize but our adult selves could appreciate. We learned from the best how to make the most of what we have, and what we have is still surprisingly good.

I think Dad would agree.