Christmas Traditions at the McDonalds' House

Every year, the children fuss because the Church doesn’t decorate or sing carols until Christmas Eve.  I tell them they can get as Christmassy as they want at home the Sunday after Thanksgiving. (I used to tell them that the Advent Police check churches, but Betsey asked Kate if it was true.)  But every Sunday in Advent on the way home from church, they complain.  I kind of agree, so it doesn’t get on my nerves.  I even join in.  Ed asks me why I encourage them, and I say that it makes them appreciate the fact that the Episcopal Church allows disagreement.

 The first step is getting out the Christmas tea towels and mugs.  Then we change the message on our voicemail.  It’s just “Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the McDonalds.  Please leave a message.”  The children take turns each year.  I used to be more creative (“Now joyous Christmastide is here/The halls are decked with red and green/We hope you find a lot of Christmas cheer/And that you’ll leave message on our machine.”), but I decided that was too cutesy even for me.

We put the tree up about two weeks before Christmas.  Ed takes the kids to go out to buy it and I stay home to make cocoa and bake cookies.  The children come home all excited, sucking on the candy canes the tree place gives out, which they never finish.  We haven’t gotten The Elf on the Shelf yet, but we have The Half-Eaten Candy Canes All Over the House.  After we get the tree in the stand, Ed has a drink.  I tell the kids we can’t start decorating right away because the tree has to “settle.” 

This year, one of Betsey’s friends told her that cutting down trees was bad for the environment.  So Betsey suggested that we get an artificial tree.  Josh said, “No way, Jose.” Cilla added, “Like Hell, Emmanuel.”  Betsey said that when trees were cut down the birds and animals lost their homes and even died.  Cilla said Betsey just wanted to spoil things for everybody.  Betsey said Cilla was a selfish moron and didn’t care about animals or the planet or anyone but herself.  Cilla asked Betsey what she thought Jesus would say if he heard her talking to her sister like that.   Then things got really ugly.  Josh just listened;  I’d like to say that he was horrified, but he was amused.  Nigel took off for the cellar. Duke started joining in the shouting.  Ed was in the bathroom.

I prefer to let the kids work out their disagreements, but things were getting out of hand.  “That’s it!”  I shouted.  “We are not having any goddamn artificial tree in this house!  Ever!  Now everybody shut up!”

The girls were so shocked that they stopped yelling.  Josh remarked that all he had said was “No way, Jose.”  Betsey ran up the stairs, nearly knocking Ed over.  Cilla looked like she couldn’t decide whether to cry or not.

Ed said, “What the f . . .heck is going on?”  After Cilla and Josh had filled him in and Cilla said, “We’re going to get a real tree, right?”  Ed explained that if everybody stopped buying real trees, the tree farmers would stop planting them, which would hurt the environment, and anyway, the factories that made the artificial trees were really worse for the environment than cutting down trees. 

I told him to go talk to Betsey.  It would sound more logical coming from him.  I gave Cilla and Josh some cookies.  I thought they would run off, since they had won, but they sat very quietly in the kitchen, only asking for milk.  I think they were afraid of what I would do next.  I told them I was sorry for yelling.  “That’s okay, Mom.”  Josh patted me on the shoulder.  “Everybody makes mistakes.”

There seemed to be something wrong with this picture, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what.  Where is Dr. Phil when we need him?

In the end, everybody made up and they came back with an enormous tree.  We had to make paper chains for filler and the girls cut out stars from aluminum foil, which I’d done as child.  And, of course, it was the prettiest tree we’d ever had. 

A Reflective Discussion at Midnight

“You know,” I said to Ed last night, “If I were Rudolph, I would have told the other reindeer to bug off since they’d been so mean to me.”

“Oh, dear God!”

“Wouldn’t you?”

Ed sighed.  “I don’t know.  But it was Santa who asked him.  I would have done it for him. ”

“Of course, you’ve always been a team player.  I never played team sports.  But it would be hard to turn Santa down.  I bet the other reindeer were still nasty to him as soon as they got back to the North Pole, though.”

“Can’t you talk about this with the kids or Karen and Nikki?”

“You’d think Santa would have put a stop to it.  I guess he was too busy.  Maybe he didn’t even notice.  You can sit and watch TV when the kids are fighting in the next room.”

“Maybe he thought it was best to let them work it out for themselves.”

That is a good idea sometimes, especially when you’re too tired to do anything.

Then I thought of something else.  “What if the next Christmas Eve wasn’t foggy?  They wouldn’t need Rudolph.”

“You do know that this is just a story?”

“Oh sure.  The only real Santa’s reindeer are Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donner, and Blitzen.  But it’s fun to pretend.”

Ed laughed.  “Well, maybe what’d I’d do would be to eat a lot of beans before we took off.”

I didn’t get it at first.  Then I did.  I had to laugh.

Aunt Pooh Channels Nelly Dean (from Charlie's diary)

Kate suggested that I find out more from Aunt Pooh.  “Sometimes I get the feeling that you didn’t really know your mother.”  She had a point.  I could always talk more easily with Aunt Pooh or Aunt Judy or my grandmother.

One time, my cousin Bethany and I were discussing whether we would rather be rich and ugly or poor and beautiful.  (“How ugly?  Does that mean fat, too?  If you’re poor would you be able to get a job where you’d meet rich people?”)  Aunt Pooh happened to overhear and said, “That’s too hard.  How about rich and stupid or poor and smart?”  That was easy; poor and smart.  When I had asked my mother, she’d said, “But you’ll never be poor or ugly.”

Aunt Pooh was delighted when I asked her if Karen and Nikki and I could come over.  She loves to tell stories, even more so if they’re true.  And it gave her a chance to bake.  This time she gave us brownies, which said insisted tasted best with milk.  (“It’s imprinted in your memories.”)      

“Now, I don’t want you to be too hard on your mother, Charlie.  She loved you very much.  But she was never a hugger or a fusser.  When she was so sick, your uncle talked to her, to see if she needed emotional help, and asked her if she had any unfinished business ‘just in case’.  You know how counsellors are; they can’t resist jumping in if they think someone needs help.  Anyway, she said, no, she had insurance and she and your father weren’t in debt.  When he told her that he meant emotional business, did she needed to say anything to anybody, like you or your dad, she said, ‘If they don’t know I love them, there’s no sense in having some deathbed drama.  It would just make everyone uncomfortable.’  She might have been right there.  He didn’t tell me that, she did,” she added quickly, so we wouldn’t think Uncle Joe had been unethical.  “But you know she loved you don’t you?”

Karen and Nikki were both sitting there with their mouths open.  But they hadn’t known my mother very well.

“In those days,” Aunt Pooh continued, “they didn’t have ultrasounds like they do now.  Your mother told me she was really hoping you’d be a girl.  She said she was only going to have one child, so he or she would be spared having older siblings bossing them or younger ones getting away with stuff they couldn’t and would never have to worry whether she and their father liked the others better.”

“Classic middle child,” Karen said.

“Exactly.  And she was the only scientist in a family of artsies.  My father taught English and my mother painted.  My brother is a music teacher.  He was never into books that much; I guess that’s why he agreed to give the children those names.*  That upset my mother more than Louie’s getting pregnant with a married man.” 

“It probably made her feel excluded.”  Karen and Nikki were in their element, practicing amateur analysis.

“Why, I never thought of that, but I bet that’s true.  She didn’t like to be out of the loop.  But, of course, she didn’t interfere, although she complained to Louie and me.  ‘Those children are going to feel like outcasts in the family,’ was how she put it.  She blamed him more than Judy.  Judy and her brothers and sisters were the five J's. ”

“But didn’t Charlie’s mother read?  After all she named her after the Brontes.”

“Well, that was my idea.  She wanted to name Charlie after our mother, but her name was Alice (Alice in Wonderland, you know) and your father’s first wife’s name was Alicia.  Actually, I wanted Emily Charlotte Anne, since Emily was really the better writer, but she liked Charlotte -- the name, I mean.  She probably hadn’t even seen the movies, since we didn’t have Netflix then.” 

“What was she like?  Alicia, I mean.”

“Well, I only heard about her, but she was English, oddly enough.  From what I heard, she was rather quiet, but it’s the quiet ones you have to watch.  When they finally get mad, run.  From what I heard, though, they weren’t happy.  She hated being a faculty wife; I can’t say I blame her.  My mother always said that if she hadn’t had the outlet of her painting she would have become an alcoholic.  All the politicking and sucking up.  She said being the wife was worse than being the faculty member.

“Now, I wasn’t so sure about your father, at first, but . . . well, you know how he is, so literal, like your mother, so they were well suited.  And he loved her.  And anyway, it wasn’t my business.  And  he grew on me when I realized I’d never be able to understand him.”

Aunt Pooh brought out the albums and tried to clarify the family for Karen and Nikki.  By the time she got to the story of when Uncle Joe met the family (“He seriously thought of writing his dissertation on us.”), it was time to go home.  Aunt Pooh gave us some brownies to take with us for our kids.  “You know, I feel like Nelly in Wuthering Heights, when she was telling that story.  I wrote a paper on why Emily did it that way.  I know that this isn’t your thing, Charlie, but why don’t you all come to the Solstice Service?  It’s mostly women.  And we usually go out to get something to eat afterwards.”

Karen and Nikki’s eyes lit up.  We might just do it, but I won’t take the girls.  We had enough spiritual crises this year with Cilla’s nearly going over to Rome. 

*Most of the children in my mother's family were given names taken from literature, but Uncle Hank's children are Jessica, Jason, and Jennifer.  Uncle Hank's name is Henry James;  Aunt Judy wanted him to start calling himself H. James, but he wouldn't do it.

For more background, see "Cast of Characters". February 27, 2015. 

Remembrances of Thanksgivings Past

I’d say that Thanksgiving is about my third favorite holiday, after Halloween and Christmas.  Of course, it’s special because Cilla was born on Thanksgiving.  My water broke just as I was bringing in the pies. (My mother made sure Ed had the carpet cleaned before I came home from the hospital.)  My cousin Joanna, who is an artist, was doing the birth announcements for us and designed one with a turkey wearing a pilgrim hat carrying a bundle with a baby girl wearing a pilgrim lady’s cap.  If anyone had said anything, or even looked like they were thinking of something, I was ready to say, “Cutesy is the new trendy.”   But nobody did.

When I was a child, we always went to my mother’s parents’ house for dinner.  My other grandparents were usually on a cruise or something.  Aunt Pooh would be there with my Uncle Joe and my cousins Meghan, Joanna, Bethany, and Jim, and my Uncle Hank (Henry James) and Aunt Judy, and their three children, Jennifer, Jessica, and Jason.  Aunt Judy refused to go literary with the names, although she did try to persuade Uncle Hank to start calling himself H. James, so they could be the Five J’s. 

We kids all had fun running around, but what I liked best was sitting with the grownups and listening to them talk. Someone would always say that Thanksgiving was their favorite holiday, since it wasn’t cluttered with a lot of religious baggage.  There would usually be a debate about what we had to be thankful for, since the world was in such a state and how should we feel about having so much when so many people had so little?  Someone would say something about helping the poor, and everyone agreed that we had to do it, but really what good does charity do when the system continues to oppress everyone?

One year Jennifer, who was just in nursery school, wanted to say grace, but my grandmother saved the situation by suggesting we all go around the table and say what we were thankful for.  I said I was thankful for the Barbie doll and Barbie Dreamhouse I’d just gotten for my birthday.  Aunt Pooh looked at my mother, who said, “She wouldn’t give us any peace.  But we got her Veterinarian Barbie.”

Holidays can be delicate situations for divorced families. Janet and Ed’s father switch off between Allison and Ed.  This year, Janet and Kate are came our house, as well as my father.  There was some game on TV for the men to watch and Janet and Kate like to help in the kitchen or amuse the kids.  By dinner time, everyone had had some wine, so we all got along.  I’m thankful for that and basically for everything.

More from Charlie's Diary

I don’t know what to think.  If this were a soap opera instead of real life, I’d probably have a nervous breakdown and start having an affair or something.  Nikki says I ought to “confront” my father.  Karen thinks I ought to try to track down my sister.  But I’m really not that interested; I spent so many years repressing my curiosity and feelings about the whole thing that I don’t have the energy.

Every summer my father would fly out to see my sister for two weeks.  He would call home every couple days, but he never mentioned her.  As I grew older, I wondered if my father’s first marriage was simply an elaborate ruse designed to fool either my mother or me or both of us.  Maybe he had a girlfriend that he saw once a year.  Maybe money that supposedly went for child support was just his fun money.  My mother was easy to fool, because it never occurred to her that people would say things that weren’t true; that would defeat the whole purpose of communication.  You’d have thought this would have been great for me, but I stopped taking advantage of it because I felt too guilty; it was liking stealing cookies from a blind child's lunchbox.

This was before I knew the story of his first wife and the Trashing of the Offices.  Janet said that she’s not surprised with all that was going on in those days.  There were even parties where people would pair off with someone else’s spouse.  Not that she ever did; it creeped her out and anyway she’d never been invited to one. At the time, everyone in her crowd had young children and they were all too tired.  She supposed she should have suspected something when Doug told her he thought it would be “interesting.”  But at least he’d had the decency to wait until the kids were teenagers.

Kate, of course, was very concerned and kept asking me how I felt about things.  I said I didn’t know.   She kept eyeing the box of tissues and offering me tea.  Then she asked me if I wanted to go out and get a drink or a hot fudge sundae.  I opted for the sundae.  We didn’t talk about It, but just about stuff, like the kids, and how Janet’s cats are adjusting to the rectory, and what we were doing for Thanksgiving.  Strangely enough, I felt much better.

Karen and Nikki want me to get more information from Aunt Pooh.  I decided we could all go over to see her; she loves to tell stories and this certainly is a good one.

Charlie Starts a Diary

I can’t believe what happened!  I can’t put it on the blog, but maybe if I write it down as if I were blogging it I’ll feel better or something.

Aunt Pooh was an at-home mom who wrote in her spare time and was active in the women’s movement.  Today, she’s won awards for her writing and teaches at the community college.  My Uncle Joe is a therapist, which Ed says was lucky for my cousins, who had to grow up in a house with writers and feminists hanging around all the time and making protest signs in the living room.

Aunt Pooh gave me a nice cup of pumpkin spice tea and organic oatmeal cookies.  “Well now, I always wondered how long it would take you to notice your birthday.  I figured that if you were like your mother, you’d have spotted it years ago.  But you take after the rest of us.  Too busy with life to worry about numbers.”

“Well, I never needed to see it.  I thought I knew when I was born.  But why did everyone tell me I was a year younger?  I could have been driving or drinking or voting!”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time.  Not lying to you, but not arguing with your mother.  She was upset enough.”

“Upset about what?”

Aunt Pooh signed.  “Charlie, for someone who reads so much, you are showing a real lack of imagination . . .  Do you remember when you got married, and your mother’s dress fit perfectly except in the stomach area?”

“So we got it altered.”

“And if you look at the wedding pictures, you’ll see how big her bouquet was.”

Fortunately, I’d put my cup down or I would have dropped it.  “You mean my parents had to get married?”  I don’t know which was more shocking, that my mother had been pregnant at her wedding or that she had lied about it.  “But why . . .”

“Oh, Charlie,” Aunt Pooh shook her head.  “Your mother was so innocent.  She was so wrapped up in her science and numbers that she didn’t know what could go on with people.  She didn’t see consequences and when they turned up, she was dumbfounded.  But there’d been enough scandal already.  She didn’t want it to follow you for the rest of your life.”

“What scandal?”

“You know your father was married before and that you have a half-sister.  Didn’t you ever wonder why she never came to visit?”

“I gave up asking.  My mother always changed the subject.  And it made me too sad to think about it.”

“Well, your mother’s office was next to your father’s.  One thing led to another and his wife found out.  She stormed into the Chemistry Department, trashed his office and your mother’s and got a quickie divorce.  Very bad business decision on her part, but she agreed because your father offered to pay very generous child support and not have her arrested, which he could have done.  And then she moved; she was probably too embarrassed.”

“What did Grandma and Grandpa say?”

“There was all kinds of stuff happening at the time.  Everyone was getting divorced either for ‘personal growth’ or because they found someone else.  You know how your grandmother was, always looking for the positive.  So she threw herself into planning the wedding and then the baby shower.  Dad said that your mother could always support herself and a baby if she had to.  You know, they never understood poor Louie.”

Poor Louie!  I never thought of my mother like that.

I’ll have to think about this and talk it over with Karen and Nikki and maybe Janet and maybe Kate and maybe even Ed.

And I’ll have to think about something else to put on the blog. 

Did I miss a year?

It’s been a tradition in my family to give the children literary names.  Betsey was named for Elizabeth Bennett, David Copperfield’s aunt, Betsey Trotwood, and Jane Austen.  My mother was Louisa for Louisa May Alcott.  I have three names, Charlotte Emily Anne, after the Brontes.  Cilla was supposed to be Belinda Harriet as a salute the Barbara Pym’s heroines in Some Tame Gazelle, but she was born on Thanksgiving, so we decided to give her a Pilgrim name, and she is Priscilla Temperance.  Josh escaped, because Darcy is a girl’s name and you can’t really name your son Mister.

Betsey did not believe that I had two middle names.  “That’s weird.”  So I dug out my birth certificate.

“See, right here.    ‘Charlotte Emily Anne Somerville born November 12 . . .’”  Then I noticed something.  My birth certificate said I was born a year earlier than I was.  I guess I’d never read it. 

That was weird.

Ed joked that I had married him under false pretenses and that maybe we’d have to get married again like Rob and Laura Petri had.  Unfortunately he said it in front of the girls, who were all set to have another wedding.

Karen thought there might be some romantic story behind it and Nikki said it was probably a clerical error.  She had had to have her daughter Jennifer’s birth certificate changed because it said “Hennifer” and her nephew is Matthew David instead of David Matthew, since her sister didn’t want to go to the trouble to change it.

Nikki is probably right, but I decided to call my Aunt Pooh.  That is my mother’s sister, who was named after Ursula in Women in Love.  When she didn’t like it, my grandmother explained that Ursula meant bear, so she decided to call herself WinniethePooh, but somehow it degenerated into “Pooh.”  Aunt Pooh has four children, my cousins Meghan, Joanna, Bethany, and Jim.  When Jim realized that he had been named James so he could be called “Jamie,” he rebelled.  I think my uncle was relieved.

When I called Aunt Pooh, she said she’s been dying to have a nice visit and could I come over to her house and how would Saturday be?

I was puzzled, but I said “Of course.”

It’s always nice to see Aunt Pooh.