When Santa Attacks

"You're ruining Christmas, I just want you to know," my sister told me. I'm the Grinch again, apparently, and not for the first time. (I'll have to dig up the 1999 entry where I tell about my prior Grinchitude, and see if it's worth republishing.)

Since I first left my parents' house to attend college in 1987, every year I went back for Christmas. Christmas Eve has been at my parents' house nearly every year since I was in high school. That's my family's big celebration, Christmas Eve. Everyone spent the days beforehand in a frenzy of baking and errand-running and gift-wrapping for the big open-house party. After most of the family attends afternoon Christmas Eve Mass together (except me, the heretic), we opened all our gifts to/from each other. Shortly afterwards, family friends and relatives started arriving for a long night of eating and drinking and marvelling over how big all the grandchildren were, how awful the politics in New Orleans were, how annoying certain other relatives were acting, and so forth.

Christmas Day became secondary in recent years. My sister has been hosting a small family Christmas dinner at her house on the other side of the lake. She usually makes a killer ham; I think the glaze includes Coca-Cola. Then we'd visit various relatives on that side of the lake, drive back to my parents' house, and sit around pondering whether to nap, occasionally resorting to watching old videotapes of past family Christmas Eves.

No one in my immediate family has ever missed a Christmas Eve gathering. We were always all together, even the year my married brother and his family decided to host the Christmas Eve party at their house instead. And let's not forget the year my youngest brother had chicken pox and no one showed up to the party except for his pediatrician and her family. We ate a lot of party leftovers that week.

This year will be different, and it's all because of me and my husband.

My husband doesn't celebrate Christmas -- he's Jewish and has never been drawn into the holiday on a secular level. He traditionally likes to spend the time off quietly by himself, enjoying his lack of obligations for gift-giving and parties and holiday traditions. From the time we started dating until last year, I would travel to my parents' house in the New Orleans area alone to spend Christmas there. Last year, he went with me, and it was kind of a rotten year to introduce him to the family Christmas since I spent the whole time suffering from a nasty cold and feeling miserable. It was difficult for me to be enthusiastic about anything except decongestants. (The same thing happened at Thanksgiving this year. What, am I cursed?)

This year, my husband and I talked about what we wanted to do. And what we didn't want to do was to spend our time off driving 500-plus miles each way to observe holiday traditions that were not our own. We would rather visit relatives at another time, when the kids aren't overstimulated by tons of gifts, when family members aren't stressed and bickering and busy. We didn't want to be sucked into some of the less pleasant gift-giving dynamics that often pop up in many families at Christmas. Some years really have reminded me of the above photo: "When Santa Attacks!"

What did we want? We wanted the time and space to develop our own holiday traditions. Maybe we'll have Chinese food and a movie on Christmas Day -- or see Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle with mini-burgers on Christmas Eve (an actual event, yes). We might cook a big meal, or heat up some tamales. We usually put up the pink and sparkly holiday tree (which has been movie-themed in recent years) in early December, and we're thinking of hanging and filling each other's stockings, which is one Christmas tradition I've always liked. We also like going downtown on New Year's Eve. And of course, Holidailies is our big continuing December tradition.

My mom took the news quite well over the phone, and didn't say much about it. My youngest brother will be sorry not to see us, because he likes having someone to talk about movies with at Christmas. (Another time, I will tell you my favorite memory from last Christmas, which involves my little brother.) My sister is upset and as noted above, is accusing me of ruining Christmas. We're now talking about how perhaps my siblings and I won't exchange gifts with one another -- we're getting a bit old for that level of gift-giving. Personally, I refuse to get stressed out about gifts this year, and plan to scale down the gift-giving no matter what is decided. We're working on plans to visit the New Orleans-area relatives in mid-January instead, but I'll probably mail any gifts I decide to give.

What we really want is a holiday that we enjoy, one that doesn't turn into a gift-giving competition or a stressfest or a duty to others. We do not want to flee in fear from a demanding killer Santa. I know there are aspects of Christmas at my parents' house that I will miss -- it almost makes me wish we lived closer to my relatives, so we could do the Christmas Eve party with them and then spend the rest of the holiday on our own terms. But until someone invents a transporter, that's not possible. So no matter what happens in upcoming years, this year we are discovering our own holiday. I'm looking forward to it, and hope to share stories about some of the things we end up doing together.

Posted at December 2, 2007 03:49 PM