Wistful (kinda) rhymes with Mistletoe

by Sophie





Holidays




If you ever doubted that holidays are all about traditions, go get yourself a couple of teenagers. Their awkward loping famished selves will confound you with their refusal to conform to any standard, expectation, or societal norm 360 days of the year, but just try changing one tiny little detail of your family holiday practices and prepare to be run over in a raging whirlwind of adolescent angst.

Put a plaid bow over the fireplace instead of the red velvet...try a new stuffing recipe for Thanksgiving...serve a frittata for Christmas breakfast instead of cinnamon rolls. Go ahead, try it - and then stick your fingers in your ears to protect them when your little sugars scream -

"BUT THAT'S NOT THE WAY WE ALWAYS DO IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Well, I've learned that lesson. Yes ma'am, I dutifully drag all the boxes down from the attic and follow the holiday blueprint from years past, and it's all worth it too, for that sparkly little moment when the kids wander into the living room on Christmas morning and for a moment - if you squint - you can see them standing there in their footy pajamas, dragging their teddy bears along the floor.

Traditions glue one year to the next, and ease the passing of time and the relationship of all our past selves with the present and future ones. But inevitably there comes a day when it's time for change. Everything changes - we don't doubt it, but for some of us the transition is more demanding, more raw, more shattering than for others. I don't do change well...but even I can see, looking through the wrong end of the telescope, the one that makes close-up things look very far away, that change can be good.

Do you remember when you were a young adult, spending your first holiday away from home? Maybe you were with friends or a lover, in a strange town. Maybe you couldn't afford much. Maybe you were a little more homesick than you cared to admit, but I bet there was a moment when you realized hey - I can do this. Even without the gold star your dad always put on the top of the tree - the Willie Nelson Christmas cassette - the cookies your mom made with the rolling pin from Poland - - even without any of that, it was still Christmas, and it was still magic.


I remember standing a little forlornly in my first high-rise apartment watching my fiance rig up our tree and thinking of everything I missed, when he said "Well, we'll just start our own traditions." He came home the next day with a $14.99 ceramic nativity set from Ben Franklin and we set it up on the coffee table. I thought it was funny. It was badly painted and tacky and I figured I'd start collecting a real set - you know, the Wedgwood set you buy piece by piece over two decades - as soon as we had a little money.


But that never quite happened. We moved around, we grew up, we had kids. Every year I got that box out, with its cast-styrofoam bed that the pieces molded right into, and set up the nativity with a three-dollar bag of raffia "hay" from Michaels. Every year I put it away in January, shaking my head and thinking how I really had to find something nicer for next year.

But then suddenly twenty years went by, and that ugly set had pride of place every December. It was as much a part of the holiday as the stockings I sewed myself or the handprint plaster preschool ornaments. I am certain that my kids would be horrified if I ever suggested replacing the awkward misfired plaster wise men and camels and baby Jesus with stately bone china.

Until they find themselves out on their own one day. It won't be so many years now. The thought makes me terribly sad in a way; I can't imagine Christmas without them. But I'm excited for them too. They'll miss that ugly old nativity, but they have their own discoveries to make.