Merry Christmas?

Christmas in the childhood home with the family I've grown to love and be irritated by in a town plagued by deep rooted ice sheets and formidable winds is really one of the best days of the year. The fighting interests of contrived American and Greek cultural traditions at Christmas time in my home is something to be appreciated. The morning liturgy blared on the television thanks to a 1980's style satellite dish that may or may not be illegally attached to the roof of the house fought the middle sister's persistent attempts at playing Christmas jingles on the piano she touches only in late December. An awkward combination of foods was worked on all day, including crab legs, an opaque green jell-o with red spots (a perfect depiction of an Ebola victim in the first stages of bleeding out), spinach pie, terrible wine (ooh this year, we had terrible mulled wine), and an assortment of attempts at vegetarian side and main dishes. Most of the food inevitably goes uneaten and provides the parts and pieces for future meals of dissonant flavors.

The lunchtime banter is the usual mix. Each person ends up telling a story, not on purpose, we're totally not one of those families that sits patiently around the table passing around the "talking stick". First one sister will say something, then the other (she'll share a personally funny story that doesn't translate well into humor to a public audience, but she will cry in hysteria regardless), then Ma will get a bit freaked out that 2nd sister is choking, then Dad will tell a slightly related story (this story will be completely unrelated but may have taken place in the same hemisphere as the previous story, maybe the same season, maybe both stories had a young person as the main character). I tend to not tell stories, I don't think. My role at the table has consistently been to make fun of everything that came out of each of my family member's mouths and to regulate my dad's food consumption (this year, I got to sit at the head of the table because he couldn't comfortably fit between the table and the wall behind the chair).

The presents come next. We each get a few, I get the most. I have hobbies and interests that go beyond feeding squirrels, trimming my bangs, painting my apartment, and doing laundry (these being the interest of the rest of my family). I got a few pretty boss pairs of socks - they were those cotton-free socks that don't absorb the mysterious moisture your foot produces during the day but rather create an environment allowing the liquids to be released into your shoe....I guess they may be a bad idea....maybe they quicken the whole throw-my-shoe-away-because-it-smells process.

The best gift had to have been the over sized cold weather running gear my mom bought me. I'm not the tallest guy in the world and I weigh a fierce 167 pounds. I had asked for some UnderArmor so that I could keep on running outside when the temperature drops. This stuff is supposed to be tight, like, skin tight. I totally intended to wear shorts and a t-shirt over this second layer of flesh as without it I would look like I was trying to hard, like I was a complete tool. My mother thought it looked too tight and bought me XXL shirts and shorts. I think the only thing more embarrassing than skin tight athletic gear, is baggy skin tight athletic gear. The tight stuff keeps everything in place, this stuff sort of exaggerates the wearer's spots of vulnerability allowing love handles, beer guts, and genitalia to visually flail for the passing pedestrians to tell their friends about.

Other gift highlights included a bottle of Sriracha hot sauce, a rolling pin, a plastic tin of pickled fish, more socks, slippers all around, um ... The gift giving typically ends with my dad going to the Lay-Z Boy and falling asleep, my sisters going to their respective ends of the house and making a mess of things (they're in their 30's), my mom is usually on the phone at this point, and I sit in the corner hugging my knees, rocking back and forth, singing silent night as I stare at the mounds of wrapping paper and ribbon, dirty plates and mugs, receipts and half open boxes. Eventually I get the motivation I need to stack everyone's gifts in neat piles, separate the recyclable waste from the unsalvagable rubbish, etc.

That, in a walnut shell, is Christmas in my house. We usually have a couple of visitors who we treat to bizarre Greek cookies and coffee (I can see in their eyes that they are wondering, "where the fuck are the chocolate chips in this thing, why isn't this shaped like a Christmas tree or an angel or a bell, why don't any of these have peanut butter in them or a Hershey's Kiss on top"). We may go, as a family, to another family's home for a bit of dessert and coffee, to give us something to do, some other people to talk to as we've already exhausted most of our conversational options, skipping controversial issues such as the Gaza Strip, my budding alcoholism, issues involving gay people, and the definition of family (my dad has become overly dependent on a pristine image of family unity which he didn't really care about when he had a job, but now that he's retired, uses as a concrete crutch to fill his day with organizational tasks that end up hindering the daily flow of the rest of our lives - but yes, Dad, thanks for the car insurance).