A Christmas Delusion

I worry sometimes about the inevitable future when my kids have families of their own and my wife and I are left behind on the holidays. When they visit us, it will be more out of obligation than opportunity, and if we visit them, I worry they’ll be counting the hours until we go. Whatever resentments they have for us now when they are still young adults and single and poor are hopefully obviated by the warm house, free food, and presents. We try to add good cheer to the mix, as well, and offers of illicit booze for our younger – she’s 20 – but bribery and familial drunkenness will only get us so far. Eventually, and probably soon, they will abscond for funner, livelier pastures with partners and friends. Au revoir, mon enfants. Au revoir.

To be clear, I’m not so much worried about my own wellbeing as my wife’s. To me, a twosome Christmas sounds just fine. Me and my lady, sharing hot dogs and beans on TV trays in front of the Yule Log Channel? Man, that sounds a-ok by me. But my wife requires a touch more festivity. Beneath her cold and glinty Norwegian exterior is an old softy who, I fear, will not adjust well to sharing her holidays with, well, me.

The fault is mine. I’m not very good company even during regular, non-holiday weeks. During the days between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, I’m a full-throated Scrooge. My complaints start with the first Black Friday commercials and do not fully subside until the Christmas ornaments are packed away and the tree is out of the house sometime in early March. Martha, my wife, indulges my whining, but barely. The children’s strategy for dealing with me is to ignore me; that’s a blanket statement about their attitude towards their father, by the way, and not just confined to the holidays. I don’t blame them. How many times should any child have to listen to their father point out that our modern conception of Santa Claus is largely due to the Coca-Cola company?

Perhaps when they finally do leave us, we’ll find some new Christmas traditions. Christmas at the poker room, for example! Here’s how that will work: she’ll go visit the kids and I’ll go play poker. Or what about Christmas at the Taco Bell? Or the No-Christmas Christmas, in which, on Christmas Day, we pretend it’s a random Tuesday in April? For dinner, we rummage through the fridge for leftovers and, after we eat, we watch an old DVD of Miller’s Crossing. Attire is pajamas and mud masks.

This could be a good solution for lots of people who feel sad or lonely on Christmas: the elderly, prisoners (maybe without the mud masks), anybody who cannot be with loved ones on this most over-hyped of holidays. If nothing else, it will expose so many more people to, in my opinion, the Coen Brother’s greatest film. If Miller’s Crossing isn’t your cup of peppermint tea, I don’t know what to tell you. Some people are stupid and you might be one of them.

Calling somebody stupid for no reason other than the fact that they don’t like a particular movie I recommend is a good example of why I’m such a poor company during the holidays. Nobody wants to be called stupid, least of all during an already-difficult time for so many.

The point is that Christmas need not be some miasma of unrealizable expectations. It can be something so much less! After all, it’s hard to get too worked up about a random Thursday in April. The kids can’t join you for Christmas? Impossibly sad. The kids can’t join you for a random Thursday in April? No worries – we’ll see them next week or the week after. In the meantime, let’s heat up a pizza and turn on the DVD player.

Self-delusion is a fine way to get through all the days of year. Christmas is especially ripe for the delusional, as we tell ourselves that a North Pole denizen gives presents to all the children of the world to celebrate the birth of the son of God, born to a virgin in a manger two thousand years ago. It’s a good story but it doesn’t hurt anything to admit there’s at least a touch of both the fantastical and nonsensical about it. If our collective Christmas delusion is harmless – even holy – then surely the delusion that December 25^th is actually a random Thursday in April probably isn’t so bad. Besides, Santa may be a no-show but Carter Burwell’s soundtrack to Miller’s Crossing always delivers.

Maybe this is even the last year we’ll have the kids, all of us together in our perfect foursome.  Maybe next year one or both of the kids will make some other plans with some other people, promising us a visit after the new year, or maybe when the new semester ends in the spring. If not next year, it’ll be another one, and soon. I’ll put on a good face, if only to cheer up Martha. I’ll make Christmas foods and light candles and let NPR keep us company in the background. Our missing kid or kids will call us and we’ll smile and wave and blow kisses. “Merry Christmas,” we’ll say. “Merry Christmas,” they’ll say, before turning back to whomever they are choosing to celebrate the holiday. We’ll hang up and comment on how well they look and how happy. We’ll sip some homemade onion soup and sigh and try to offer some little assurances to the hearts beating in our chests. “There, there.”

We’ll probably turn in early so that we can wake up on a random day in December. We do not celebrate Boxing Day because we are not British and would not admit it if we were. One big holiday in December is enough. We don’t need to follow it up with another the very next day. We’ll lie in bed and look up at the ceiling and ask each other if we’re ok. I’ll suggest we watch a movie when we cannot sleep. Maybe Miller’s Crossing? No, you’ll say, but feel free to watch without me. But I won’t. Because I’ll be too sad and the only thing that will make me feel better is the soft breath of the woman beside me. And Taco Bell.