I was cynically sipping a little alcoholic grog and watching Comedy Central in my bathrobe, when it hit me…I AM the spirit of Christmas, at least in this household. So I put down the beverage (which really wasn’t a good idea at 11 a.m. anyway) and changed out of my pajamas, but did not remove my Ugg slippers (they do have rubber soles for outdoor use, ya know) and climbed into the SUV that was fairly humming with anticipation in the driveway, keen to its task of wheeling down the interstate to Target, AGAIN, in less than 24 hours since its last visit to the Big Box. (It’s possible that the hum I speak of is an indicator of something altogether more SINISTER ticking like a time bomb in the engine and has associations with the four or five dashboard lights that are now constantly illuminated warning me of airbag failures and low tire pressure and potential explosions, but I’ve decided to just ignore all that until I get this Christmas thing worked out.)

So me in my Ugg slippers and my ailing Honda Pilot made it back to Target to wander the aisles looking for the perfect display of Christmas cheer and, ultimately, I got me some of those white, dangling, light-up stars to hang from the porch that faces the street.

They were easy to assemble. They are big enough to be seen from the street through the tangle of woods in front of our house. And they really are lovely. All white and festive and pure. But now I can see how the Christmas light thing really snow balls. Every time I drive up to the house I think, “Oh, Cute Lights, but wouldn’t it be cuter if there was another four or five or fifteen strands of white Christmas stars hanging from the second story roof line and wound round the front columns and maybe at the back door too.” One measly strand of stars just doesn’t seem enough, feels kind of miserly and half-baked and now I’m afraid I’m going to have to spend the weekend wrapping the house in twinkly lights just to give those stars some company because my star strand, as seen from the street, while quietly beautiful, is kind of making me feel lonely and sad all over again.

No Ugg slippers this time…it’s work boots, and gloves and staple guns and extension cords. I’m in need of a light extravaganza, some riotous blaze of holiday magic. Here’s hoping they’re having a sale. Here’s hoping I don’t fall off a ladder and break a vertebrae in pursuit of more LED administered holiday cheer.

Having grown up in these parts, Patriot’s Day has always just one of those holidays that is part of a long weekend, a long weekend in which my parents always did copious amounts of yard work and rototill-ed the garden and planted spring peas. But My Better Half, never having heard of Patriot’s Day before moving to Massachusetts a few years ago, insists there must be something more than gardening to the regional affair, something that has to do with Miles Standish and Paul Revere and the Red Coats, or, at the very least, Tom Brady’s being beautiful. I just nod my head and say, “Sure, honey. You must be right,” and return to raking out the garden bed at the base of the front stoop. It’s not that I’m too lazy to google the origins of the holiday, it’s just that there are a zillion yard-related things to get accomplished before the lilacs pop and the leaves flush out on the trees. I assure him that I can properly celebrate the heroes of The Boston Tea Party and the Patriot’s Offensive Line while working the leaf blower.

And while this regionally observed holiday may strike outsiders as odd or, at least, undefined, I suspect that every area of this country has its own unique celebration noted and observed by its endemic people. It’s what makes us so diverse, these different celebratory occasions. For example, while Massachusetts has spring peas and the Boston Marathon in mid-April, Kentucky has the Derby in early May. And, because I embrace differences and appreciate a good holiday as much as the next person, I’m planning a dinner party to coincide with this year’s Run For The Roses.

And even though I am, through and through, a Yankee, I plan to mark the occasion with some good Southern cuisine. My friend and neighbor, a Louisville native who will be attending the event, has loaned me her Kentucky Heritage Recipe Book for menu planning purposes. As it turns out, within its dog eared pages is some sort of secret code to the workings of the South.

All people embrace a holiday with good old over-eating. Each regional celebration has a menu so purposeful and explicit that outsiders can’t possibly understand or fully appreciate the significance of the cuisine to the inherent importance of the event. I know this with certainty after pouring over the pages (mouth open, eyes wide, stunned and amazed), of every recipe in the Kentucky cook book; all of which contain some iteration of bourbon, cheese sauce, pecans, mayonnaise, coconut and lard. Apparently it is the unique combination of these six ingredients by which a dish earns its revered status as truly Southern fare.

And while I know that the British have Spotted Dick, which, as an adult I have come to realize has less to do with a sexually transmitted disease and everything to do with dried fruits and suet (which may be just as gross), I did not know that the South has Bishop’s Whipple which, surprisingly, is not a major surgical endeavor designed to circumnavigate a clergyman’s intestines but, rather, some sort of dessert with dates and pecans and, of course, bourbon flavored whip cream.

The Derby dessert course apparently must also include the requisite Bourbon Macaroon Mold with its layers and layers of coconut cookies doused in bourbon and served chilled with bourbon whip cream. And, just in case the guests are having trouble keeping their party on between the mint juleps and the sweets, there is the Beer Cheese spread which is made with two pounds of “rat” cheese and garlic “pods” and a forty of Pabst’s Blue Ribbon. While I think guests are encouraged to spread this Beer Cheese on crackers, the recipe leaves the exact purpose for the cheese open to interpretation. Perhaps Beer Cheese is used as sauce for the mysterious main course called Scrapple which is made by boiling an unidentified cut of pork down to a state of utter gelatinouity. The meat falls away from the bones, the fat is skimmed and cornmeal is added to the unidentified pork broth and allowed to thicken into a porridge like consistency and then is poured into a mold and allowed to congeal. Once solidified, the unidentified pork porridge is sliced and fried in lard and served hot to guests who are so freakin’ sideways with Bourbon and Beer Cheese that they fail to see this Scrapple as possibly the most disgusting culinary invention of all time.

And if the Scrapple fails to get their attention then the Scotch Eggs are sure to rock their inebriated worlds. I will let the recipe speak for itself, just as it is written on page 18 of The Kentucky Heritage Cookbook:

Boil desired number of eggs hard. Peel and cut into halves. Remove the yolks, mash and season lightly. Refill the whites and press halves together firmly. Cover tightly with country sausage meat. Roll in egg and crumbs and fry slowly in deep fat. Drain and place on rounds of toast and surround with cheese sauce. (I shit you not – deep fried sausage coated deviled eggs on toast with Beer Cheese sauce.)

And if, after all this culinary celebration, there are a few stout and hardy people still standing on two legs rather than squatting on piano benches and crawling to refill their high ball glasses, there will be a refreshing Reception Salad (involving cream cheese, pimentos, pineapple, jello, celery, pecans and, of course, bourbon whipped cream), that is sure to be the straw that broke the race horse’s drunken, lard-heavy back.

Last year we hosted Easter lunch for our dear friends the Q’s. Even though our O was sick with the throw up bug, our kind, devoted friends agreed to come to our home, tainted with illness. We hid plastic eggs in the mud and ate quiche and too much chocolate. We drank Mimosas at noon. Poor O stayed quarantined up in his bedroom but, still, the Q’s contracted the throw up bug twenty four hours later. They spent days and days vomiting up their insides into rinse-able receptacles, their penance for having agreed to be with us on Easter. They are that good, they are those kind of friends.

Sadly the Q’s moved to the West Coast last summer and the various friends and family members we could have drafted to take their place all had plans elsewhere. So it was the four of us and too much ham and a decidedly mournful meal through which we scolded the children about their table manners and picked distractedly at the food growing cold on our untouched plates.

I drank too much on both Friday and Saturday nights, willful self medication that made the three day weekend even harder to endure. Still windy, still cold, I longed to be alone with my iPod. But I have two children and husband who expected some measure of my presence. It was inexplicably difficult to give them that. I was remote and distracted. My Better Half called my state of mind short fused when he wasn’t calling it something else, something less subtle and understanding.

The high point of the weekend was Friday night when I met my high school/college BFF for drinks and dinner to celebrate her 35th birthday. (She happens to be in Boston on business for a week or two.) It was like old times, only sadder. Her mother is very ill and my BFF wrestles with the attendant grief and guilt. She is obligated to finish the professional project she is working on while feeling, acutely, the draw of an aging and frail parent that needs her -badly.

She and her husband are struggling with fertility issues. They want a baby. They want their baby to be the culmination of a love that is easy and free. A roll in the hay, a hastily purchased home pregnancy test, tears of joy and anticipation. They deserve that simple outcome and still it won’t happen for them. It will not be easy like that. Now they speak gravely about donors and the possibility of adoption. They wring their hands and hold their tongues, secretly, fervently hoping that something will change. And soon.

I spoke of my recent worries, mere tribulations in the wake of her angst, but regardless, she listened. She listened to me tell about my writing, my doubt, the financial black hole that is this house, the demands that having children and a mortgage make on a marriage, a partnership. It is the stuff of middle age – this. And how did we get here? She and I wondered aloud. Mid-thirties. Another year. Another crisis.

Thank God for old friends who can hold hands, tightly, with meaning and say (when it matters most), “I understand and no matter what…I’ll always love you.”

But it’s got to get worse before it can get better, right? As you’re reading this, I’m probably sitting in the airport terminal enduring a lengthy delay due to inclement weather in the Northeast. It would figure that it’s got to hail and sleet and snow on the one day, after the 670 days I’ve sat home staring at my laptop, that we actually plan to evacuate for parts more tropical and breezy.

It’s not just the weather that poses a challenge to the Madmarriage plans. It would also figure that one day before departure, a battery of tests come back positive for chronic inflammation of the uterine lining. Turns out theres some itty bitty micro-organism thrashing around in there and only an antibiotic regime of startling complexity will remedy what ails me. If this isn’t a case of the cure being worse than the disease, well I don’t know what it is. A pill must be swallowed four times a day, one hour before eating and two to three hours after a meal. I am not to lay down for thirty minutes after taking the medication which pretty much rules out the plan of taking two of the four doses in the middle of the night so I can resume normal levels of nutrient consumption by day.

Trying to follow the medication schedule only highlights the fact that I must, on a normal basis, eat absolutely all day. I’m practically starving with the limitations of this pill taking regime. And I can’t wait for the other side effects, aside from starvation, to kick in. I kid you not, the following ailments are listed as possible side effects of the drug: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea (great fun on fully booked flights), mouth sores, a black hairy tongue (yes, I did say a black hairy tongue. WTF?), sore throat, dizziness, head ache, rectal discomfort (again, WTF?), sensitivity to the sun (perfect for my beach vacation), nail discoloration, muscle pain, difficult or painful swallowing, brown/gray tooth discoloration, numbness of the hands and feet, fatigue, hearing changes (What’s that you say? Someone is trying to kill me?), oral thrush and yeast infection, and that’s just if all goes well. I’m supposed to just sit back and endure the black, hairy tongue and the tooth discoloration but should sit up and take notice, call my doctor (who is obviously trying to poison me) if I should develop a fever, the chills, acute abdominal pain, bloody stool, white patches in my mouth, trouble breathing, chest pains and a fast irregular heart beat.

I’m trying to accept the inevitability of all this. It’s Murphy’s Law, right? Plan a trip to Florida and the Gods will smite thee with pestilence and dramatic weather events. So wish me luck, on-time air travel, a pink healthy tongue and cooperative high pressure systems for the next seven days.

I will try to post a few times from my parents’ retirement community but I’m not sure they’ve discovered wireless access down in those parts. It’s still dial-up and regular cable television. It’s simple living. I will adapt.

Oh good brave folks who traverse the waves and endure the heart stopping chill of the January surf, may the year bring you wealth and health and enough wisdom to stay home next year so that I am not needed as photographer and witness to your stupidity. May the dawn of ‘09 find us all snug a bed, finally having found the grace and good sense to forgo all this New Year’s nonsense.

“Fine,” I said. “You need me to have a resolution? Well, here it is…I resolve to clean out my sock drawer. Once and for all, take all those lonely, worn, little socks that have no partner and throw them all away. That’s my resolution.” And, two days left in December, I yanked open the drawer in question and cleaned the heck out of it. Restored order to the mayhem. And then I said, “Not even 2008 and my resolution – already accomplished.”

My Better Half left the room, disgusted with my efficiency. My near perfection just bothering the hell out of him.

And I began to think that maybe, rather than choosing our own resolutions, we should all turn to our loved ones and say, “Hey, what’s the one thing I should resolve to do this year?” Because I’m pretty damn sure that My Better Half has a few things he’d like me to change and God Knows I could make a list of things that he should accomplish in ‘08. And if he weren’t a regular reader of this blog, I’d give you the run down. But that’d really rock the world, shake the fragile foundations of the institution of marriage. Imagine how much fun we’d all have drafting resolutions for our loved ones. “I, CCE’s Better Half, resolve to stop chewing so loudly. To drink less. To sleep on my right side so as not to wake my sleeping wife with my god-awful snoring.” We’d all have so much fun pointing out each others’ failures and inconsistencies right up until the divorce papers were served. So we’ll leave that idea at the curb, there with the tired, used Christmas tree, once beautiful and fawned over, now neglected and worthless. Dead, dead, dead.

On New Year’s morning, standing there in the thin sunshine of a thirty degree morning, listening to the waves and the gulls, bundled against the wind, I watched the crazy people I know (my brother, my nieces, My Better Half, my best friend’s husband and my O included), run wildly for the surf, dashing for the cold waves of the Atlantic in nothing but their swim suits. And I resolved to never let the frigid ocean spray touch my delicate feet on the first of the New Year. They can have the accolades, the earned heroism. I would surely die of a heart attack or hypothermia. I resolved to never be a member of the Craigville Beach Polar Bear Club.

And while I was at it, I also resolved to never run a marathon. I prefer the quick torture of a sprint. Around the block and back. An ass-kicking dash. All over with in twenty minutes.

I resolved to pay less attention to the dirty kitchen floor and the collection of soiled clothes in the hamper because no one ever says, after a person’s death, “Damn, was her house immaculate or what?”

I resolved to give in to moments of lethargy and watch stupid television every once and awhile because it is not a crime to miss a day at the gym, to forgo one Nautilus circuit for a snippet of Project Runway.

I resolved to serve a few meals a week from the package, to make it simple, spend more time reading books and playing on-line poker and less time conjuring up the homemade meal that the family will decide is disgusting and refuse to eat anyway.

I resolved to let the laundry pile up in the hamper until the lack of clean underwear necessitates a wash.

I resolved to cry more and wallow in self pity and give in to guilt and worry about money and to love and loathe and feel things through and through.

I resolved to live 2008 for me and no one else. As the swimmers’ towels drifted down the beach, picked up and carried yards away by a stiff wind off the water, I turned and trudged back to the car. Resolved to let them chase their own warmth and comfort as it raced away in the opposite direction.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holiday, Feliz Navidad and all that good stuff. Picture me here, in my living room, basking in the glow of the tree and sipping a little souped up nog. Hold that picture for a few days. It’s a good one. One I wish were close to the truth of what’s really going on here. The snow is lovely. That’s a start. But, when admiring that photo of the winter wonderland outside our living room windows, you must also imagine the fresh hell of ice dams on the roof, causing all melt water to pool and course into the window frames, collect in the sills and pour over onto the hard wood floors. You must imagine me discovering this interesting and disastrous winter effect only minutes before my son’s class party is to take place and the in-laws are to arrive by plane from Florida.

Gasp. Make that a thermos of souped up nog!

Yesterday, 7:30 a.m., I received a call from my son’s teacher – Mr.S. There are few people I care to talk to at such an early hour. He is an exception, an affable, boyish, disorganized exception. He was calling to say that the party I had planned for the class will have to be rescheduled due to his forgetfulness. It appears the children have a school sponsored sing-a-along, the timing of which completely conflicts with our holiday fete. Usually such a snafu would have me cursing the ineptitude of the teacher at fault but this is Mr. S, so I calmly said, “It’s not a big deal that I now I have to call 25 parents and beg their forgiveness for changing the party time just two days in advance. Actually, it’ll give me a chance to connect with other Mom’s and Dad’s. It’s a blessing, a total blessing.”

With my forgiveness apparent, I could sense his relief. He explained that he has been tired and less than productive lately. He has had trouble keeping appointments and remembering scheduled events. A few months ago, he and his wife purchased their first home. And have spent every minute of their free time and every spare penny renovating the top floor as an apartment. They need to take on a tenant who will pay rent and help them pay their mortgage. The renovations have been costly and excruciatingly slow as they have only weekends to devote to laying new floors and replacing windows. He and his wife are exhausted and broke and losing faith in their ability to get the project done before the holidays. His despair, when he mentioned that he had little to give his most deserving wife this holiday season, was palpable and true.

He explained, rather sheepishly, that his plans for a X-mas gift for her are, in fact, a little home spun. He floated his idea out there as if hoping I wouldn’t laugh or scoff or otherwise deem it foolish and pathetic. Instead, hearing the earnestness in his voice, I wanted to sing out – “Oh, young love, Oh, the Spirit of Christmas. I am restored.”

Without a penny in his pocket, he will develop and draft a blue print for an artist’s studio. He will build this little space entirely devoted to his wife’s artistic gifts in the basement of their new home. He will deliver the scrolled plans, all bows and promises, with an IOU to begin work on it as soon as their tenant is installed in the upstairs apartment. I said, “This, Mr. S, is an excellent plan.” It’s so Gift of the Magi, so perfect with the spirit of Christmas. And like the character in the O’Henry story, his name is Jim. And his wife is Julie which isn’t exactly Della but has the same number of letters. I am so happy for this Julie who has a husband who gets it. And, simultaneously, I could die, pining away with wishing for someone to make ME a writer’s studio in the empty upstairs bedroom that has been home to only the cat litter-box for two years.

I can only hope that his wife has not sold her paint brushes on Ebay in order to purchase him a new belt sander of nail gun. Because, let it be said, “…that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.” (O’ Henry)

It’s deciding to make holiday cookies with the kids. Beginning the project with visions of iced snowflakes, all delicate home spun decoration, and Santa’s with bright red frosting, the fur lined coat made of carefully piped frosting, his boots black with tinted sugar and, instead, having your children insist on making only gingerbread men so they can remove their heads and create homunculous-people, cookie freaks with eyes where their necks should be. It’s pulling out the camera to photograph the whole floury, freakish cookie mess to find that the digital jobbie reads ‘ERROR’. You remove the battery. You turn it on and off. You knock it firmly on the counter and still, it reads ‘ERROR’. You realize all of X-mas will go undocumented because nowhere in the 1200 page manual does it reference the ‘ERROR’ problem. Not in Japanese or German or Spanish or Dutch.

It’s hosting a tree trimming party, setting it up to look just as it does in the magazine spread, pineapple glazed ham and garlic bread crumb macaroni and cheese, a roaring fire and a lifetime’s accumulation of ornaments waiting to festoon the tree. And finding that real, non-magazine spread children are actually suspicious of garlic and sharp cheddar. Real non-magazine spread children whine for hot dogs and don’t give a damn about the provenance of each tiny ornament as they tear into the box spraying tree trimming materials across the living room. Ornaments shatter, cast aside for the dog to consume. No child wears a bow tie or knickers, instead there are faded jeans and torn sweat shirts. There are uncombed hairs and unbrushed teeth and some eight year old’s condemnation of Ella Fitzgerald’s version of Winter Wonderland. “Who’s singing this garbage? It sucks,” he says. He is your son, apparently deaf, who dares to insult Ella on X-mas.

It is four dozen mint chocolate cookie bars baked, frosted and chilled, forty copies of the recipe painstakingly made into paper stars for the cookie swap party that is, hours later, canceled. A snowy winter’s night. Impassable roads. A day’s labor all packaged up and nowhere to go but into the freezer.

It’s buying a garland of white spruce and weaving it round the banister. Adding twinkling lights and a gold leaf swag. Admiring the fresh greens for only a day before the needles start dropping, inciting thoughts of flammability – the whole house torched for the love of one god damned festive banister. It is removing the holiday fire hazard some ten days before X-mas and clogging the vacuum hose with pine needles. It is hauling the Electrolux Diplomat all the way across state borders to have white spruce needles removed from its internal organs.

It is renting the modern Peter Billingsley classic, A Christmas Story, with the glee of finally being able to share the Red Rider bee-bee gun and the belching furnace and the little brother dressed up tight as a tick in his snow clothes with your own children, only to find your youngest unmoved by the comic brilliance. She says over and over again, “When is it going to get funny, Mom? You promised it would be funny.” And your oldest child asks pointed and uncomfortably mature questions about the narration, “What does he mean when he says ‘like sex illuminated in the window, Mom’?” “Oh nothing, honey,” you’ll say and find him googling ’sex’ later on because you wouldn’t answer his simple question.

It’s ‘Dreaming of a White Christmas’ right along with Elvis and Bing and Frank and Billie Holiday before you realize that a white Christmas translates into two snow days with the kids home from school, house bound due to frigid temperatures; several horrible icy wipe outs while carrying boxes addressed to family that live in Florida and Georgia (they have no idea); one bruised and swollen elbow having been pinched gruesomely between the heavy sliding doors of your ancient garage while trying to find the snow shovel; and a driveway that could be used for speed skating drills but, instead is the harrowing, slick trail of death you must brave each day on the way to school, to the gym, or to the mail box.

It is expecting that people show some self restraint and leave the boxes that UPS and FedEX insist on leaving at the top of your driveway-of-death well enough alone, but instead find that someone grinchy has actually begun stealing them. It is eight days before Christmas and panicked re-orders and phone calls are made to complain to package delivery services about theft and liability and the tears your children will weep on Christmas when their gifts from Santa never arrive.

And finally, it is taking the kids to the library and checking out Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol to be read in front of the fire at night, only to find that the late 19th century masterpiece is too dense, too inaccessible. The kids are confused by intricacies of past, present and future. They give up and have fallen fast asleep on the couch by the time you utter the famous phrase, “What’s Christmastime to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books, and having every item in ‘em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,’ said Scrooge indignantly, ‘every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!’” And just a little bit of you agrees.

What does he know about a ladies-only gift grab? Turns out nothing.

The beaded curtain rattled with impropriety as I swept aside reservations and entered the den of iniquity – the back room of the costume shop. I sifted through cock rings and weekend sex kits and flavored condoms, looking for just the right thing, something unusual, something under twenty-five dollars. And there it was, the Tickling Turtle Strap-on Vibrator. At the time, it just screamed perfect. The woman on the box, all dark hair and nudity, back arched in sweet release as the little green turtle nestled into her crotch. This will be the hit of the evening, I thought, the gift that everyone talks about and gushes over. There will be jokes about loaning it to a friend whose husband is away on business. “A turtle? Why a turtle and not a frog? Why an amphibian at all,” someone will say. This will be hashed out. Women with ruby red drinks and flushed cheeks debating the animal chosen for pleasurable purposes.

I wrapped that turtle in snow white tissue. I tied it up in a cranberry-colored satin bow and glued on little gold stars. On the night of the party, I slipped into the hostess’s living room with the designer tree decked out in stars and shells and slid it in among the other gift-grab packages, undetected. No one saw me do it. And thank god.

I knew I had made a grave mistake when the first grab was made, the gift bag opened to reveal a Starbucks gift card. My stomach dropped to the floor when the next package housed a set of coasters embossed with pictures of Tuscany. It went on like that, imported olive oil, a cook book, bath salts. Not one even slightly Naughty gift beneath the tree. Oh shit, where’s the bathroom, I thought. Is there a window. Can I fit?. I was still searching for the perfect escape from my own bad judgment when the woman wearing the Christmas tree neck scarf and velvet blazer drifted towards the tree, her bangled arm reaching for that cranberry bow, the gold stars twinkling.

And she unwrapped it there, in a room quiet with expectation. She swept the tissue paper aside to reveal the Tickling Turtle. She looked nothing like the woman on the box. She gasped. Her hand opened and the turtle fell to the floor. She jumped back as if she’d been burned. The crowd of curious party goers pressed towards the tree to better understand the insult. I thought the neck scarf/blazer woman might cry. But instead she picked it up, carefully holding it by the corner of the packaging, distancing herself from filthy thoughts of masturbation. She crossed the room and snatched the holiday china set from the clutches of another unlucky gift-grabber, placing the Turtle in this woman’s hands. A fair exchange, vibrator for dessert plates. And it was passed like that, the hot potato, from one party guest to the next until it rested there on the coffee table, the last recipient unable to even claim her gift for shame of association.

I went home with moisturizing lip scrub and thoughts of the Tickling Turtle discarded with the litter of the season or, I like to think, opened in the quiet of a living room. The hostess left to discover the magic of the season, there before the X-mas tree amongst the empty glasses and torn paper and ribbon strewn across the floor. Batteries included.