Christmas at the Homestead
Posted by Moose on December 28th, 2009. Filed under: Family.Most years I have a boyfriend who doesn’t necessarily want to spend four days in my mom’s guest room, formerly known as my room. At least my old room still has a bed. My brother’s became a shrine to electronics, housing the TV, computer, and cat’s sun lamp. The sun lamp is officially the desk lamp, but my mother’s cat appropriates what suits her. Anyway, it’s been awhile since I spent more than 12 hours with my family at Christmas. This year, I appeared on Christmas Eve and didn’t leave until the holiday sausage and cookies ran out. Not to mention my mom’s patience with waiting on her lazy children hand and much-maligned foot.
My parents moved from a tiny cabin in the woods (a keen desire to live in tiny spaces might be the fault of some crumpled DNA strand) to the house my mom still lives in a few months before I was born in 1978. I went to New York for college from 1996 to 2000, also known as the dot com bubble. Since we live in Silicon Valley, housing prices shot up astronomically. When I came home on breaks, I’d find the blue collar neighborhood my parents moved into was the site of creeping brambles of yuppie-ism. Houses on her street sprung extra stories, turrets, and columns. Cars got bigger and shinier. To this day, I walk through the neighborhood with my jaw unattractively slack at all the huge cement boxes crouching on lots where modest ranch homes used to be.
Even my mom’s taken to tarting things up, if less with major renovation and more with paint and new carpets and furniture. And she insists on moving things, which means I’m constantly betrayed by muscle memory. I’ll find myself groping fruitlessly under the sink for a dish towel, only to remember that dish towels haven’t been kept there in ten years. I also find myself the under butler for a very spoiled cat. My mom gets up and lets her calico cat out approximately 9 bazillion times a day and when mom’s not available, I find myself pressed into service by a demanding four pound fluff ball. After getting up and opening the back door, the cat will slink out and sit in the plants waiting for a foolhardy squirrel to come within reach. The squirrels leap from rooftop to flimsy branches and swing wildly for a few seconds before scrambling down the trunk to perch on the head of the Buddha statue sitting at the base of the tree. Buddha is remarkably casual about this indignity. Even when they’re exactly at eye-level, the cat never catches one.
Buddha, minus the squirrels
My brother and I were a bit lax in the gift-giving department this year, but we did avoid justifiable sibling homicide. You can’t wrap that, but I’m sure my parents appreciated it. My brother narrowly avoided death after blasting youtube videos of a heavy metal band with a singing parrot as I was trying to nap. (Any jury would acquit me. After requesting repeated viewings of the evidence, as a heavy metal band with a parrot for a lead singer is admittedly awesome.) I cheated the grim reaper after threatening to follow him to his poker game and hover over his shoulder asking questions like, “So, what are you going to do with that ace?” So, yes. Christmas was lovely. Complete with tree, packages, visitors, hot chocolate with three different kinds of booze, and a noteworthy lack of death.
How was yours?
December 28th, 2009 at 7:01 pm
Haha, I just read the poker part to Andrew and he cracked up. It sounds like Christmas was pretty good! I’m so glad!
December 28th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
No death + only one meltdown + lots of lime rickies = success. ;o)
xox
December 28th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
I am constantly blown away when I visit the place where I grew up. In many ways, it could be a completely different town. It’s absolutely surreal.
December 28th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Home, sibling torture, the ever zen like Buddha, cats, squirrels and the rest of it…sounds like an ideal x’mas weekend.
December 28th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Wonderful! I cooked for the first time ever and it was successful, awesome even. My brother wasn’t home so there were no death threats, although I did witness my fiance’s sister and brother almost duel it out.
December 28th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Mine was utterly different but a nice change of pace. I spent it with my husband’s family for the first time. When they had blow-ups, I read my magazine. When they played games and laughed and toasted, I joined right in. The best of both worlds.
Glad you had a nice trip!
December 29th, 2009 at 12:42 am
Exhausting! Family and visitors and parties every single day for 10 days until yesterday. *lets out big ol’ sigh of relief*
Coming back to SF (to two pressing book deadlines, no less) will feel like a vacation after this.
December 29th, 2009 at 3:24 am
Sounds like a fantastic Christmas, and loved you talking about how the houses have changed!! Mine was a very quiet Christmas but one of the best I’ve had in a while… just relaxing
December 29th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Hot chocolate with THREE different kinds of booze? Whaaa? And all this time I’ve been accepting a mere splash of peppermint schnapps in my hot chocolate?!!?
December 29th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Mine was pretty good. It was busy, but it was fun and drama-free. But that might have been because I was drunk on wine (and then vodka) and no one annoyed me and I was like “MY FAMILY IS THE BEST EVER!” (Note to self: be drunk at every holiday!)
Glad you had a good holiday! Happy new year my friend! I hope 2010 is the year we meet in person!
December 29th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Mine was great. Only the part of my family that totally gets along gets together for holidays now, so no death threats or other drama. Just lots of sitting around eating cookies and drinking wine, and then some Robert Downey Jr. (as Sherlock Holmes!).
The only real problem was that I had to be back at work Monday morning. Grrr.
December 29th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Sounds lovely. (And what a nice back yard! I would like to sit in it.)
Happy new year!
December 30th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Better than ranch houses… that was a bungalow neighborhood! Of course, I dropped you off and went “What happened to the trees? I used to figure out where the house was from the trees!” So that’s weird as well.
January 1st, 2010 at 8:11 am
“You can’t wrap that …” wins as my first LOL (yeah, I said it) of 2010.
Am quite sure my cats will demand a Buddha statue now. Hearing about your mom’s kitty makes me sad mine have to view the world from an upper floor. Then again, life spent lounging in front of a fireplace can’t be all that bad.
January 2nd, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Great backyard picture. Lovely memories!