Tuesday, 1/4/05 - 22:38
Besides Christmas trees, the thing I like best about Christmas is the days that come just afterwards. Hanging around the house playing endless rounds of board games (ahem, Puerto Rico), watching movies, knitting and barely leaving our apartment for days at a time. It feels especially homey when the inside is filled with warm red and orange and there’s rain outside and mudslides on the mountains. Days of wondering whether I'm sick of carols yet and evenings cuddling with Ted in front of the Christmas tree after everyone goes back to Pacifica Suites. There’s leftover pecan pie, and cup after cup of chai, and money cake for breakfast. There was a $1 or $5 bill in approximately every other slice, but the cake kept jilting Dad, and over the weekend he kept eating more until he finally found his money -– that's just not like him, which makes it adorable.
And I can't believe our apartment is this cozy. I can't believe I have such a big family. I get a kick out of watching myself flounder over pronouns: "Our mom said that mom and dad..." All three of our parents and all three of our siblings came out here for Christmas this year. That's partly because Mom and Dad knew they'd have a depressing Christmas if it was just them at home with Chris, and partly because I wanted the chance to put up our own tree this year.
How did we find ourselves at the point where we can cook dinner for 8 or 12 without worrying about it? I guess it must’ve happened sometime this year, since making food for a group used to strike me as tough and scary. But here we are, the primary chefs of both Thanksgiving and Christmas. The reason it works so well is clearly that we’ve utilized the fruits of civilization and instituted a division of labor. Ted does meat, wine, odds, and ends. I do most of the starches and vegetables. Dad does the salad, and Mom B does desserts, unless she's in Detroit. Mom S fills in gaps like getting groceries and appetizers for Thanksgivng, and she and our siblings help clean up. The only stressful part was when we realized that it had taken until 2:00 to finish opening presents and then found that the oven was overbooked, but Mom B whipped up two pecan pies, including the crusts, in under an hour and it was all good. Also, this is the best time of year to cook while wearing a circlet of silver ribbon with tinsel snowflakes.
The week after Christmas I lost all sense of time and forgot we had any other lives outside the living room. I think I wasn’t the only one who felt weightless. As said my sister, the depressed one, I can't believe I've been this happy for so many days in a row. Normally there's tension between various parents and siblings, but almost all of it vanished -- I guess there’s nothing in our living room to trigger it. I don't think I'm just being oblivious and naive here. I think that our family is flexible and good at relaxing. Further illustration: In 2003 we had a wonderful Christmas a couple days late and maybe half of our presents consisted of (still largely unconsummated) IOUs. This year what made sense was to have a ginormous pile of presents, and that was equally wonderful. Both my sister and brother have their own apartments now, so they need a lot of stuff. We collectively had more time to shop, and Ted and I haven’t exchanged gifts since last Christmas, so that’s probably also part of why it seemed like a good idea to do it now.
Here’s my moment of primal Christmas morning glee: Ted and I each hung two stockings in front of our television / postmodern hearth (if we ever have kids and no fireplace, we’re telling them that you have to leave it on all night because that’s how Santa gets into the living room). That's two sets of stockings because after all, we have two sets of parents. But then after Mom-sub-B came over in the morning, all four stockings were filled, filled with chocolate and fun! And sitting outside my stockings was a huge pile of coconut Rittersport, which is the best coconut chocolate bar ever. I had a hard time getting it even in Berlin and have never found around here, which doesn’t make any sense at all given how good they are. And then Mom-sub-S came over and we had to empty our stockings and then she filled them with even more fun! I must be the luckiest kid ever.
I wrote this journal entry the morning after they flew off, trying to recapture how carefree and confident I was feeling after Christmas, and I’m posting it now because I think it might be good for me to remember and read about it later. Back to worrying, my state of heart's disintegrating. The immediate cause was that I spent all morning after they left reading about the tsunami. Sent money to the Red Cross, but my god, the disaster is so immense. Then there's my nagging pessimism about my MA thesis, which often seems to refuse to get any closer to being done or even to being good, no matter how much I work on it. It’s so heartbreakingly unlike coconut Ritter Sport.
New Years? It wasn't Chicago, but Andrew came visiting and we played Katamari Damacy and more Puerto Rico. We went to our local wine country during the day and then toasted the New Year with Ted’s officemate, Reinard. Andrew would have been a party even without Reinard and all the lesbians. I had a good deal of fun given that I hardly knew anyone.
Yesterday was the first day of school and I was planning to spend yesterday evening working, but then we got a call from Michigan Tantra, so we picked him up from the airport, had sushi, and sent him to bed. Then we picked up Renaissancegame and went to science fiction club. And even my MA looks better than it did last time I looked at it. Time to go get something done, before I turn into a pumpkin, sugar bowl, or zombie.
Long live Diaryland!
The five most recent entries:
More Naval Gazing - Saturday, 8/13/05
Anniversary Diving - Friday, 8/12/05
Academic Tip of the Week - Tuesday, May. 17, 2005
How to tell a Midwesterner - Sunday, 4/24/05
Academic Feelings - Thursday, 4/21/05
Ted's most recent entry:
Monday, May 12