Thanks to not answering my phone for the last two weeks, this holiday season has proved itself to be the least stressful in recent history. My mother, as everyone knows, is unparalleled in her ability to make a even Buddhist monk develop an ulcer.
I have felt successful in that i have skirted many typical holiday duties this December. I was not forced to watch a "Muppet Christmas Carol" while decorating the tree. I was not guilted into driving 3 hours away for "Ethnic Christmas". I didn't have to clean or put up lights at my Grandma Butler's house. And I am nearly positive no one is going to make me read aloud Nephew Fred's "God bless it" speech at the dinner table.
I find myself being frustrated with my mother, thinking that she is a bit of a fuddy-duddy, insisting upon reprising the dance we've done for 28 years. Not because the traditions themselves are fun and rich with the memory of years past, but because being catholic is something that causes her to flog us with a myriad of senseless traditions akin to her beloved (and punishing) 2 hour mass.
Growing up, i had often boasted of the fact that my family had fun and off-the-wall Christmas rituals. "Ethnic Christmas" being one of them. It began two years before i was born. Out of boredom, creative zest or simply because their pockets were empty, the Kraft family decided that spaghetti would be served in lieu of a christmas bird. The next year the tradition was dubbed "Italian christmas" and the following year it was decided upon that we would celebrate the food and traditions of a new country. And thus ethnic Christmas was born. (Later to devolve entirely into a wacky costumes, politically incorrect interpretations of culture and family drunkenness.)
Looking back, i miss this kind of thing. And i have to wonder that if a quiet afternoon spent in my apartment, watching netflix and drinking coffee, is really better than the time spent butchering the holiday traditions of other countries with my family. I have to say, I'm not sure.
One final tradition of the holiday season is the reading of "A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote. The reading is done in the family mini-van on the way to my Grandma Kraft's house just before or after Christmas Day. Typically there is a good bit of snow dusting the pine and Christmas music plays in the background as we drive. My brother sleeps, his huge body taking up the length of the van. My sister grimaces while my mother reads to show her displeasure with an act so maudlin. (She still cries every time.) My father drives and from time to time, wipes a tear from his eye. (He has gotten soft now that his children have grown.) And my mother and I unabashedly weep like children. Who can maintain a stiff upper lip when there is 'a leafless, birdless coming of winter" or when "a lost pair of kites hurry towards heaven"?
This year we will not be driving to my Grandmother's house, as she has sold it and moved to a more manageable condo.
There is a good chance "Christmas Memory" will not be read this year. A staple of our family culture. Part of the old dance we've always done. A senseless act used to punish us all and bring us some false sense of togetherness.
I will surely miss it. What a fuddy-duddy I have become.
