Baby’s first Christmas: “We look at the world once, through childhood.” (photo by Chris Erskine)
And now we rest what Yeats called our “pilgrim souls,” a nod to our once-bucolic lives … hard work … our flinty American ethos.
The holidays are every family’s history book. Each year, the plot thickens, like the gravy on the stove, like the nog you never finished, in that forgotten glass over by the fireplace.
Our Christmas was fine, though exhausting, though thick. It’s all the screaming that tires me mostly, though we have a rather passive family in that regard. As a rule, we only scream during Dodger games and heavy traffic.
And, of course, during Christmas. If you don’t primal scream at least once during the holidays, you’re either a Buddhist or very dead.
So, yeah, I’ll confess: Christmas almost killed me. Final straw: the wine opener went missing.
I’m always reminding my three adult children that I’m now a kindly old man with occasional anger issues that surface mostly in crowded kitchens. I’m no longer middle-aged, yet not quite elderly. A “tweener” as they say.
So sometimes, I yell so as not to be ignored, which happens more and more as you get older and take (what your kids think) are too many naps. I eat, I nap. I do a chore, I nap.
A good nap, as I’ve noted before, establishes sovereignty.
I napped in preparation for Christmas dinner, the big feast for us. Some families do the big feast on Christmas Eve. We prefer to save the big fiasco for late Christmas Day, when everyone is super tired.
Hence, the occasional naps.
About a week before, the kids start questioning the menu, though we’d already agreed: prime rib, roast carrots, Brussels sprouts, rolls, a baked-potato bar (my idea), cheesecake, wine, coffee, anti-depressants, Tums – a pretty standard American menu. Maybe –like Yeats – you can appreciate its cheery holiday glow?
Then the second-guessing begins. For the record, I hate second-guessing. It’s almost always wrong. I’ve seen it in meetings, ballgames, love.
Here’s what happens: Rapunzel, a dear daughter of whom I’m very proud, decides she wants “a big winter salad” instead of the Brussels sprouts. Then the lovely and patient older daughter, the pride and joy of all I do, weighs in to say “only if it has pomegranate seeds and the finest aged goat cheese. And is grammable.”
Then Smartacus, my favorite slacker elf, weighs in to warn his sisters that my idea of a salad is the kind you buy in a bag.
Then I weigh in to say, “Why don’t we cancel the $400 rib roast and just have salads for dinner?” which they deem an unprovoked overreaction to what they were suggesting.
Then a son-in-law (Finn) urges us “to just keep it simple,” the best suggestion of all.
“So salads it is!” I announce.
Quick question: Does your family have these so-called “text chains” that allow a small mob of cynics to annoy each other all day long? Ours does, and it works very well.
Anyway, as in the movies, Christmas finally comes.
The new baby arrives dressed like Hillary Clinton, in a little red blazer and black leggings, a good look for her and maybe a hint of all the accomplishments to come (a Cabinet post, injunctions). A grandpa can only hope.
“We look at the world once, in childhood. The rest is memory,” writer Louise Gluck once warned.
I truly believe that. Our baselines are set as children; we load the tank with rich memories to draw from as we get older. Sort of an emotional 401k account.
Then we spend the rest of our lives adjusting to the various storms. We drop a sail, tighten a jib, warm ourselves with past childhood kindnesses. It’s how we manage to manage.
I think that’s where the holidays come in. So we can load the tank, show some graciousness even when it’s difficult, summon patience for the ones we love the most.
So, yes, we had a very nice winter salad. With pomegranate seeds and the finest cheese we could find.
Most important, it was grammable, which at first I thought had to do with graham crackers. But you probably know better. “Grammable” is a boastful social media post, something I fully support.
We also had the juciest “roast beast,” as the Grinch put it.
All in all, it was a grand feast. Christmas remains a time to do something for your adult children, even when they’re very capable of taking care of themselves.
Exhausting, yes. Isn’t everything?
Time for a nap.
Happy New Year!
The platter of prime rib was the centerpiece of our Christmas Day dinner. (photo by Chris Erskine)
Dining and Cooking