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Holiday guide: Stories

Ho ho … oh the holidays

The Frenchest intentions

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I was the wife of a Frenchman for more than a dozen years, a state that came with many perks. Having moved on to a relationship with a fine Italian-American, I don’t miss the annual trips to France or near-native fluency in the language of high fashion and gourmet cuisine. But I do occasionally pine for the strange gifts that crossed the Atlantic each December, making their way from my now-ex mother-in-law Monique’s hands to our Christmas tree.

The first I recall from a long line of head-scratchers was the sexy nightie — a blue and white striped satin getup that barely covered my unmentionables and came with matching tap pants slit up the sides. It was an odd choice for a tomboy such as me, and completely outside my own mom’s realm of books and casserole dishes. But I’m a good sport and made sure to send a thank-you note.

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A few years later came the giant, monogrammed bath sheet. Now, that was a useful gift; I cherish it to this day, despite the awkward flesh-wound color. What distinguished it, though, was the dark green stitching, which spelled out “Hëidi” — a mystery, considering there are no umlauts included in any translation of my name, and they’re never used over the first syllable of a diphthong in French. Forever after, I wondered how my given name sounded inside Monique’s head (and understood why she preferred the diminutive “Didi”).

But the whistling beaver was, by far, the most wonderful and inexplicable offering she made. The 2-foot-tall stuffed animal stood upright and, thanks to a battery-operated, motion-sensitive mechanism embedded in its stomach, would let out a wolf whistle whenever someone walked by it. “Beaver” not having the same double-entendre in French as in English, I can excuse the inappropriateness of that part easily enough; still, it was a bucktoothed varmint that issued cat-calls at passers-by! Clearly, my ex’s mother either under- or overestimated me in a way I could never quite grasp. On the other hand, until the noise box gave out, I never tired of people’s expressions when I explained the mysterious sound by pointing to the toy on the bookshelf, casually noting, “Don’t mind that; it’s just my stuffed beaver.” Maybe Monique had my number, after all. — Heidi Kyser

 

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Little voices raised in song

Not long ago, on a highbrow summer evening, I was in a mirror-paneled bar where serious singers were singing serious karaoke, and this man-child took the mic and butchered “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” On purpose. Because it was ironic. And July. His friends whoot-whooted and high-fived in a fine display of post-postmodern meta-appreciation, but I was deeply pissed-off.

Christmas carols are not funny, and one should not just craft-hatchet them in July when unsuspecting karaoke-mates might be ransacked with actual feelings that swiftly and uncontrollably arise from traumatic holiday memories. 

I was 6. It was a cold December evening. My older sister, 9, and her gaggle of sleepover friends, bullies one and all, wanted to go caroling. They begged my tired mother, “Please take us, please take us caroling, please please please,” and finally my mother agreed to walk around the neighborhood and let them ring doorbells and charm the neighbors with their angelic choir voices. I would tag along. They warmed up their routine as we put on coats and scarves: They’d start with “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” and move onto “Rudolph.”

At door one, a beautiful new house owned by total strangers, we gathered on the stoop — 10 bundled-up, seasonally spirited bodies. My mother rang the doorbell, and we all began to sing — how could I not join in? As the door latches unlocked, my sister and her friends — bullies, one and all — ran away. Abandoned us. They simply left us there, mid-song, a bedraggled woman and one tone-deaf child singing, “We wish you a Merry Christmas ...”

A husband and wife opened the door, and for reasons that I am still working out in therapy, we felt compelled to finish the entire song. So their whole family gathered at the door — a rather large, well-dressed family, maybe some guests? — and they curiously, quietly eyeballed us as we grasped for those good tidings lyrics:

 

Good tidings we bring, to you and your kin,

We wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Now bring us some figgy pudding

Now bring us some figgy pudding

Now bring us some figgy pudding

And bring some out here.

 

That’s the way it goes. We didn’t write the song. However, we chose not go on to Rudolph. One and done. Thank you. Good night.

“Merry Christmas to you, too,” the awkward sweater-vested man said, and he gently closed the door. Years later, I learned that the Schwartzes were Jewish. And it was Hannukah. — Stacy J. Willis

 

Knee-high gifts

There are really only two rituals my family enjoys around the holidays. There’s the careful, ordered sequence of Christmas gift-giving (you can’t open your next gift until everyone has had a turn). And there’s the Christmas movie.

But a third ritual is starting to gain traction. The premeal prayer. It has only become a ritual, I think, in the past couple of years. Maybe it’s a tiny way that makes this strange desert city feel more like home for myself, my parents and cousins.

We deploy the prayer at holiday meals, but also birthdays and other important milestones. For years, it was the basic kind. You know: “Bless us, O Lord, and these your gifts, which we are about to receive from your bounty. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Usually Dad said it. He would say “these thy gifts,” and I had no idea what he was saying. I used to think, until very (very) recently that the words were “knee-high gifts,” which makes no sense. Even when I said the prayer myself, I just sort of mumbled my way through that part: “Bless us, O Lord … blah blah gifts… and nourish our bodies … Christ …um … ah … Amen.”

But the prayers are growing more ambitious. The champ in our family is my cousin China. She delivers novelistic sermons that hit on the specific spiritual blessings of every individual around the table, family members not present, everyone in Las Vegas, and, sometimes, I think, for good measure, the rest of the planet. They are ambitious, all-encompassing opuses, and very tough to follow.

When I’m tasked to give the prayer, I either turn in slightly disappointing, too cut-and-dry blessings or else I freeze altogether. I’m a good public speaker, but perhaps the pressure of being a writer — somebody who’s supposed to always have a way with words — causes me to tighten up. One year I hesitated so long, trying to gather myself, that China benched me on the spot and had someone else deliver the prayer. The sacraments of religion always take their pound of flesh.

Yet, what’s strange is that, except for my mom (who never seems to lead these large prayers), none of my immediate family are active churchgoers. We’re not particularly religious.

The prayers may not connect us to the Almighty, but they do connect us to each other. There’s something powerful about closing your eyes and focusing on another voice, letting it wash over you. It’s an unplugged, old-fashioned, soothing quality. True, the pause before the meal also helps the food taste better (just don’t make the pause too long), but it’s real accomplishment is to remind us of what we all know is true but sometimes forget: Family, however defined, is the only thing in life that ends up mattering. — T.R. Witcher