It’s been
another holiday season, and another Christmas full of tradition, joy, stress,
and the all-important morning of squeals and hopping from my daughters. I tried to take it all in this year, pausing
and closing my eyes, breathing in the smells and committing as much as I could
to memory. I’m sure I failed, because no
matter what we try to tell ourselves in the moments of our lives, they are
fleeting, and they burst forth so rapidly, we can’t help but forget some of
them down the road.
When I was a
child, Christmas was dominated by car rides.
We would pack up on Christmas Eve in the early afternoon, and head to
Passaic, where my NonNon, my Pop-Pop’s mother, lived on the second floor of a
three story walk up. NonNon created everything from scratch, and I have no idea
what time she had to rise, pull on her stockings and set her hair, so that the
food would be done in time for supper.
When we
arrived, lugging gifts and wearing way too much outerwear, the windows would be
fogged up from the cooking, the kind that only happens in the tiny kitchens
belonging to little old Italian women, in dented silver pots bubbling over
slow, steady flames. The dozen or so adults
would cram around the dining room table, with no room to move, and the seven children
(myself included) ran up and down the linoleum hallway, between the bedroom housing
the tiny television with rabbit ears, and the sewing room with fruit made out
of pins stuck through glass beads. The
floor had a brown and yellow diamond pattern to it, and the bathroom was classic
pink and white checked, with a pink toilet, sink, and tub. NonNon would create a traditional seven fish dinner,
starting off with tuna in the antipasto (which she pronounced “anti-past”),
then spaghetti and clam sauce, and circling all the way through fried calamari
and muscles. We were so stuffed, movement became difficult, and more than once
I found myself falling asleep in the back room, on a comforter that smelled
like Dove soap.
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| The Cousins' Party |
The party
has evolved through the years, and is now in rotation between Mom’s place, or
cousins Beth, Diane, or Janice’s. Traditions still abound, the most glaring
being the passing of the scarfette. This
is a small, burgundy, blue, and green striped mini scarf that was picked up in
the early 80’s by Grandma, Aunt Millie, and Aunt Glore when they visited the
motherland. Apparently, it was supposed
to be some trendy fashionista item over in Europe, and they decided their
daughters absolutely had to have them.
On Christmas, each proudly handed over a box, and the three recipients
opened their gifts with much confusion, before doubling over in laughter. The
next year, one of the scarves was re-gifted, and has made the rounds ever
since.
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| The Scarfette |
The final
stop on Christmas Eve was my grandparent’s house. They had a big blue Victorian on Albion
Street, back in Passaic, with a double door entry that was air tight and always
made my ears pop. My parents usually carried their sleepy children into the
house, and Nicole and I would wake up only for the sake of opening presents and
performing a “show.” We, along with our
cousins Jennie and Katie, ran up the staircase, past the three naked nymphs
holding a torch (the oddest lamp I’ve ever seen) to the guest room, where a
large oval mirror with ornate golden frame was the perfect place to practice
dance steps or play acting. After our performance, the adults conversed in the
living room, on brown antique couches that were once my great-grandmother’s,
and ate cannolis Grandma Bea made from scratch, while we lay on the couch in
the room next to the kitchen, wrapped in a hand-knitted purple and blue throw
watching Rudolph on the big fat old TV.
Nicole and
I spent the ride home struggling to stay awake, calling out “Christmas”
whenever we saw a house with lights outside on our side of the car. Occasionally, we would shout “Big Christmas!”
for a particularly large or impressive display.
Arriving home, we would drag ourselves up the stairs. As we grew older, we hatched numerous schemes
to catch Santa. In a fit of inspiration when I was around 10-ish, we hatched a plan that involved using my canopy bed to our
advantage- one person slept in the bed, while the other read on the floor to
stay awake. We strung a Dixie Cup with
some water from the canopy, and when the reader got tired, she pulled the
string, and tipped the water onto the sleeping sister, thus waking her up, and
duties were switched. At some point,
though, we both fell asleep, and I woke with newsprint on my face.
In the
morning, we would jump on our parents, shouting, “Ribbitt!” and pretending to
be frogs. Dad would go down to start the
coffee, and mom would make us go back up for robes and slippers. Then we would all descend the stairs, and
tear into our presents.
At around
11, the Caldwell Brunch would commence with the arrival of my Dad’s
family. The brunch has been going on
since long before I was born, and for the last 30+ years, it has been a
gathering at Mom’s. When I was younger,
there were scrambled eggs, bagels with cream cheese, copious amounts of bacon,
and even more copious amounts of Bloody Marys.
We sat around, my family along with Granny, cousins Dan and Mike and
Aunt Cath, and the witty repartee was epic.
One year, I turned on a video camera, and caught us circling the room,
the topics of discussion varying from Empire Strikes Back to Scooby Doo to bird
watching. Dad received a Han Solo mug
that now sits in a place of honor on the same shelf as all the family-written
books, and Granny entertained us by sporting her new birdfeeder as a hat. Phone calls were placed to Uncle Steve at
Better Farm, and to Aunt Joanna and Uncle Bob down in San Antonio. Dad’s cousins Bill, Ax, and Toni arrived,
along with Ax’s husband Tom, and Toni’s husband Dan and their kids Andy and
Michael. The house was full, the
laughter was infectious, and the tree sparkled over all of us while we vied for
seating on the antique furniture.
Over the
years, the dates of the holidays have shifted, as have the players. When I was seventeen, I began spending at
least part of the holidays with my then-boyfriend-now-husband’s family, who
embraced me immediately. We only missed
one year together in college (as high school couples tend to break up for at
least part of their college careers), and so I’ve been shuffling between a
number of parties and towns for the better part of two decades. After children, though, that hustle becomes
quite a bit more difficult, so we’ve pared down the festivities so we only need
to see one family per day.
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| Franklin Lakes Nature Preserve |
This year,
the Cousin’s Party occurred early, since cooler heads prevailed several years
ago to avoid coinciding withChristmas Eve. As a result, I spend the day before
Christmas exclusively with my husband’s family. We exchanged gifts at Mom-In-Law
and Dad-In-Law’s condo and then I cooked a lasagna dinner and apple pie at our
home for his whole family (they brought the rest of the food, proving once
again that part of the reason I married him was for his relatives). In between,
we enjoyed the warm weather with a hike through the Franklin Lakes Nature
Preserve, around a former reservoir and next to a now-defunct golf course. It topped 70 degrees, and when New Jersey’s
weather is warmer than California’s, it’s something we won’t soon forget. We ended the night with Grammy reading ’Twas The Night Before Christmas to the
kids, as she does every year, while they nodded off to sleep.
We woke on
Christmas morning to my five-year-old sneaking down the stairs, where I
promptly caught her and swept her back to her room. After waiting an hour, we finally woke her
sister, and as a group, crept downstairs to see their new dollhouse lit up next
to the tree. We then moved on to the
annual pilgrimage to Mom’s for brunch.
The weather
grew warmer still, and led to discussion only the Caldwell’s could create, largely
because of the weather anomaly and a one line text of “70 degrees- Strange
Days?” The text launched a half hour
firestorm of typing, and later a roundtable discussion over strata, bagels, and
lox on whether Jim Morrison really did wear the same pair of leather pants for
two years straight, and if the Doors were the best or worst band of all time. Considering
music (either Wagner, The Dead, Dylan, etc.) has often been at the helm of our
holiday discussions, this wasn’t so far from the norm.
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| Caldwell Brunch circa 1984 |
Our
non-immediate family headed back to Toni’s to prep for dinner, and the rest of
us exchanged gifts. The highlight was
when my sister handed me a letter, which outlined my daughters’ big present. They had just opened two puppets- a horse’s
head and pony, which immediately made me think that The Godfather had to be
involved. But instead, the letter explained that she was adopting a horse for Riley
and Ella, who would be residing at Better Farm early next week. After stuttering through “you got my kids a
pony?!” and the initial shock, there was much rejoicing in the idea that the
Nicole “won” the gift giving of the year, since how do you compete with an
actual pony?
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| The Writer's Circle |
I love
spending time with my parents’ generation, because I hear these stories, and
learn more about the people that have grown to legend status through their
tales. Each story adds a few more pieces to the puzzle of those who came
before, and the traditions and antics we’ve adopted into our own lives.
Someday, I’ll
tell my own daughters about how Dad used to watch the entire Twilight Zone
marathon with us on New Year’s Eve, and how Thanksgiving hasn’t felt quite complete
without the smell of Aunt Cath’s cigarettes and cats, and a tv in the next room
blasting Empire Strikes Back. And the
girls will eventually know the story of the scarfette, and hear about the
secret ingredient in GG’s cannolis. But
for now, they’ll settle for happily chattering away while they play with their new
dollhouse, and dream of the pony they’ll visit over spring break. As a kid, that’s really all that matters-
that, and the love in the room surrounding them, reminding them we’re all connected,
no matter where we are.
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| Caldwell Christmas 1995 |
