by Jana Zinser
“Got to give the nog a little Christmas spirit.”
Aunt Hattie shook her finger at him. “Thomas Taylor, you’ve already had too many spirits.”
Uncle Tommy raised his cup. “Reuben’s house is the only thing I know that has too many spirits.” He laughed and slapped his son on the back. Eggnog flew out of Russell’s mouth and he coughed and regained his balance from his father’s blow.
Angela smoothed the sides of her straight, long hair that almost reached the middle of her back. Then she took a sip of eggnog and spat it back in the cup.
“Eggnog makes me sick.”
“Everything makes you sick,” Russell said. “You eat like a bird.”
Angela pushed the mug across the counter, knocking over a china bird. She winced and rubbed the perfect thin arch of her plucked eyebrows. “Sorry, Grandma.”
“No harm done.”
Russell set the fallen bird on the windowsill. “So, Grandma, how many new birds will you get this Christmas?”
Grandma smiled and shrugged. “One can only hope.”
People who knew about Grandma’s love for birds gave her small glass and china birds. Over the years, her collection had expanded until it took over her window sills, shelves, and cupboards.
“Your kitchen is so cluttered with all these birds perched everywhere. How many more can you even fit?” Aunt Hattie asked.
Grandma patted Aunt Hattie’s arm. “You know there’s no such thing as too many birds.”
Russell fidgeted. “Grandma, did you know you have 257 birds, if you include the owls?”
Grandma smiled at Russell. “I wouldn’t have imagined it was so many, and I’m glad you included the owls. Judy gave me a new one for Christmas.”
Uncle Tommy stumbled a little. “It’s lucky those 257 birds aren’t real because the bird splat would fill up this kitchen.”
He punched Russell hard on the arm. Russell rubbed it and started counting each of his shirt buttons, starting at the cuffs and working his way up the shirt, fingering each button. Ivy didn’t even notice Russell’s rhythmic button-counting. She accepted Russell’s quirks just as she did all the strange oddities in her family. She knew things weren’t going to change.
After they finished their eggnog they gathered in the living room in front of the Christmas tree. Every year since Ivy could remember, Uncle Walter dressed in his Santa suit. But before Uncle Walter could put it on, Uncle Tommy took another swig of whiskey from his pocket flask. Then Uncle Tommy took out the fake beard from the Santa costume box on the fireplace hearth.
“Ivy, tell him he’s a sorry excuse for a Santa,” Uncle Tommy said.
“Uncle Tommy says you’re a lousy Santa.”
Uncle Walter straightened the sleeves of his red argyle sweater. “What would the Grinch know about being a good Santa?”
Ivy shrugged and turned to Uncle Tommy. Her uncles’ squabbling amused her. “He says you’re the Grinch.”
“That’s a big pile of Whoville crap. Ivy, tell him it’s my turn to be Santa this year,” Uncle Tommy said as Jack Daniels’ holiday greeting floated on his breath.
Ivy turned back to Uncle Walter. “Uncle Tommy wants to be Santa this year.”
Uncle Tommy opened the Santa box and took out the red-and-white coat. Uncle Walter snatched it out of Uncle Tommy’s hands. “It’s not his costume, and there’s no such thing as cranky old St. Nick.”
“He says it’s his costume and you’re too grumpy,” Ivy said.
Uncle Tommy grabbed the Santa suit back. He put two fingers in his mouth and whistled his shrill bird call. “That’s bird-talk for ho, ho, ho. I don’t give a rat’s butt what he says. I’m going to be Santa this year.”
Uncle Tommy took the Santa pants out of the old Yonkers Department Store box. Uncle Walter yanked the pants back and the uncles struggled. Holding on to opposite ends of the costume, they stumbled around Grandma’s living room.
Grandma shook her head. “Boys, stop fighting. That’s enough. Someone’s going to get hurt.”
They lost their footing and fell over backward into the fake white pine boughs, knocking over the artificial Christmas tree. The bird ornaments flew through the air.
“Daddy!” Angela said as she ran over and helped Uncle Tommy get up.
Uncle Tommy breathed heavily from the skirmish. He staggered to the bathroom, dragging the costume with him, having emerged victorious in the Santa coup d’état.
Ivy and Russell untangled Uncle Walter from the tree branches. His bad knee made it hard to get him upright. Uncle Tommy put on the red suit and sat on the hearth with a river of whiskey running through his Santa Clause veins. The crooked beard made him look even more inebriated.
“The North Pole is hot as hell. Santa doesn’t need his pants!” Uncle Tommy said as the newly self-appointed Santa took off his red pants and dropped them beside him on the brick fireplace. Santa sat on the hearth, wearing his coat and beard, sagging brown socks, black cowboy boots, and white boxer shorts.
Uncle Walter shook his finger. “Ivy, tell Santa he’s sitting too close to the fire.”
Ivy motioned Uncle Tommy away from the burning logs. “Move away from the fire, Uncle Tommy.”
Uncle Tommy’s white-trimmed Santa hat tilted precariously on his head. Santa’s blood-shot eyes twinkled merrily, but he ignored Ivy’s warning. “What does he know? He’s a mailman.” He grabbed Ivy’s arm, but she pulled away. “What do you want for Christmas, Barbara? Ho. Ho. Ho.”
Ivy hated it when Uncle Tommy drank too much. “I’m not Barbara. I’m Ivy.”
Aunt Hattie’s face turned red. She shook her finger around the room. “No one’s sitting on Santa’s lap tonight.” She pointed to Santa’s boxer shorts. “Santa’s a fraud.”
“Are you sure you’re not Barbara?” Uncle Tommy asked Ivy.
Russell, used to his father’s drunken scenes, rolled his eyes. “She’s dead, Dad.”
“What’d you say?” Uncle Tommy looked confused.
“I said Aunt Barbara’s dead. A long time ago,” Russell said.
Uncle Tommy’s face dropped. “Oh, yeah, Barbara’s gone. So is Robert.” His Christmas spirit disappeared. “It wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know it would happen. Can’t undo it now.” He closed his eyes.
“That’s enough, Tommy,” Grandma said.
A spark from the fire ignited the fluffy trim on Santa’s pants, which were lying on the hearth, next to Uncle Tommy.
“Ivy, tell the fake Santa his pants are on fire,” Uncle Walter said.
“Daddy,” Angela said. “Watch out.”
“Tommy, be careful,” Grandma said.
Santa’s coat caught on fire from the pants and the white trim blazed.
“Help, save Santa!” Uncle Tommy said. “Or Christmas will be ruined!”
Aunt Hattie jumped up and grabbed the broom resting against the wall. She began beating the burning Santa. Uncle Tommy danced around the room trying to get away from the fire and Aunt Hattie, who continued whacking him with the broom.
“I’m burning up. For God’s sake, somebody do something,” said the fake Santa Claus as he dodged Aunt Hattie’s strikes. “Stop beating me!”
Russell jumped up off the couch and dashed into the kitchen. He grabbed the big punch bowl of eggnog on the counter and staggered into the family room. With a mighty fling, he heaved the remaining holiday drink on his flaming Yuletide father. The thick eggnog extinguished the fire of his Santa suit and Uncle Tommy’s eyes blinked through the creamy, dripping eggnog. “First, the mailman tried to burn me, my wife beat me with a broom, and then my son, Opie here, tried to drown me with the Christmas nog.”
The Santa fire ended the Taylors’ Christmas Eve celebration. Uncle Tommy threw the eggnog-soaked, charred remains of St. Nick outside in the snow and his family went home with an un- christmasy spirit.
The old Victorian house stood dark, except for the blinking Christmas lights on the front porch.
Ivy sat on the window seat in h
er bedroom and looked at the singed Santa suit lying in the snow. The snow clung to the trees and the wind blew restlessly through the woods. Her heart drooped heavy with the emptiness of having no parents and no brothers or sisters. Christmas was a time for family and that night she yearned for her mother and father. She lifted her silver heart necklace engraved with a rose and kissed it. It was all that remained of her beautiful mother and the Christmases that might have been.
She watched the streaks of moonlight shine into her room until exhaustion overtook her and her need for sleep became stronger than her heartache. She pulled one of Pinky’s quilts around her and fell asleep curled up on the window seat a few hours before Christmas day dawned.
The next day when Uncle Tommy and his family arrived to spend Christmas afternoon, the burned Santa suit still lay crumpled on the snow as if Santa had mysteriously disintegrated on the lawn. Uncle Tommy’s bloodshot eyes looked swollen. He headed straight for the kitchen to get a beer. Angela curled up on the couch and soon fell asleep with her shiny hair cascading down her back. Uncle Walter, Russell, and Ivy gazed out the window at the hastily discarded Santa suit.
“Looks like Santa was highly combustible this year,” Russell said.
Uncle Walter shrugged. “Guess Santa got Raptured.”
Aunt Hattie overhead them and folded her hands in prayer, shaking them back and forth. “That’s right. Santa and all his little tiny elves will burn in eternal hell because they stole Christmas from the Christ child.”
“Hey, speaking of stealing the Christ child, did you hear that someone stole baby Jesus right out of the manager at church last Sunday?” asked Russell.
Ivy looked at Uncle Walter. “Luther?” asked Ivy. Uncle Walter nodded as they laughed, but Ivy stopped abruptly when she saw Aunt Hattie’s glare.
“Don’t make fun of the Christ child.” The tiny silver bells sewn on Aunt Hattie’s Christmas sweater jingled softly as she trembled with anger. “None of you will receive anything of mine when the Rapture comes.”
Uncle Walter chuckled to himself as he went into the kitchen to start frying the wild mushrooms. On the way, he leaned over to Ivy and pointed to Aunt Hattie, whispering, “Aunt Haughty.”
Ivy followed him into the kitchen and watched him prepare the mushrooms. Uncle Tommy crowded around the stove, too. His glasses slid down his nose as he leaned over the morel mushrooms to examine them. The mushrooms had been frozen after one of Grandma’s mushroom hunts last spring. Uncle Walter cut the thawed mushrooms in half and rolled them in a seasoned-flour coating. Then he placed the mushrooms side-by-side, lined up like little tin soldiers, in a frying pan bubbling with butter. Uncle Tommy sneered as he watched the sizzling mushrooms.
“Ivy, tell Postal-Boy he made the coating too thin.”
Ivy could almost taste the delicious wild mushrooms. She smiled at Uncle Walter. “Uncle Tommy thinks the mushroom coating is too thin.” She looked into the pan of morel mushrooms as they sizzled and popped, turning crispy brown. “But they look good to me.”
Tommy scowled. “What would you know? Traitor. You’re always on the mailman’s side anyway.”
“Tell him his hair is too thin. But my mushroom coating is just right,” Uncle Walter said. “And it’s letter carrier.”
Uncle Tommy spat chewed-up sunflower shells into Grandma’s sink and stomped out of the kitchen. Ivy patted Uncle Walter’s arm. “Good comeback, Uncle Walter.”
Ivy pulled off a piece of turkey from underneath the tinfoil and popped it in her mouth. She held her mouth open to avoid burning her tongue. Miss Shirley’s pies sat on the counter. Grandma no longer made her own pies. She said Miss Shirley’s pies were just as good as hers, so she traded them for morel mushrooms she found in the woods in the spring.
Uncle Walter flipped over the frying mushrooms and set the spatula down. He pointed at Aunt Hattie in the hallway. “Tis the season of the divide and Rapture.” He made a circling motion with his finger at the side of his head and then clasped his hands together in prayer.
“Yeah. I know I’m not getting anything when she’s Raptured,” Ivy said as they both laughed.
Aunt Hattie cornered Grandma in front of the linen closet as Grandma searched for the holly berry tablecloth. Ivy wandered toward them to see what crazy thing Aunt Hattie was preaching now.
“What I’m saying is that a miracle is about to happen, a miracle, just you wait and see, Violet.” Aunt Hattie’s hands gestured wildly. “The Lord’s wrath will be visited upon the whoremongers, drug addicts, and government lawyers. It’s too late for Tommy. The Lord can’t forgive him for his sin; but it’s not too late for you to be cleansed, Violet. You need to purify your soul for hiding the evil truth.” Aunt Hattie stared at Ivy as she approached. “If you don’t, you’ll be left behind like the rest of your family.”
Her gloomy predictions scared Ivy, but Grandma just sighed.
“Hattie, I’m not sure where I fit in that list of sinners, unless God doesn’t like fat old women. I’m afraid my soul is as pure as it’s ever going to be.” Her knowing gray-blue eyes gazed at Aunt Hattie. “And you need to watch what you say.”
“The Lord’s on my side.” Aunt Hattie carried her religion like a turtle’s shell, using it for protection whenever she was challenged.
“The Lord isn’t that confused. If you will excuse us, Hattie, I need to check on the hot rolls.” Grandma put her arm around Ivy as they escaped Aunt Hattie’s biblical orations.
“What did she mean? What did Uncle Tommy do?” Ivy asked.
“Oh, who knows what she’s talking about?” Grandma gave Ivy’s shoulder a gentle squeeze on the way back into the kitchen. “She’s a dandy, isn’t she? But you know, I’ve always tried to be kind to the crackpots because I always figured I might end up being one.”
Ivy smiled as she observed her family, an odd assortment of mismatched characters with brooding secrets and peculiar eccentricities. She drifted in and out of all their worlds, adapting to their uniqueness and finding their strangeness ordinary. Her family’s holiday bickering never ruined Christmas for Ivy. She accepted the certainty of an argument and waited for the show.
When the food was ready, Grandma and Ivy set the table and carried the food out. Violet gathered her family around Christmas dinner, having so far escaped the inevitable family fight.
“Maybe this year we’ll finish the entire Christmas dinner without feelings being hurt. At least, I hope so.”
“Grandma, you say that every year,” said Ivy.
Grandma’s mouth twitched into a smile. “An old woman can dream, can’t she? If we ever do get through a family dinner without a skirmish, I’ll probably just keel over and die, right then and there.”
“Then I hope there’s a fight, and it’s a pretty sure thing because Uncle Tommy’s still here,” said Ivy.
Grandma called the family together. She sat at the head of the big oak table and said a prayer to bless her grudge-bearing family. Then the dishing of the holiday feast began. The huge platters and bowls of food soon stalled next to Russell’s place. He stared at his plate, his mouth silently forming numbers.
Uncle Tommy pounded the table. “What in God’s name are you doing?”
Russell looked up, startled. “Counting my peas.”
Uncle Tommy pushed his glasses up on his nose and shook his hand. “Stop being a fruit loop and pass the food before we all starve.”
Russell patted his hair and stared at the serving bowls and platters stalled around him. He quickly scooped mashed potatoes and turkey onto his plate, quarantining them by food types. Russell glanced up. Everyone watched him.
“Russell,” Angela whined impatiently.
“You know I don’t like my food to touch.”
Russell continued to manipulate the little piles of food on Grandma’s holiday china plate. Scrape. Scrape. Scrape. Russell contained every creamed pea, lettuce leaf, mushroom, Jell-O salad wiggle, turkey slice, and gravy spillage until he felt comfortable enough to take a bi
te. Then his rearranging, patting, and pushing started all over again.
Uncle Tommy stared at his fidgety son and waved his fist in the air. “Leave those dadgum piles of food alone. Eat your dinner before we all grow old and die from hunger.”
“Yes, Russell, stop pitty-patting your food. Control yourself. It’s embarrassing,” Aunt Hattie said.
Russell didn’t even look up as his hands pushed and dragged the heaps of food around as if pulled like the strings of a marionette. Uncle Tommy gritted his teeth and his face turned red.
“I said stop fiddling with your dadgum food. I can’t take it anymore.”
Uncle Tommy jumped out of his chair, grabbed a serving spoon from the bowl of creamed peas, and lunged at Russell’s holiday plate, stirring all of Russell’s neatly piled food together. “There. Now eat.”
The dining room shuddered into silence except for Uncle Tommy’s angry, exerted breathing. He sat back down. “You do what I say. I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.”
Russell stared at his jumbled Christmas dinner stirred into a lump of inedible torment. He stood up, knocking over his dining room chair and placed his hands on either side of his head. “I’m sorry, Grandma. I’ve got to go.” He stumbled away from the table in anguish and ran out the front door.
“Another holiday tainted by discord,” Uncle Walter said.
Grandma slapped her lap and turned to Uncle Tommy next to her. “Honestly, leave that poor boy alone.”
Uncle Tommy’s face fell for a second. “Mother, he’s getting worse all the time.”
“Maybe Russell just can’t help it. Ivy, ask Tommy if he ever thought of that,” said Uncle Walter.
Uncle Tommy ignored him and jabbed the serving spoon in the air. A clump of mashed potatoes flew off the spoon and landed on Grandma’s holly berry tablecloth. “Mother, you don’t know what it’s like to live with someone who counts everything. His food can’t touch! You just don’t know what it’s like to live with a crazy lunatic like that.”