I was never a “bah humbug” kind of person. I can string colored popcorn along with the best, and carol with joy even at Bocelli’s door. I know how to make ornaments out of pine cones and rag dolls out of scraps and can turn out sugar cookies faster than you can say adeste fidelis. But things have changed.
In my childhood, Christmas reigned. Preparations were begun just after the rigors of Thanksgiving — just as Yule advertising now begins in the United States at Halloween! My able and efficient mother laid out intricate plans for making lists and checking them twice, baking and jellying and jamming and sewing, and, eventually, the finale: shopping and wrapping and putting things under the tree. These inextricable parts of my growing up created an almost unbearable excitement up to the very moment I positioned myself at the window to watch for reindeer, with cookies and milk in hand for you-know-who.
My mother suggested Scotch.
I remember one Christmas, when I was far too old to be dancing from foot to foot over the oddly wrapped package under the tree (a bicycle, duh!), but still young and gullible, my mother entered my room with an outstretched palm on which rested half of a tiny orange pill. “Don’t worry, darling, just something to help calm you down.” And yes, mamma, Thorazine will do that every time.
This only happened once, I’m glad to say, and no, I am not a dope addict — yet.
My able and efficient mother laid out intricate plans for making lists and checking them twice, baking and jellying and jamming and sewing, and, eventually, the finale: shopping and wrapping and putting things under the tree.
But I have the beginnings of something worse: cynicism. It will be hard to justify this change when I say to you that I give thanks daily to my marvelous, creative mother for my education in such matters. Being able to handle the inevitable demise of one’s clothes with a needle and thread; knowing that neither mayonnaise nor meringues must ever be made on a rainy day; calculating just when to bat one’s eyes to achieve certain strategic successes; how to shake hands firmly and look others straight in the eye; the correct usage of lay and lie; and how never, never to “let” a man beat you in any game, be it tennis, cards, or any other.
As you see, I was well prepared for the demands of December. Throughout my own adult life, I was practically in nirvana as I steamed Christmas puddings and wrapped them in red and green cellophane for gifts, constructed gingerbread houses, iced panettone, or hiked in the woods, looking for red berries and pine for door wreaths.
But as the years wore on, Christmas became, well, burdensome. A list of forty-three gifts within a family seemed a bit much, especially as many of the members lived elsewhere and could only be reached with the help of sherpas or by carrier pigeon or not at all (simplifying matters greatly, I might add).
Endless trips to the post office and waiting in lines at supermarkets and having no butter in the middle of a brioche run and scrounging around for wrapping paper from last Christmas (that isn’t too wrinkled and covered with Scotch tape) and going through the “present” drawer, for a past tchotchke for the hostess of a forgotten party and then ending up, after having all the unconscious material of one’s childhood stirred up suddenly by a whiff of nutmeg, being knocked flat-out with the flu through New Year’s.
Sound familiar?
Well, it’s not quite that bad, but I have taken a new look at holidays over the last few years. I now have step-grandkids whose Christmas-lit faces are worth the days of preparation and the search for, say, the best computer deal in Rome or boots that are currently all the rage among teens. The adage that the holidays are for kids is absolutely true and just fine with me, but the kids are in their late teens, twenties, and early thirties now and love those things called checks.
I’ll browse through my Pittman & Davis fruit catalog, which I discovered years ago could solve most of any holiday’s problems. I’ll send little boxes of Vitamin C on their way to a very pared-down list of recipients, making sure that those who might be taking Viagra do not get grapefruit (an error, it is all too possible, that I might have made for years). And yes, I will have a small gathering of family and light candles and bake a yule log and hope to hell I will not get anything from the myriad little bugs that hop around from person to person during December. But I’m just not starting months ahead this time. And I refuse to give presents just for the sake of giving them or because of guilt or obligation or the insistence of our society to buy, buy, buy — or die.
My husband and I long ago decided that we need no more objects in our lives, and so we give one another a nice dinner at a trattoria or a day in the country at our favorite hideaway or simply a bite or two of little red (no longer black) fish eggs on New Year’s Eve and a glass of bubbly with those we love.
There might not be popcorn strings in our house, but there will be a welcoming smile at the door and hugs all around. I’m giving odd things to those I care for and love, and they might not even be wrapped packages. A weed puller in my overgrown garden would be something I would love to get and so will give. Or I might prune some roses for a friend who’s got a terrace but hates the upkeep. Or perhaps I’ll just bake a few loaves of focaccia every week for a bread-lover.
My husband and I long ago decided that we need no more objects in our lives, and so we give one another a nice dinner at a trattoria or a day in the country at our favorite hideaway or simply a bite or two of little red (no longer black) fish eggs on New Year’s Eve and a glass of bubbly with those we love. But Christmas, in my view, needs an overhaul, a face-lift, if you will. There are too many wrinkles in this worn holiday and too much suffering on our planet right now to generate a lot of high spirits for what was originally a religious holiday (but certainly is not for Muslims, Jews, and many other religions who have never heard of St. Nick — and don’t need to).
I will not forget my Christmas skills, just in case they need to be pulled out in the future when the world looks rosier, but this year, I’m just going to hug my stepkids and grandkids and hope that by the time they are my age, their future will have a few ragged edges smoothed out.
And I have not really let go of excitement and joy. I’m pulling those extra plum puddings I made last year out of the freezer. They are always better, as are we all, with age. And I’m certainly going to teach my grandkids how to string popcorn.
