by Jill Smokler
58. Accidentally give the high schoolers the $20 bill instead of the $10 when tipping.
59. Curse under your breath in the car about the ridiculous overtip.
60. Have five-year-old with apparent supersonic hearing ask what that word just meant.
61. Tell him it was an accident. “We don’t say that word.”
62. Have him tell you, “But you just did.”
63. Change the topic.
64. Drive home.
65. Open garage door remotely, almost pulling in with a tree on your roof.
66. Slam on brakes so as to not crush newly purchased tree or garage door trim.
67. Park car in driveway, wait for friend to meet you there.
68. Go directly into the house for wine with your friend—I mean, to let the kids play or whatever.
69. Eat, drink, play, drink, eat more, chat, let the kids play more—oops, did we almost finish that whole bottle of red wine?
70. Break out some serious gingerbread man decorating skills.
71. See that it’s time for your friend to head home.
72. Ask her to watch kids for a minute.
73. Walk out to the driveway with shears in hand.
74. Cut off the ties on the tree, climb up on rear bumper, and yank with all your might and 160 pounds of pure aggravation to get tree off the truck’s roof.
75. Wonder whether the tree actually weighs more than you.
76. Be glad the driveway light isn’t working so none of your neighbors can see you making an ass out of yourself in public, again.
77. Drag tree into garage.
78. Send off your friend.
79. Bathe kids, dress kids, read to kids, kiss kids, tuck kids in.
80. Soak up the silence of the house for exactly thirty seconds before getting back to some serious Christmas business.
81. Get tree stand and floor mat from the massive piles of holiday decor in guest bedroom.
82. Set up tree stand and floor mat in family room.
83. Return to garage.
84. Drag nine-foot-tall tree by yourself through the garage, up the steps, down the hall, through the kitchen and down the steps to the family room.
85. Take a deeeeep breath and heave the tree upright into the stand all on your own.
86. Do all sorts of funky yoga poses while turning the mile-long tree stand screws into the tree so it doesn’t fall through the bay window/into the fireplace/onto your frail and exhausted body.
87. Shove the tree into the center of the room, cutting off all netting.
88. Tentatively poke at tree a couple times to ensure it is stable.
89. Water tree.
90. Sweep.
91. Sweep more.
92. Remember how much you hate pine needles.
93. Again with the sweeping.
94. Take a shower, scraping sap off on your hands and brushing pine needles from your hair.
95. Pull out all the tree lights. Think, Screw it, lights will wait until morning.
96. Watch Bravo.
97. Go to bed.
98. Wake up pretty darn sore.
99. Shower, prep breakfast, get the kids’ school backpacks ready, lay out their clothes, write down your to-do list.
100. Get the kids out of bed.
101. Crankily rub aching lower back while following the kids downstairs to the kitchen.
102. Be stopped in your grumbly tracks by their momentary silent awe as they first see the Christmas tree all set up.
103. Almost get knocked over when hit with two running hugs from delighted kids.
104. Grin genuinely ear to ear thinking about how much fun this is.
105. Wrap half a dozen strings of lights around tree without falling off ladder.
106. Let the kids hang a big box full of ornaments you love dearly and have had for years, barely cringing whenever (yet another) one crashes to the hardwood floor.
107. Crank up the holiday song mix you created and dance while your little elves put their finishing touches on the most beautiful tree you’ve ever seen.
108. Even if all the ornaments only go about a quarter of the way up.
109. Forget about the sore back, the sappy hands, the mild hangover, the pine needles, the lights that need to be hung outside, the shopping list, the enormous Christmas to-do list hovering over your head, and the general state of disarray of the house around you and only see a sweet rosy flush of excitement on the two most important people in the world as they bask in the simple joy of the holiday season.
21
SUCK IT, SANTA
by Julie Lay
Dear Santa,
We need to talk. Your fat jolly ass is really becoming a pain in mine. In order to keep up the ruse of you existing and all, I am being held hostage to a toddler’s irrational demands.
You see, whenever we enter the holy land that is Target nowadays, every awesome shiny thing up in there becomes something we should “ask Santa for.” And if I don’t pony up said shiny things from “Santa” on Christmas Day, my daughter’s childhood will be ruined and she will be doomed to a life of working the pole.
All because of you.
Well, Santa, your ass owes me money. A lot of money. And I am booking a flight straight to the North Pole to collect.
You see, Santa, we both know that you are a deadbeat mythical figure, but my doe-eyed toddler doesn’t. She thinks that you are all magical and shit and that you can fart Cookie Monster keyboards and Barbie dolls.
I, on the other hand, know that you are just another way for our kids to milk us for even more plastic crap under the guise of “holiday spirit.” I’m just lucky that my kids don’t know the wonder of the iPod touch or Wii U yet. Now, that is some naughty shit, Santa. Also, because you are too lazy to make an appearance more than one day a year (DIVA!), you hire alcoholic homeless men to sit in fancy chairs and act like they are you at malls all over the world.
Seriously? You couldn’t find a few guys with white beards who didn’t smell like a mix of sewer water and Mad Dog 20/20 to play you? Every time my daughter sits on one of their laps I have to hose her off with a bath of penicillin when we are done.
And it is so not cool that you sit at the North Pole all year, getting shitfaced with elves while I am stuck here at home doing your slave labor. Not only do you not make any lists, let alone check them twice, but you also don’t shop or pay for any of the items requested by the boys and girls on said list. But, come December 25, your overweight ass sure does shimmy down my chimney, eat all of my cookies, and pop back out just so you can take all the credit.
What the fuck, Santa? I had to drive all over God’s green earth and Toys “R” Us just to procure that limited-edition dollhouse that my toddler just had to ask you for, and you can’t even cough up the change to pay for it? But I have to say it was from you? That is some bullshit. You must have some kind of airtight union contract that allows you to sit back and reap all the benefits of gift-giving while us drones at home do all the manual labor.
Suck it, Santa. I want my money back.
Oh yeah, and can I have a pony? I’ve always wanted one of those.
22
CHEESE & SOME MAC
by Anna Gebert
Are you interested in a slow death by caloric consumption? Of course you are! This recipe for macaroni and cheese, which truthfully should be called cheese and some mac, was lovingly modified from a recipe a dear friend shared with me—probably out of pity. He brought his mac and cheese to the first Thanksgiving I ever hosted . . . and my guests kept exclaiming how the only thing I didn’t cook was the best dish on the table. It’s so good that every time I make it as a party contribution, my husband gets jealous that I’m giving it away. He also requested it for his birthday this year, and ate nearly a whole tray in one si
tting. Isn’t it wonderful how many calories he can consume without repercussion?
1.5 pounds (1 ½ boxes) macaroni or shells
8 ounces sharp cheddar
8 ounces medium cheddar
4 ounces regular cream cheese (about half a package)
½ cup sour cream
1 cup cottage cheese
(Additional cheeses can be added to taste, such as Parmesan or very small amounts of blue.)
stick of butter, divided
1 cup whole milk
5 Tablespoons flour
1 Tablespoon dry mustard
salt and pepper
sleeve of Ritz Crackers
small onion, minced
Cook the noodles to 2–3 minutes short of al dente (whatever it says on the box) and set aside. If you’re like me, you only have one huge pot, so you’ll be repurposing that.
In the meantime, freshly grate all the cheddar cheese. You can buy the preshredded stuff, but it has chemicals to keep it separated and both the taste and consistency is improved when you do it the hard way. Try not to grate your knuckles. Reserve about a cup for the topping.
Sauté the onion in one tablespoon of butter until translucent and set aside.
Grease a 9-by-13-inch glass baking dish and crumble 1⁄3 of the Ritz Crackers evenly over the bottom of the dish. Stop eating the crackers or you’ll have to open another sleeve.
Get your big pot heated to medium and add 5 tablespoons of butter to melt. Start whisking in the 5 tablespoons of flour to make a roux (I feel so fancy using that word!) until it’s a light golden paste.
Add your dry mustard to the roux, and some salt and pepper.
Slowly pour in the milk to incorporate—you may need a little more or less depending on how creamy you like it. Get it nice and warm.
Stir in the cheddar cheeses (except the reserved cup), the sour cream, and the cream cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste. In this case, salt is your friend—the noodles will mellow the flavor.
Incorporate the onion and the noodles, followed by the cottage cheese, and pour the mixture into your glass pan.
Crumble the rest of the Ritz Crackers all over the top of the tray, and spread the rest of the shredded cheese liberally on top as well. Melt any remaining butter you have and spread that too. Exclaim, “I just don’t understand how I keep putting on weight!”
Bake for 20–25 minutes. Beware the pitfall of “trying a little corner to make sure it turned out well” as you will probably cannibalize 1⁄8 of it and be forced to create another tray.
Bake for about 10 minutes or just until the top starts to have a crackled appearance. Don’t overbake!
Let it sit on cookie sheet until cooled and then hide it until ready to serve.
23
THE HOLIDAY CARD PHOTO SESSION: A SURVIVOR’S TALE
by Tarja Parssinen
My story starts with greed.
I wanted an amazing photograph of my family, with my extended family, with everyone’s eyes open, that I could shove in a cream-colored envelope of heavy paper stock to be delivered to your mailbox on approximately December 12. To achieve this, I endured the eighth circle of hell, known as “the holiday card photo session.”
My multigenerational holiday card photo session was like walking over burning coals very slowly, fifty-seven times, until everyone’s mouths were stretched in grimaces that were less Hitchcockian and more Disney—and this was once we actually found the photographer, which took a good half hour because he was busy photographing two hundred other families on the beach at the exact same time.
It was Where’s Waldo? The White and Khaki Edition and that’s when it dawned on me, as I awaited the return of my husband from the brave photographer search-and-recovery mission, that my family—COLLECTIVE GASP!—was also dressed in white and khaki!
Under normal circumstances, I would cackle like a hyena—it was so brownie troop leader, so mid-1990s tech company!—but these were not normal circumstances. These were circumstances in which my family was trying to painstakingly follow photo session clothing ordinances. We didn’t want to—God forbid—disrupt the nesting sea turtles with our brash colors and patterns! And also, these photographs needed to be a testament to my family’s superiority for decades—nay, centuries—to come! We’d tried so hard to be the Fresh Prince of the Family Photo Session, but alas, we were just another Carlton in a sea of Carltons.
It was too late for regrets. There was nothing ahead but sand in my poor choice of high heels. Once the photographer had been spotted, we moved as one clumsy, sweating mass to his nook near the cattails and there, I made the fatal error. The miscalculation that elevated the next thirty minutes from Code Red to Code Asteroid-Inferno-Apocalypse.
“Honey, watch where you put your feet; there are ants on the sand,” I told my five-year-old, having sustained several bites myself.
ANTS ON THE SAND!
ANTS ON THE SAND!
ANTSANTSANTSANTS! SCREAMING! HYSTERIA!
I had to get the situation under control! Which was difficult to do when my husband was hissing to me in low tones of accusation and distress. “Survival,” I muttered, keeping my eye on the prize! The holiday card! The holiday card! With the whimpering five-year-old at last raised high in Papa’s arms above the ants, I felt very final-season Jon & Kate Plus 8 as I steadied myself for the flash of the camera.
And that’s when the photographer requested that the ladies, THE WOMENFOLK-MINUS-NANA, sit down on the sand. On the sand filled with thousands of biting ants. In our dresses. With sweaty legs. While the dudes stood proprietarily behind, dapper, jovial, their asses not part of the ant al fresco. In a scene reminiscent of that high school drill team pep rally where I was forced to smile while wearing a unitard and doing the splits as the marching band played the school song, I plastered a smile that only the contestants of Survivor would recognize.
After seemingly hundreds of takes and choruses of “Look here, look here, open your eyes, stop squinting, look here, look up, ignore the seagull, open your eyes, stop crying,” we were instructed to hold hands and walk through the waves, in search of the elusive image of three generations perfectly reflected in the ocean. Please pause and imagine that moment in the movie Anchorman where the news team tries to turn around at the same time and look coyly at the camera, but can’t do it.
Despite the aurora borealis of frizz haloing my head, there were no ants in the water, so my smile was slightly more genuine in those photos. Also, the end was near. Families were leaving, the beach was becoming less khakied, I could almost taste the margarita that my contract requires at the end of modeling sessions!
But the luck, it had to be pushed. (As stated in the bylaws of life.)
Nana and Papa wanted a photo of themselves with all the grandchildren. Can you believe it? The sheer audacity! The gall! To want images of their grandchildren to treasure! (By the way, the key to treasured photographic memories of children is to ask everyone to look directly into the sun while eardrums are being lacerated by an inconsolable toddler.)
And then suddenly, it was done. The photographer never yelled, “Fin!” or threw his camera to his invisible assistant behind him or kissed me on both cheeks, but he started talking about proofs and muttering, “I hope I got the reflections,” and I got the strange feeling he didn’t want to see any of us ever again.
After taking a slow look around and assessing the damage—both physical and emotional—the family tumbleweed rolled back to the boardwalk, white shirts dingy, khakis resembling army fatigues. The PTSD hit later, but at that moment we were giddy! Elated! Thrilled to live another day!
I was greedy and I payed for it dearly, but as the great thinker Kim Kardashian once said, “You must go through Kris Humphries to get to Kanye West.” But who knew that Kris Humphries was code for flesh-eating ants, blinding sun, and screaming children? And was Kanye
West really worth it? Was it really worth a near-death experience so that glorious images of flaxen-haired angels frolicking on a beach could be magnetized to the fridges of friends and family and coworkers of my husband’s that I’ve never met?
I’m pretty sure Nana would say yes.
24
HANUKKAH WINS
by Deborah Goldstein
Walking to the bus stop, we pass house after house decorated with lights and reindeer, and my six-year-old son cannot resist the magnetic force of Santa on his friend’s lawn, who sits on an enormous forklift hauling presents. He counts the oversized ornaments hanging off the small tree in the middle of the lawn, and while he doesn’t say it, I know that he is just as envious as he is fascinated because our house is not accessorized at all, being the simple Jews that we are. Not even a string of blue lights around the front door to say, “Hey, we’re festive, but we’re just not into Jesus.” The truth is, I can’t be bothered.
My son, thankfully, is less impressed with the decorations across the street from our house that our neighbors install on their front porch every year: the life-sized plastic nativity scene lit up from within by light bulbs emanating 120 watts of divinity as Mary cradles the little plastic Jesus to her synthetic bosom. Baby Jesus shines the brightest of all three figures, not only lit from inside his tummy and the breasts of his virgin mother but also from the spotlight planted in front of the porch that usually lights up their political lawn sign—one that displays a picture of a round-faced, baby and reads, “FACE IT. ABORTION KILLS A PERSON.” But during the Christmas season, the judging, shaming baby has to share his light with plastic, glowing baby Jesus. It’s a time of giving, after all, isn’t it?
We pass another house and can see the trampoline in the backyard. It is the size of our garage, and it is surrounded by lights. I remember the first time I knew that people could own trampolines that size. I was babysitting for a new family—a referral in a neighboring town. The mom gave me a tour of the house and when we ended up back in the living room, she showed me a framed family portrait. All four members of the dimpled, blond-haired, blue-eyed family, wearing canary-yellow sweaters on top of khaki pants, jumping and laughing on the family trampoline. She told me that they all love to jump on it all the time. They just loved the outdoors and all things athletic and sporty. At the age of fourteen, I understood how very different I was, and I understood what it meant to be gentile.