The Christmas I Started Liking Christmas (Again)

Family Christmas is better with a new family

NOT my first family Christmas as a Tanguy, actually. But this is my family, and they were all there that year.

When I was a kid, I liked Christmas. I understand that not all kids do, but overall, in the Western world, I think it’s a safe bet that your average kid in an average year will confess to liking Christmas. On average.

By the time I was out of the house, graduated, earning a living, paying a mortgage, and driving a freakin’ nuclear submarine (thank you very much), I was so over Christmas it wasn’t funny. Mostly because all the items I cited in the previous sentence seemed to have escaped my family’s awareness. Going “home” for Christmas meant returning to my parents’ house, a place I had never actually lived in, since they moved while I was in college; and a return to being treated like a kid again, in ways subtle and not so much. Like posing for pictures with the same props we had when we were tiny tots. Is that too freakin’ cute or what? <snarl>

My sister and me with our dog and a stuffed clown head as little kids. Twenty-two years later.

Some years I volunteered for Christmas duty—while in active duty, I was stationed in places like DC and Seoul, South Korea—so I had a reason to avoid booking a flight to Illinois. Almost every year I explained about how busy I was at work so that I had an excuse to fly home as soon as possible after Christmas Day.

When my sister got married, I had a slightly easier time with my new brother-in-law around for the holidays. Initially, anyway. My father and my B-I-L never got along, which meant additional passive-aggressive sniping and the stress that went with it.

So I hated Christmas. Well, not Christmas so much as Christmas with family. Wait . . . why else do we have Christmas?

By the time I met my wife, Deb, I was into humbug mode from Thanksgiving on. I barely decorated for Christmas, had stopped sending Christmas cards, and pretty much just hunkered down and waited for it all to be over.

Then . . . my wife’s family happened to me.

My first Christmas with Deb’s family, the Tanguy clan, happened while we were engaged, so strictly speaking I wasn’t a Tanguy. No one knew it from the way they treated me. I never felt like an outsider.

They expected me to fully participate in everything and not with a “do this or else” overtone, but because I was part of the family now. Our youngest niece and nephew had adopted me already, never mind the wedding ceremony and the paperwork, so “Unca Jack” was part of games, and stories, and outside activities (yes, in the snow and the cold and the wind— what, have you never known a six-year-old boy?), and whatever else was going on.

“Family Christmas” was separate from Christmas morning. We gathered at the home of the family members with the largest room, which also happened to be a sunroom with a high ceiling (good for times when things got boisterous). The chairs were moved to the edges of the room, with extra folding chairs brought up from the basement. The center of the room held the packages or gifts between family groups; it made for a good pile that took some effort to navigate around, especially with the Christmas tree sharing floor space (in later years the tree was moved elsewhere). When the time came for opening presents, we started with the youngest one and worked our way through the family, one at a time.

Post-unwrapping pile. Some of the boxes got resaved for next year, because nothing says Merry Christmas like getting a gift card in a Bon Ton box, eh?

Sometimes gifts had stories. We stopped and shared the story, which led to a “That reminds me,” which led to . . . eventually one of the kids reminding everyone there are still unopened presents!

One Christmas, my mother-in-law got a moose. Mom, Dad, and Deb told the story behind it (which happened before I joined the family) that involved a trip to Maine. This was the kind of thing that stopped the present opening.

My mother-in-law got a moose. Naturally, there was a “moose story.” (Note: check on rutting season before vacationing in Maine. Who knew?)

Supper was what people brought. Veggie platters — always a hit. Cheese platters — bigger hit. Lebanon bologna (central Pennsylvania food) — biggest hit. I brought spinach dip in a sourdough bread bowl, and the family agreed it was pretty good. (I still bring these to Family Christmas. It’s possible they are just humoring me. Still, this will be Christmas number nineteen, so I’m thinking maybe they like it.)

Note the spinach dip in the middle. Guess who brought *that* to the Christmas table…

My first real adult Christmas, courtesy of my new family. They never knew me as a kid, so they never treated me that way. And every year since, I’ve felt loved, and accepted, and special; I now like Christmas again. Is that a super-special Christmas gift, or what?

Jack Herlocker is a technogeek and programmer by day, writer by night (and occasionally over lunch periods). He is married to a wonderful woman who inspires his life, his writing, and his creativity. He writes an amusing series about their interactions entitled, “Conversations with My Wife.”