Archive: December 2006

This time of year prompts summaries of the milestones and memories from the past twelve months. But I am leaving all of that to news anchors and snarky commentators because I am so excited about our plans for tonight!

A whole gang of friends is coming over for New Year’s Eve and the occasion is especially exciting because we hardly ever get hang out all together. We all worked at a camp in the Pocono Mountains within the past five years where we forged amazing friendships. Nowadays, we’re scattered all over the place so it’s hard to make schedules coincide and we grab any chance we can, even to help each other move. Tonight is just one of those chances and I am looking forward to it so much.

Because I need to continue the trend of stuffing my face during my time off, there will be a ton of food. Thanks to JG, the fridge is full of dips (taco, spinach and artichoke, and seven-layer) ready to be baked and the new chocolate fountain is ready for its debut with marshmallows, pretzels, and graham crackers playing supporting roles. Towers of Tupperware are packed with jumbo chocolate chip cookies, sour cream cookies, brownies, and a batch of surprise birthday cupcakes for one of our friends. Everyone is staying the night to watch the Penn State bowl game tomorrow and I’ve prepped two crock pots full of yummy chili. It’ll stew slowly after we crash for the night, making the house smell amazing, so that we can devour it over baked potatoes during halftime. I love any excuse to make chili! I mean, I love seeing my friends and making chili for them…

We’ll play games (including The Best Game Ever, hopefully), catch up on our lives, watch the ball drop, and then cheer on Penn State to a victory against Tennessee. It will be a blast and I can’t wait.

May your celebration be as bright! See you in 2007!

Sure, we took the normal Christmas photos of the dinner table all laid out, the whole family in front of the tree and various “ooh, look what I got!” poses during present-opening. I don’t know about you, but there are times when I wish I could create a print of whatever was going on. Sometimes it’s a camera in my eye; I would say, “click”, in my head and the resulting photo would be as sharp and spontaneous as it appeared to me regardless of things like lighting or talent. At other times, it would be some third-person photographer who just happened to be around to capture, say, JG and me bustling around to make Christmas dinner. Unfortunately, these are all figments of my imagination and the following great moments do not exist on film or in digital form, but it would be so great if they did.

• The spread of appetizers provided by my non-cooking sister that included seven-layer dip and crabcakes. We were all duly impressed.
• Me falling on the kitchen floor, gasping with silent laughter, thankfully out of sight, while my dad parsed out the details of the new Bond flick with my exasperated sister:
  Dad: You know how the girl told James Bond that the tuxedo was “custom”? What does that mean? How did she get his measurements?
  Sister: I don’t know, Dad, it’s just part of the movie.
  Dad: What is she, a psychologist?
  Sister: …
• JG’s face when he thought we had received a third slow cooker.
• JG’s face when it turned out to be a chocolate fountain!
• My sister in each of her three outfits for Christmas Day. No exaggeration.
• The amoebic pancakes – due to a strangely runny batter – that graced our Brunch Extravaganza. We also had eggs, sausage, fruit, coffee, juice, and an enormous coffeecake that I had to ration out to the rest of the family just so it would be eaten.
• The hundreds of poinsettias we saw in the conservatory while taking in the holiday display at Longwood Gardens. Also, the gorgeous all-white tree in the topiary garden.
• My dad scraping out the last bits of JG’s jambalaya out of a giant bowl. It was that good.
• My mom throwing her hands up and whooping with delight that she beat all of us in Apples to Apples.
• Me during Catch Phrase, with an intense, incredulous expression, while describing incomplete pass to my sister and mom: “This is when, in football, the quarterback’s throw is not caught by the receiver. … It’s not caught! What is that called?! Okay, what’s the throw called? Pass, yes! So, when it is not caught… it’s unfinished! Not done yet!” If they hadn’t figured it out after all that, I would have had to bust some heads.
• My dad’s look of ecstasy when JG demonstrated the glory that is surround sound and my mom’s shifty, worried expression when she entered the living room and asked, “What’s all this ruckus?”
• “The most awkward hug ever” as described by JG after he misinterpreted my grandmother’s indication to shake hands and went in for the embrace.
• A quiet, clicking scene that should have qualified us for Electronics Anonymous: immediately after waving off my parents and grandmother, JG turned on the football game, I checked e-mail, and my sister and her boyfriend tapped intently on their Blackberrys. I am not sure that we could have stopped any time we wanted to.

We did it! We successfully hosted Christmas! My parents and grandmother left after breakfast, I just waved off my sister, and JG and I finally had the house to ourselves. Of course, the first thing we did was fire up the computer and check e-mail.

We surveyed the wreckage and, thankfully, it’s not that bad. We have a big plastic container of leftover London broil (we’ll have cheese steaks and fried rice aplenty), a pile of presents, and linens waiting to be washed. All in all, it was a good experience to host a family event and I would much rather do this than travel all over the place, but it is tiring. It’s a relief not to have to ask people if they need a drink or if they’re too warm or cool. I’ll be glad to wash all of the towels and replenish our dangerously-low supply. Running (and emptying) the dishwasher twice a day was not so fun, but it certainly helped our sanity level during the past few days.

Despite my tired feet and tendency toward yawning, it was a great Christmas. There was something about opening up the house, telling stories about the ornaments, and sharing baked goods that triggered a dormant hostess hormone in me. JG and I buzzed around the house, whipping up dinners, setting out cookies, distributing towels, and placing gifts under the tree. We worked well together and chuckled softly when my family made funny-without-knowing-it comments. I’m glad that we both emerged relatively unscathed from the holiday, not dreading the thought of seeing my family again but still enjoying the quiet respite of an empty house.

For now, I plan on lapsing into a nap while the laundry cycles through. We confirmed earlier in the day that JG’s mom and siblings are arriving tomorrow morning to visit us for a short while, so we’ve got to re-make up those beds tonight. I might be kicking myself for committing to so much later on, but for now, it’s just right.

When I was a senior in high school, I auditioned for and got a solo in the annual Christmas show presented by the chorus. I sang “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer” and did a tap dance number with Rudolph, or as much as a tap number as can be faked in sneakers or a reindeer suit. That year, one of my best friends, Kip, played Rudolph and we had so much fun with the song. He and I had always been in the same classes since fourth grade and even though we were polarized in terms of interests and temperament, we spoke the same language. I reminded him of when our assignments were due and he got me to loosen up, but most of all, we made each other laugh. Being friends since the fourth grade gave us plenty of fun times and being Rudolph & Girl was another one for the books. Somewhere, there’s a picture of the two of us from that performance, and I really wish I had a copy.

Kip’s birthday fell on Christmas Eve and one of our rituals was that he would tease me about how I’d never given him a gift for his birthday or Christmas. He knew that on the day before we got out of school for winter break, I’d hand him a candy cane taped to a Christmas card and say with a healthy dose of attitude, “Happy Birthday. Merry Christmas. Happy, now?” Kip would punch me, I would roll my eyes, and everything was how it should have been.

Just a few days after my twentieth birthday, I got a phone call at college with news that Kip had committed suicide. I boarded a train to go back home, where I wept silently during the funeral, and his parents cried when they hugged me. All I could think of was that however badly I was feeling, it must be so much worse for them. I ached with the knowledge that they were trying to comfort me. The anniversary of that week is still raw for me.

This morning, after reading a particularly poignant blog post, I sighed to myself, eyebrows furrowed. In response to my husband’s questioning eyes, I said slowly, “Yesterday was the first Christmas Eve that I didn’t remember that it was Kip’s birthday. In maybe fifteen years. And that makes me a little sad.” I hope I’m not on the path to forgetting, that the anniversary will go by and it’ll be just a regular day. I’m grasping at the memory, kicking myself for not remembering last night and having a quiet moment to reflect on it.

But the memory stings today when it’s clear that not all of the tears are spent.