....And all of them crazy
It is chrismas time again, and it couldn’t feel any less so. In fact, I wish it wasn’t. Usually, it’s the lights and the smell of pine I enjoy. I watch reruns of every overly broadcast holiday special. I bake cookies and pies and cuddle in front of the tree and think about snow. Usually, I love christmas. But this year, I wish it would just cease to happen. I pray for a collective amnesia. People everywhere neglect to shop, wrap and carol. Racking my neurology laden memory bank, I am contemplating the phenomenon’s probability.
Perhaps just a familial forgetfulness is in order. They could, so consumed by work or the streaks on their window panes, find diversions such as holidays frivolous affairs. “What’s that? Fruit Cake? Oh dear, I havent a clue what youre talking about, I really must return to my house cleaning.” Preoccupied, as such, they would fail to notice my otherwise obvious absence and I would not be required to feign non-embittered feelings towards them.
Of the holiday triad (consumption, dysfunction and miracles) this maybe that one christmas component I’ve always been missing.
Dysfunction I’ve had in spades: the alcoholic relatives swallowing nickels at the bids of 9 year cousins, the sisterly fights over who cooks what and why everything tastes like rotting oysters, the fits of fury over what are obviously salvation army acquired gifts by wealthy step-grandmothers, tearful mornings marked by multiple boxes of slippersocks, and abrasive accusations by would be mother in-laws. This, though, is not family dysfunction in its truest form. This is the type of vicious, malicious, bad blood that is precipitated by egg nog and holly leaves. It runs in our veins with a half life of 24 peppermint flavored hours.
Real dysfunction is the kind that is dammed by the blubbery butt of jolly old saint Nick, not loosed by it. For one day, it is our daughterly/sisterly/motherly duty to behave as though you have not spent numerous guilt ridden nights tossing and turning in your utter contempt of these people you are currently dining with, laughing with, and shoveling hard earned dollars into the pockets of Macy’s stockholders for. Wine and tree shaped cookies consumed in diabetic proportions, will no doubt “take the edge off” but only until the cheap merlot has worked itself into a headached frenzy and you are forced to confront the fact that you are shipwrecked in a sea of crazy. The twinkling lights strangling every fir branch in the yard, seem to blink out in true morris code fashion, S.O.S. and you cannot help thinking, as you choke down three year old ribbon candy:touché.
While the trite, toothy conversation about movies recently slept through and the drama of living with 300 other people braving their 20’s as though they are the pioneers of untraversed territory maybe nauseating, it is heartening to know that there is something quite worse: Being “that girl”. Oh you know the one of which I speak. She spends her evenings feeding her cats oreos and has framed pictures of movie of the week television stars on every wall. She can quote anything you ask her to, the bible, the satanic bible, and even more heathenistic, bridget jone’s diary. She’s convinced that her life will eventually have the sacchariney sweet ending of a romantic comedy. And every christmas she hand makes anything from crocheted doilies to cellophane draped fruitcake for everyone she knows, because, well, she’s got just that much time. While you brave the wintery cold of the festival of lies that most call home for the holidays, she microwaves mashed slices of ham for each of her ten kitties and says grace around the eleven place dinner table (did you get that the other places are for mittens, boots, and Mr. buttons, et al?). The idea of be coming "that girl" has even the most loathing amongst us packing our bags and checking our boarding passes twice. A few dizzying hours around a tin christmas tree wearing waxy, jaw clenching grins and nodding agreement about any and every topic that may come up is, it turns out, salvation......In it’s most bitterly ironic form, yes, but salvation none-the-less.
So, like a 34th street miracle, I ring the bell, hold my box of wine high, and toast these christmas angels that have saved me from an even blacker black christmas.
Happy Holidays! And an intoxicated New Year!
*this is a dramatization....kinda....but at least i changed the names to protect the semi-innocent
Perhaps just a familial forgetfulness is in order. They could, so consumed by work or the streaks on their window panes, find diversions such as holidays frivolous affairs. “What’s that? Fruit Cake? Oh dear, I havent a clue what youre talking about, I really must return to my house cleaning.” Preoccupied, as such, they would fail to notice my otherwise obvious absence and I would not be required to feign non-embittered feelings towards them.
Of the holiday triad (consumption, dysfunction and miracles) this maybe that one christmas component I’ve always been missing.
Dysfunction I’ve had in spades: the alcoholic relatives swallowing nickels at the bids of 9 year cousins, the sisterly fights over who cooks what and why everything tastes like rotting oysters, the fits of fury over what are obviously salvation army acquired gifts by wealthy step-grandmothers, tearful mornings marked by multiple boxes of slippersocks, and abrasive accusations by would be mother in-laws. This, though, is not family dysfunction in its truest form. This is the type of vicious, malicious, bad blood that is precipitated by egg nog and holly leaves. It runs in our veins with a half life of 24 peppermint flavored hours.
Real dysfunction is the kind that is dammed by the blubbery butt of jolly old saint Nick, not loosed by it. For one day, it is our daughterly/sisterly/motherly duty to behave as though you have not spent numerous guilt ridden nights tossing and turning in your utter contempt of these people you are currently dining with, laughing with, and shoveling hard earned dollars into the pockets of Macy’s stockholders for. Wine and tree shaped cookies consumed in diabetic proportions, will no doubt “take the edge off” but only until the cheap merlot has worked itself into a headached frenzy and you are forced to confront the fact that you are shipwrecked in a sea of crazy. The twinkling lights strangling every fir branch in the yard, seem to blink out in true morris code fashion, S.O.S. and you cannot help thinking, as you choke down three year old ribbon candy:touché.
While the trite, toothy conversation about movies recently slept through and the drama of living with 300 other people braving their 20’s as though they are the pioneers of untraversed territory maybe nauseating, it is heartening to know that there is something quite worse: Being “that girl”. Oh you know the one of which I speak. She spends her evenings feeding her cats oreos and has framed pictures of movie of the week television stars on every wall. She can quote anything you ask her to, the bible, the satanic bible, and even more heathenistic, bridget jone’s diary. She’s convinced that her life will eventually have the sacchariney sweet ending of a romantic comedy. And every christmas she hand makes anything from crocheted doilies to cellophane draped fruitcake for everyone she knows, because, well, she’s got just that much time. While you brave the wintery cold of the festival of lies that most call home for the holidays, she microwaves mashed slices of ham for each of her ten kitties and says grace around the eleven place dinner table (did you get that the other places are for mittens, boots, and Mr. buttons, et al?). The idea of be coming "that girl" has even the most loathing amongst us packing our bags and checking our boarding passes twice. A few dizzying hours around a tin christmas tree wearing waxy, jaw clenching grins and nodding agreement about any and every topic that may come up is, it turns out, salvation......In it’s most bitterly ironic form, yes, but salvation none-the-less.
So, like a 34th street miracle, I ring the bell, hold my box of wine high, and toast these christmas angels that have saved me from an even blacker black christmas.
Happy Holidays! And an intoxicated New Year!
*this is a dramatization....kinda....but at least i changed the names to protect the semi-innocent
posted by that girl at 1:38 PM
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