Christmas Eve

Before I tell you about how I was turned away from a church three times the eve of Christmas eve, I would like to introduce you to my family at Christmas Eve, to give, shall we say, a striking image of the family eccentricity.

We go out on a tar and chip road to Aunt Tammy's house in the middle of ??? and beat off several dogs while we bring presents into the house. Inside is Uncle John, and his kids Jimmy and Lexi and then of course my cousins Rachel, John, and Alysha, who has a new baby to a solider who just came back from Iraq (we shared stories about Kurdish people and Falafel all night).

My cousin Rube brought his new Latvian girlfriend. They arrived just as my cousins broke me down to show them a picture of "The Mysterious Russian" I am seeing. My cousin Alysha tells me that she accidentally bought my cousins the wrong gifts (thinking they were still 5 and 7, when they were 12 and 10) saying she "Lives in the Past." Later, I argued with Uncle/Father Tim (the orthodox priest) about the gospels of the bible. I didn't win, but I think I just like to see him get all anxious (another family trait).

Speaking of family traits, my uncle brought boxes of photos and keepsakes from my deceased bubby. Inside, she still had kept the christmas cards we had made and sent to her, along with every clipping from when someone was in the newspaper. The pictures dated back to the 40's and had women with kankles in them. I surely hope that doesn't run in my line. The pictures were in an attempted organization scheme (like most Tomson organization efforts) and had a general chronological order, though my baby pictures were with pictures of my father at 15. I found another piece of evidence that I was Jewish--some distant relatives that looked like they were wearing skull caps and had sweaters where those tassles should be coming out, but were shoved up inside. My family thinks I am Jewish now too.

Present opening happens and I sort of stare into space at children as other people try to prevent them from dangers I should be seeing (like ice cubes???)--finally I get to talk about uncle T-Bone about the composition of salt; i bought him himalayan salt from Dean and Deluca's.

I'm asked to watch children for a while until I pass them off to my perhaps even more incompetent sister who passes them off to someone who knows that children cannot open pistachios. Meanwhile, some old man my aunt Tammy has cared for over the years sits in the corner in a sitting room that no one sits in and watches the Christmas tree as if it is going to suddenly take him back to some other time or place that was a lot friendlier to him.

I give the rest of my dad's Sam Adams Cherry Wheat six pack to my cousin Alysha and the Iraq vet, go through a lot more hugs (some tight and some pats), go through more hugs, and then go to the car and shoo off dogs. In the car, we pass up houses that flicker in sight between black and white pictures and now. Some still keep logs outside. Some look like "Home Improvement" or "Country Living" covers, most of which are out dated or from the 50s, when the area juuuuuust started to get electricity.

I pocketed a bunch of pictures that didn't belong to me (i.e. my family wasn't in them), mostly of the Hunkie men and of the women with kankles and keep them next to my bed, flattened in the "Confessions of St. Augustine," along with the pictures of my other grandmother, who is sipping on Coors and wearing pants in the 40s, when God knows women didn't wear pants--or at least good housewives. A stray away from the kankled women in Mosgrove, where electricity was just taking hold....

What a long way we've come.