Don’t Hold Christmas Too Tightly

Yesterday I took a break from preparing my own Christmas cooking to help out a friend whose caterer had to be hospitalized the day of her Christmas party.  As a retired caterer myself this is a nightmare I used to have, but never actually had to live through.  As a hostess, I have never had a situation of not having someone come through with the food that I was planning on.

After making 75 of my “Pigs in a Blanket’s on Steroids” I delivered them to my friend’s house and returned home to care for my very sick child.  It seems that the best theme to have for Christmas is flexibility for often the best-laid plans will need some adjusting.

I think back to Carter’s first Christmas.  Russ was working in Washington, DC and after staying home for two weeks in early December waiting for the very late Carter to be born he just had to get back to work before the holiday.  Unfortunately on the Eve of Christmas Eve, exactly 14 years ago today a huge blizzard hit the Mid-Atlantic region and I-85 was closed to traffic because hundreds of trees were down across the highway.  It took Russ 24 hours to find a path home just in time for Santa to come.

It is still one of the best presents I have ever gotten.  Back in the days before he had a cell phone, my waiting at the very snowy window with an infant child wondering if her father was safe or that he might miss Christmas.

Go with the flow was the theme of a Christmas even further back when I was about twelve.  Long after I had gone to bed on Christmas Eve my father, having had too much egg nog came and woke me up because he needed me to assemble the Big Wheel my three year old sister Janet was getting.

He sat in a chair by the fire as I dumped the 68 pieces on the floor and began to study the step-by-step instructions.  I will never forget the very first step, “Take part 1, the back axel and place part 2, the noise making clicker thing on the axel.”  As I did that my father, having heard many a Big Wheel in his day said, “Make sure you leave that annoying noise maker off that thing.”

In the interest of finishing this job quickly and going back to bed so Christmas could come, I threw the noise making plastic part in the box and when I was finished with the assembly only an hour and a half later, put the box and the instructions in the trash so Janet would think the man in the red suit had put it together for her.

First thing Christmas morning, with great glee, Janet, or Junior Johnson as she was appropriately nick named for being a speed demon, jumped on that Big Wheel she had been dreaming of and peddled down the side of the big living room.  Before she reached the end of the room she stopped and let lose a big wail, “It’s broken,” she said.  “It does not make the right noise.”

After much crying my father looked at her and said, “Don’t worry, Dana can fix it.”  And so I did.  It only took digging through the trash to find both the piece and the instructions and almost three hours later the offending, but much desired sound was coming from the beloved Big Wheel.  Flexibility.

So I hope that everything runs smoothly at your holiday location wherever you might be.  And if it doesn’t it will make for a memory you will never forget.  I can’t always remember the times that went off without a hitch, but those Christmases with a disaster or two will be the ones you will talk about year after year.