So says Mike Albo in this New York Times piece. (H/T to Ann Althouse).
WHENEVER someone asks where I’ll be for the holidays, I always do the same thing: roll my eyes and say, exasperatedly: “I guess I’m going home for Christmas. Hope I don’t go insane!”
It’s been part of my conversational repertory since my early 20s, the time when you start having to prove to yourself that you are a self-governing adult, but before you realize that adulthood basically involves complex and enervating tasks like Internet dating, shopping for jeans, trying to remember your 15 various log-on codes and passwords, and deciphering your Verizon bill.
Now I am 37 years old and I can’t wait to go insane at Christmas in that comfortable padded cell known as “home.” Instead of being tedious, going home has become an indulgent retreat from my fried-out issue-driven city life. It is a place where I line my mind and body with the fatty lard of my suburban youth and experience not one moment of regret.
For a brief week, I get to be as ugly and out of it as Americans are always accused of being, and no one has to see it.
Ahh, to go home and not have to be an adult for a week. I don't know what I'd do with such a luxury. Or what my husband or kids would do, for that matter.
When my mom was alive, every Sunday was a little bit of Christmas break that way. It was a chance to go back, eat lots of stuff I'd never fix for myself, play several games of Scrabble with Mom, laugh at my (now oldest) niece and nephew, and then dump all the minutiae of my life on my mother.
Dad was always there, too, ready to argue politics, liberal media bias, and why 60 Minutes was undermining the American way of life. I didn't pour out the details of my life to him for some reason. To Mom's "local," Dad was "global." The big picture guy. The philosophical debate person.
But Mom--Mom!--She was homemade biscuits and cream puffs, arts and crafts projects, sewing lessons, and kitchen table chat. She was hugs and kisses and stroking your hair. She was 80 gifts under the Christmas tree because she kept finding things she thought you'd like and so she just kept buying them or making them.
Since my mother passed away nearly 11 years ago, Christmas has moved on to my house and my brother's house and my sister's house. We don't have a single unitary Christmas like we once did. We all have our own family Christmases with their own quirks and traditions. My in-laws come over, usually with more gifts than I've ever seen outside a department store, and my husband and I make the dinner. Then we go see my father, who doesn't like to get out much except to Denny's these days.
These days, we also have to juggle doing our celebration with the schedule for the oldest daughter. Divorce is terrible and one of the consequences is that the holidays always have an undercurrent of "who's turn is it this year?" to them. So, this year, we'll do the bigger celebration the day after Christmas, only doing quiet stuff Christmas day.
I miss going home for Christmas, but mostly, I just miss my mother. Every day.
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