The Friggin' Joy of the Season

Something happens right around the 22nd or 23rd of December. My papers are all graded, the final grades have been entered, and a feeling I can only describe as "Ahhhh..." washes over me. I have taken to wearing my glasses and sweatpants all day. I don't shower until 10 or 11 in the morning. Craft projects and housework magically get done. And then I realize that The Traditional Family Christmas is coming.

I positively adore family traditions. They involve going to my Grandma Dorothy's for Christmas Eve dinner, sleeping at my folks' house and getting up early to open presents with the immediate family, and then cleaning up for my mom's side of the family, who are coming over for Christmas Day lunch.

Then, every single damn year, I remember another part of the tradition that makes my Christmases so flavorful and zippy. The dysfunction, as well as the bizarre, secret family traditions, secrets I am willing to divulge right now just for the sheer fun of it.

First of all, no one ever knows when, exactly, dinner is going to be at Grandma Dorothy's. We decide on a time, but inevitably, someone forgets, or someone starts bitching and sniping because they don't like it for whatever reason. Blood pressures rise. Veins in foreheads pop. We rant and rave among ourselves, not like the stoic Scandinavians we're supposed to be, but hot-blooded Italians.

Somehow, we all end up at Grandma Dorothy's, more or less at the same time, and once the pigs in blanket-induced stupor hits us, we do the gift exchange. It's one of those random ones, where you get generics and sometimes I walk away with a pair of men's gloves or sometimes, like last year, with an ass-kicking KitchenAid paring knife. One of the gifts, however, is a little something called the Rock of Inconsistency. This tradition started probably five or six years ago by my cousin Corey. He thought it would be a good idea if there was a really random prize that moved from house to house, year after year. My uncle David volunteered a certain rock with some holes in it, created when he tested some of his hydraulic tools on it. The thing's at least twenty pounds, and each year, the person who has it adds something new. For example, one year I glued a psychadelic-looking snail made out of polymer clay onto it. The next year, my aunt glued a syringe coming out of its shell. I am still wrapping my mind around that one, but that's the thing, see: it's inconsistent, so random is the order of the night.

Things actually proceed fairly smoothly after that. Christmas morning, I can always expect that my sock will be jammed full of goodies, and my brother will inevitably give me a stupidly hilarious gift from our past, such as a DVD version of "Clash of the Titans" or a photo album filled with all my horrifying haircuts as a child (yes, I have had both a 'fro and a mullet). I would, for the record, like to point out that he, too, had a mullet at one point in his childhood.

One aspect of Christmas Day that cannot be ignored is the family tradition of game playing. My mother's side of the family is competitive, sometimes to a terrifying extent. The same year we came up with the tradition of the Rock of Inconsistency, we also came up with the Spanking Stick. See, no Christmas is complete without a little violence, and my uncle Tracy, who always talks about how he's going to "spank us" in a rousing game of Backgammon or Taboo, decided to put the money where his ass is and came up with the Spanking Stick. It's actually a wooden oar of the cheesy craft store variety, about 2 1/2 feet long, that my sister-in-law Dawn painted green with a big blue hand on it that reads, "You Got Spanked!" The person who loses the year before gets spanked by the year before that's loser (it's complicated), which means that this year, I get to spank my cousin Jim. You cannot possibly imagine how awkward that is, but it's all in good fun, and afterwards we pull out the pecan pie and mint brownies and get our sugar high on.

So, as you can see, I am not just going to enjoy a Christmas with my loving family. I am embarking on, as Clark W. Griswold says in National Lampoon's Vacation, "a quest for fun." It's sometimes uncomfortable, it's always delicious, and it's sometimes even painful, but it's my tradition, dammit, and I'll be there... with sweats and glasses on.

There's only one reason why I'd do this...

...and that's because I don't feel like grading! Yipee!

I found this on my friend Amy's blog (http://amydusek.blogspot.com), and yes, I had to do it myself.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
I'm literally drinking hot chocolate right now. Wierd.

2. Does "Santa" wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
First, yes, Santa still comes. He always just lays them out like a gluttoneous mass of Christmas goodness. I love it.

3. Colored lights on tree/house or white?
I'd have to say white lights.

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
I don't allow men in my house.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
I don't. Buzzkill, eh?

6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Pigs in a blanket. It's a Christmas Eve tradition at my grandma's.

7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child:
All those times I wasn't able to sleep, being so excited about Christmas day. I honestly didn't get over that until college. I sleep better now, but I still get really excited.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
What's the truth about Santa?

9. Do you open presents on Christmas eve?
Heck, no! You gotta have the anticipation for Christmas day.

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
I don't have one (I know, buzzkill again).

11. Snow - love it or hate it?
I *like* it. Not a fan of shoveling it, love looking at it.

12. Can you ice skate?
Yes, but very poorly, and since I hate falling, it's not on my list of favorite things in the world.

13. Do you remember your favorite gift?
Oh, man. There was one year when I was in high school and I got BOTH a papasan chair and an acoustic guitar. BAM! That was sweet. I was also thrilled to receive the My Little Pony Castle as a kid.

14. What's the most exciting thing about the Holidays for you?
No school and participating in the family traditions, including, but not limited to, the aforementioned pigs-in-blankets, the Rock of Inconsistency, Christmas morning present frenzy, the very stuffed stocking, the "You got spanked!" stick from our family board games, and the Angelica.

15. What is your favorite Christmas Song?
"Feliz Navidad" by Jose Feliciano. Oh yeah.

Okay. Now to those papers...

An Ode to Paul

When I went to college, I was in the Honors Program, and when I decided to live in the dorms, I ended up on the Honors Floor of one of the dorms. There were two Honors Floors, actually. The girls were on 8, the dudes on 7. There weren't enough Honors guys to fill 7, though, so they put some regular guys down there. One of those guys was Paul.

Paul is from the southern part of the state, and he actually went to high school with one of the other Honors guys, James. He's got dark blonde hair and these big doe eyes: brown and soft, framed with long, curled eyelashes. (Note: I was never attracted to Paul. I am merely giving the facts.) Paul's claim to fame as a freshman was blaring ABBA's "Take a Chance On Me" from his surprisingly loud stereo (I think it was the hallway acoustics that allowed the song to permeate the walls up to the 8th floor, where we'd hear it like a siren song and come running). Not only would he play the song, but he would gallop down the hallway in time to the beat of the music, slapping his ass with one hand and holding onto the "air reigns" with the other. Paul was (and is) an amazing singer (especially of the Neal Diamond favorites) and played a mean game of baseball, too, but I'm afraid that ABBA and self-ass-slapping was his legacy.

Paul lives in Rochester (a.k.a. The Crotch) now. (Sorry; the only good parts about Rochester are Paul, the Savers store, and their corn-on-the-cob water tower.) I don't see him very often, but when I do, we manage to bond again within thirty seconds. The last time I was down there, I stayed at his place. He's got a big leather couch, a big TV, lots of sports memorabilia on the walls and no real groceries to speak of, but when I went to the spare room to climb into the bed, he made sure there were lots of blankets and pillows. We went out to eat and he paid. He brought me to Savers and didn't mind that I spent an hour there. That's the kind of guy Paul is. He's a brother.

The Past in 3-D

As most of you probably know, I moved back to my hometown a year and a half ago. The Big Lake called and I answered. I'm thrilled to be here, and I can say without any exaggeration that I positively ADORE living here. Nothing makes me happier than being in this place, right now.

One thing that skeeves me out, however, is seeing ghosts from my past. I went to the same school my entire life, and when I see people from high school who I haven't seen since playing basketball in the gym with them during our post-graduation senior lock-in, something strange happens. I get freaked out. I pretend to not see them, though I can't help but look and, dare I say, scrutinize. Some people who I have seen, such as Chris H., have been incredibly friendly and quite the pleasure to briefly catch up with. I see others, however, and I am stunned to realize that I am feeling tension that is ten years old, hostility wrought by a shared history that amounts to very little. How do I see a guy who I first met in preschool and today all I can think of is what an asshole jock he was? I certainly wouldn't want my high school classmates to see me today and judge me based on my overdramatics as an 18-year-old amped up on hormones.

It's tough to get past. Amidst all the stupidity, I see friends I am thrilled to reaquaint with; I'll be getting together with one of my best, long-lost high school friends tomorrow. She has a husband and a baby, and I'm quite curious to hear about how she was able to solve that life secret that has easily eluded me these years.

I'm sure that, as we're meeting over hot coffee and smiling at her baby, the subject of our ten year class reunion will come up. She'll want to know if I'm planning on going, and despite all of my strange misgivings, I know I'll say yes.