A perfect Christmas, a man among women

The Column: 12.28.22

I got an orange, a book, four bags of jelly beans, and 12 pairs of bright red socks for Christmas, which warmed the cockles of my heart, plus which I was a lone male with three fine women companions so I didn’t need to say a word, just an occasional murmur to indicate I was paying attention. Had there been another male present, I would’ve had to talk learned talk about the economy or other topics about which I’m ignorant, which I did enough of in college and now it feels good to put a lid on it and listen to the music of contrapuntal contralto conversation.

We have no need for big gifts, being in the deaccessioning stage of life when we sit down at our big round clunky table and wonder how to divest ourselves of the thing, which was imposed on us by an interior decorator whose enthusiasm for massive ugly expensive furniture ground us into submission, we Midwesterners unable to self-advocate, so we feel we’re living in his apartment, not our own. If anyone wants the table, we’ll pay you to take it away. (It’s big so bring a chainsaw.)

Peeling my orange on Christmas morning was an enormous pleasure. It took me back to my childhood living room, the big tree lit up, it’s 5 a.m. and my brother and sister and I are emptying our stockings, our parents still asleep upstairs. Dad thought Christmas was ridiculous and also contrary to Scripture, Mother loved it dearly, and sometimes they came to a clash over it, which ended when she burst into tears and he put his arms around her. Strong feeling won out over correct theology — this made a big impression on me as a kid. As E.E. Cummings wrote, “Since feeling is first, who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you.” Our Christmas depended on the fact that Dad couldn’t bear to see Mother cry.

She came from a family of thirteen and when she was seven years old, her mother, Marian, died of a blood infection, and I imagine this contributed to Mother’s love of the festival of light and gaiety amid the dark realities of life. Every year she strove to make it absolutely perfect, the tree, the gifts, the stockings, the dinner. I feel tired just remembering how hard she worked.

My beloved made meatballs with mashed potatoes and gravy, cucumber salad, and lingonberries, in memory of her elegant Swedish grandmother Hilda, and she told us about the pleasure of visiting Grandma in Minneapolis and watching her unbraid her long hair and brush it at night, sitting in her white nightgown, and the little girl crawling into Grandma’s bed for the night. Grandma’s sister Jenny — for whom my Jenny was named — came to visit, and they spoke softly to each other but when they argued, they did it in Swedish. They were immigrants and their vocabulary of contentiousness was in their first language, not the second.

In the kitchen the women talked about grandmothers and Christmases past and memories of European travel, particularly Prague, and I was okay as a silent listener. I’m an old radio guy, and it’s a luxury to let other people do the work.

We’re still in pandemic mode and sitting at the big round table I wonder if the dinner party will ever return to our lives. I used to enjoy being the host and once cooked a Christmas dinner for ten, an enormous goose plus lamb for the goose-averse, presiding over the hubbub, glasses raised, a plenitude of food and everyone talking at once.

So I sit by our tree and put on a pair of red socks and eat a handful of jelly beans and I dream up a guest list for an imaginary Christmas dinner, writers I knew, Jim and Betty Powers, Bill Holm, Molly Ivins, Jim Harrison, Ada Louise Huxtable, Carol Bly and her husband Robert, John Updike, all of them gone, some of them with sharp edges, and I make goose, potatoes heavy with cream, mince pie. And I bring out a 1927 port wine and we taste the rich harmoniousness of life. Great minds in a state of contentment. We are walking through the valley of the shadow of death and we fear no evil. It’s bitterly cold but the cold draws us close together. My knees hurt from the 24th when an arctic wind blew down 90th Street and I stumbled on a crack and crashed to the pavement and three seconds later a guy helped me up and put an arm around me and walked me across Amsterdam. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he said. I am quite sure.