Family tradition: taking bad pics of Grandma lighting the tree
If yours is like my family and watches National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation every year, you know it’s socially acceptable to use alcohol to get you through the holidays. Poor Clark Griswold doesn’t recognize it at first; it takes asking his father how he survived every year. His dad answers, “I had a lot of help from Jack Daniels.”
This line always bothered me, because I didn’t want to admit that my family events are better when moderately lit. But then, I also was disappointed when my dad told me there was no Santa, and I got over it. (But then I asked, and the Easter Bunny? and he said don’t push it kid.)
Regardless, I think it’s safe to say that in most families, alcohol plays an important role in bringing everyone together. Or at least that’s what I tell myself when my dad hands me the second beer of Christmas Eve afternoon.
Traditionally the holiday kicks-off around 3pm when we open the first IPA of the day and put the soundtrack to the musical Hair on the turntable. Because, I mean, fuck Bing Crosby; nothing says Christmas like “Aquarius.” About half a beer in we start crooning along while wrapping my mother’s presents.
How this even started is something we discuss around beer number two. My father and I have had this tradition since I was a wee one who didn’t understand all the words. And who didn’t get why dad was giggling when I sang “Cataclysmic ectoplasm / Fallout atomic orgasm,” or why my mother would lean into the room with dagger-eyes that just made my dad laugh harder. This is to say nothing of the songs entitled “Hashish” and “Sodomy.”
Once I was old enough, I sipped beer with him and sang along, “Oh-h say can you see / My eyes if you can? / Then my hair’s too short!” We save the ribboning part for the end, which, two beers or no, is an imaginative free-for-all with ribbon of all sorts, bells, baubles, and LOTS of tape. Straight lines are discouraged.
Immediately afterwards we head to Grandma’s for dinner, where as we sit down she offers us beer — every year it’s something new she didn’t recognize but had a fun label, which is as good a reason as any. She passes them out and grabs one for herself. Being 89 doesn’t mean you don’t know how to have a good time.
The majority of our table is vegetarian, but for this one special night many of us put aside our morals, ethics, and squeamishnesses to ingest our yearly meat in the form of German sauerkraut balls. I maintain that my readiness to gobble one or two or maybe twelve deep-fried nuggets of cabbage and pork has little to do with the three beers in me; rather, the amount of tradition this snack is steeped in negates any philosophical conflicts I may have.
After dinner and presents, I awkwardly balance beer, dessert, and coffee on my lap during the lighting of the German Christmas tree. My grandmother is in charge of this task, though every other adult in the room sits on the edge of their chair, poised to toss beverage of choice on her should she alight.
We sit as a family in the candlelit room, watching the kaleidoscopic patterns of shadow on the ceiling, listening to the story of the 135-year-old family heirloom. This relic of my family history spins hypnotically, its three tiers holding wooden trees, toys, and figurines that my late grandfather made before I was born. Eventually we all sit in silence, the furnace ticking softly in the background, until one of us nods off.
When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars
–The Age of Aquarius