I wrote this shortly after Christmas and right before I got a virus that somewhat took me out for the count. It is no longer timely but I feel compelled to post. Grave contrition. This post is about spending Christmas on the GREAT PLAINS with my salt-of-the-earth midwestern family..........
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Since it was Christmas recently, I was thinking about Christmases of yore. One tends to think about events when they are happening or if they just happened. For instance, if somebody is drilling a hole into one’s skull it’s almost impossible not to think about this fact. (Some Christmases have indeed have felt like this.) Or, on the opposite end of the spectrum, if you’re given a puppy who has been genetically modified to remain a puppy for life you might have puppies on the brain. You may be thinking of puppy toys and puppy food and puppy outfits. You may also be thinking about the ethical ramifications of genetic modification. But, I digress.
In short, Christmas to me often feel like a morally ambiguous doctor forcibly yet slowly drilling a hole into my brain. But, when I was younger, Christmas felt like receiving an ageless puppy, a puppy so happy and furry and full of hope that it transcended time.
I’ve been trying to recall such times, times when Christmases were not black tied catered events with a smattering of dysfunctional family fights in front of the cater waiters; times when a buyer from Wilkes Bashford didn’t sort out our Christmas gifts before the event. It wasn’t always this way. Until I was 11, we celebrated Christmas in Kansas at my matrilineal grandmother’s house. These Christmases had an almost Norman Rockwell feel to them but, then again, maybe every Christmas has a bit of that tinge when you're a child. Christmas is such an earnest affair; it’s really only for the young. And perhaps it's simply because I was young but Christmas in Kansas felt like a ageless puppy.
Like any true children of California, my brother and I were amazed by snow. We’d abortively attempt to go sledding in my Nana’s completely flat front yard until my father came to the rescue, building a structurally suspect ramp out of plywood. He poured buckets of water on the ramp to ice it down so we’d go careening into the street at a high velocity. Everything was so simple then...
My brother and I would also while away the holiday time playing hallway football in the only hallway in my Nana's house. The rules of hallway football were fairly simple: one person would attempt to run to the other end of the hallway with a football and the other person would attempt to block them. Since my brother was 3 1/2 years my senior, I never particularly stood a chance. My brother would immediately tackle me when I had possession. When he had possession, I'd catapault my body onto his back and start manically hitting him in order to thwart his forward momentum. While my arms were clasped around his neck, I might try swinging my feet onto the wall and pushing off, sending bro and I careening into the opposite wall and hopefully inflicting enough damage to make him fall. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. My brother in turn would try to prise me loose from his back by ramming me into the walls with a simple rotation of his torso. When I was smaller, he could usually dislodge me by simply ramming me once. But, as I grew older, I developed a more vice-like grip.
Reading that paragraph back and it really didn't sound as folksy as I'd hoped it would. It also seems that my competitive instincts as a six year old were perhaps unhealthy. But, if I know anything about this country, it's that trying to fight my brother to death to prevent a touchdown in a hallway is as folksy and American as apple pie.
Anyway, from what I have heard, my brother and I WERE mostly adorable during the holidays in Kansas. My Nana always liked reminding of us of our holiday present wrapping service. “Matthew and Lisa’s Present Wrapping and Delivery Service Inc.!” My brother would write bills on my late grandfather's typewriter and keep track of the accounts with his adding machine. In other words, he was the Meyer Lansky of the operation. I was the labor, the present wrapper and the delivery girl. Starting at about six years old till I was too old to fit on it, I'd take a tiny tricycle and ride around the one story ranch style house and ask my relatives for their orders. Then I'd go back to the office, wrap the presents, and tricycle back with an invoice.
And yes, I concede my brother and I eventually got into fights about our company and the division of our profits. Early on it was apparent that there was a gross injustice in that Matthew seemed to take all the profits. By age 10 or so, I realized that Matthew only gave me 10% “Matthew and Lisa Present Wrapping Service Inc!” earnings. I’d try to offset the imbalance by asking for tips. But I was only tipped with M&Ms.
I have a distinct memory of approaching my father -- in the way kids do during Christmas -- about the disparity between my earnings and my brother’s in our supposedly jointly held corporation. This was when I was about ten I think...
“COMPETITION!” My father bellowed.
“What?” I said.
“Competition drives the marketplace Lisa.”
Then I think he slurred something about Adam Smith and The Wealth of Nations. It was unclear and I'm fairly certain he was slightly drunk. That being said, I think I got the general message.
The next year I started my own rival present wrapping service and my brother and I constantly fought about stealing each other's "clients." I'm fairly certain this rivalry for monetary gain was obnoxious at 11 and 14. I know this because my father would say things like, "Could you guys please stop being obnoxious." And yes, we did cause some trouble. But, what middle schooler HASN'T had their adding machines, TI-85 calculators, invoices, and all other business accouterments confiscated because they nearly came to blows over who got the "contract" to wrap all of Nana's presents, which subsisted solely of socks, slippers, and rape whistles for the women in case of emergency. Shrug
The other great thing about Kansas was the sense of family history. Being in the home where my aunt and mother had grown up really gave me a sense of belonging. In California, everything was sterile and new and sunny and un-christmaslike. There were no old traditions or belongings or stories.
In Kansas, well, there were definitely stories. Some of these stories were cute, like how my Nana cut my mother's hair in the middle of the night because she thought her long locks had become too sexually enticing to the opposite sex. You know, stories like that. But then there were other stories.... You see, midwesterners are very polite and almost saccharine sweet in public but, when you get them in private, the skeletons in the closet come tumbling out until you are simply buried underneath a bunch of skeletons decorated with too much tinsel. The transition from sweet polite self-conscious midwestern chit chattery to the buried family secrets was always an interesting one. One time I was alone with my aunt and the following dialogue ensued.
Aunt: "Oh, we have to get your second cousin Steve pie."
Aunt: "You see, he likes pie."
Aunt: He's been an agoraphobe for thirty years, since his wife died of brain cancer, and pie is the one way I can get him to go outside."
Aunt: "He'll definitely get the pie right outside the doorstep. That's not too far.. Sometimes I call him and tell him I'm leaving the pie by the mailbox because then I think he'll just have to come out of that house to get the pie by the mailbox."
Aunt: (in a mumble) But that's really just a waste of pie.
And, okay, maybe your aunt telling you that your second cousin once removed has stayed in his house for thirty years doesn’t really sound like a Charlie Brown Christmas moment. I’m also not sure why it never occurred to my Nana or Aunt to bake them a series of pies to lure Steve outside the house. Perhaps an apple pie on the door step, a cherry pie just outside the porch, a blueberry pie on the walkway, and finally something fantastic -- maybe key lime pie -- by the mailbox. But they never did that.....
And then there were the stories about my grandfather. My grandfather was a manic-depressive-chain-smoking alcoholic whose behavior was so scarring to his children that they in turn scarred their children by simply recounting said stories. But the stories about my grandfather are a bonding experience for all of us; it ties the matrilineal line together. He died young but his shadow looms over all of us, cold but yet still mysteriously warm to the touch. "Did you hear about the time that he went manic and Nana called the cops to hospitalize him because he decided to invest all the family savings in a Greek restaurant." "I heard the restaurant didn't actually exist?" "It didn't, it was just one Greek guy!!!" But this shared history of one extremely fucked up man is something that links my knits our family's heart parts together so, during Christmas, they all collectively thrum in love or amazement or sheer retrospective terror. :)
So yes, Christmases in Kansas felt like puppies...............
Or like a chain-smoking, manic-depressive alcoholic who's always peering over your shoulder.
You know what?
I think it was both.
I HOPE EVERYONE HAD A GOOD HOLIDAY!!!!!!!