No Place Like Home (Full Version)

Raindrops broke the surface tension in the pool, piercing the water in tight circles and dissolving into nothingness. So began our Christmas Day this year – a dreary sunless sky composed of silence. No sounds of laughter, holiday greetings, or excited dogs. Just a disquiet peace. I made coffee and started to make breakfast hoping the smells of biscuits and bacon would rouse the rest of the sleeping family.

Just the three of us. We had celebrated Christmas Eve together the day before, my husband, my younger son, my older son and daughter-in-law, and their 3-month-old son. They lugged the car seat, diaper bag, and bottles inside, along with a few other odds and ends. We had set aside other essentials for them to take back with them, and I Aunt Bethany’d some of their Christmas presents by wrapping up everyday things we were giving them like shop towels and Advil. I overdid the baking and 14 tins of assorted cookies were filled. Jars and bowls had candy and chocolate-covered pretzels. Their stockings overflowed. I made arroz con picadillo for an early dinner and eggnog pie

for dessert; I accidentally set out six plates. Perhaps I thought one setting was for C. My husband and I took turns holding their beautiful baby, our first grandson, as we listened to the holiday playlist on Spotify.

The smell of a baby’s head is like no other; it’s a deep-rooted, shared mother-thing that connects all of us and somehow reminds us of our own childhood. He had his little Christmas shirt on, his face everchanging with new emotions, and his fuzzy red hair and precious stork-bite just like his father had. He’s started to smile more, sleep more consistently, and his curious eyes darted around fascinated with Christmas lights and ceiling fans. Swaying back and forth, I held onto him, gazing into his eyes, soaking up every last moment with him.

Last moment because two days later they’d move far away to the other side of the state. Providence had smiled upon my eldest; he earned his PhD and then landed a federal job making good money. A new baby, a new home, a new city, and far from home – they’d have to rely on each other to make it all come together. I looked down at C and thought, “How long will it be until we see each other again?” My mind drifted away to earlier years, much earlier, when my whole family spent Christmas Day together.

Growing up in the northeast, winter snow adds to the excitement of Christmas. Out from the attic would come the winter-weather clothing from scratchy sweaters to puffy jackets and woolen mittens. I remember my dad changing out the screens for glass windows in the add-on porch to keep that room warm. When the heat of the oven and steam from the gas stove drifted into the porch, the windows would fog up, and we kids would draw pictures of snowflakes on the glass. Our tiny Chihuahua, Twiggy, was perpetually cold. The Mirro Press helped my mom and Nonny (my grandmother) with baking cookies. This was the mid-60s; “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” “Frosty,” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” were on TV, and we looked forward to the big day with uncontained excitement. We’d listen to Brenda Lee singing “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” There’d be Christmas plays and events at school in Tappan. We’d eat on that porch each year for all the holidays. The giant pine trees in the front yard had branches covered with snow most winters. Being that young, I’m not really sure who showed up on Christmas, but I do remember my next older brother making me laugh.

All because of Superbaby. My brother took the infant Jesus from our family manger set and tied a piece of tinsel around its waist. He fastened the other end to a bottom branch, and Jesus would come rescue the other toys from disaster and mayhem. The little baby swinging back and forth must have been hypnotic because I could watch it for hours. I had no idea what a manger was, so nothing seemed profane at the time. I also remember sneaking down the stairs to catch Santa in the act of putting presents under the tree. We didn’t have a chimney so I wondered how he’d get in. As usual, I’d end up asleep on the stairs until someone put me back in bed. The morning would come and the wonder of the tree would unfold.

The old-fashioned glass lights were very hot, often melting the needles of the artificial tree, and we were careful getting the presents from under that tree, all under the watchful eye of Superbaby. On the tree were glitter-encrusted churches, white doves with filament tails, old glass ornaments in hues of pink, blue, and white, blobs of tinsel on the branches, and a pale blue and yellow angel at the top. My mother crafted each of our stockings in red, white, and green felt and sequins down in her sewing room in the cellar. Magically, in the morning candy appeared, Necco wafers, coins, super bouncy balls, tiny water guns, and assorted goodies were stuffed into those stockings. There were jars of ribbon candy and wrapped strawberry hard candy with filling. I did notice that sometimes Santa’s handwriting looked a lot like my mother’s, but I didn’t ponder that information for long. There were Barbies in those boxes, and muñecas, and coloring books to unwrap as we listened to a Christmas album from the local A&P. Dad made sure to document everything on Polaroids with the year automatically stamped in the margins.

We moved to Florida when my parents retired in 1974, and Christmas changed up a little. Christmas Eve always started at my Aunt Dee’s house in Tampa where the haze of her Pall Malls and my mom’s Raleigh Filter Kings hung from the ceiling like a Christmas fog. Her tree (a real one!) was in the Florida room, and the cousins would hang out in there, trying to get a peek through the wrapping on our presents. We were given permission to open one gift that night; the boys usually got another ball while the girls always received another purse. During the summer we’d still find and step on pine needles in the olive-green shag carpet in her sunken living room. We played cards and Monopoly after eating the black beans and rice at the kids’ table as the parents conversed for hours. After that house, we went to another relatives’ house near the Tampa Stadium for dessert and coffee. It was there I introduced my now-husband to my family for the first time in 1987.

Christmas Day was at our parents’ house in Land O’ Lakes, out on the back porch again, only now the weather didn’t require glass windows. Their terrier, Troubles, danced around the excitement. The traditional holiday meal spread out among three long tables covered with plastic tablecloths; my dad would wear an apron and a silly Santa hat to make the kids giggle. Nearly the same batch of cousins were consigned to the kids’ table once again. It wouldn’t be until I had nieces and nephews that I graduated to the grown-up table. Sometimes my brothers would play guitars and sing together. This is all captured on the videos and my dad’s professional-grade camera for all posterity.

The early 1990s came, and I moved out, got married, and had boys of our own. It’s also when I first started mailing out family letters with our Christmas cards detailing the year to our family and friends. We no longer went to our aunt’s house the night before Christmas but I still put up and decorated the same tree my parents bought when I was born in 1965 at their house, the decorations stored in a blue and brass steamer trunk with leather handles. During the first few years of our sons’ lives, it was normal to go directly to my parents’ house 45 minutes away on Christmas Day. When our boys were a little older, we waited for them to break into their presents before going to gramma and grandpa’s house. They’d kiss Tia goodbye, and brought a few of their new toys with them to keep them busy. They were super-excited the year my dad bought and fixed up a go-kart to race all over their spacious two acres in the countryside.

We moved an hour north from Palm Harbor when the boys were older to get a bigger house and a little more property in New Port Richey. No longer going out Christmas Eve, we stayed home and watched movies with Muddy and Max on cable like “Christmas Vacation” and “A Christmas Story.” The holiday migrated to our new house so my parents didn’t have to work so hard. In the morning, we used our cell phones to snap photos of our two boys tearing into their presents, the fake fireplace on the computer screen, sounds of Christmas coming from Time-Life CDs, and smell of food to come. And those stockings! What treasures would they find in there? What did Santa bring? Pokeman or Yu-gi-oh cards? GameBoy cartridges? Smiles on those faces

could shine brighter than the balsam-scented candles on the table. A knock on the door and my parents, aunt, and uncle came in with bags of presents and casseroles of food. Soon after my brothers would come in with their wives and kids in tow, ready to celebrate on the back porch with extended tables covered in red and green tablecloths and festooned with green ivy and poinsettias. The dogs salivated as savory smells emanated from the kitchen.

At dinner, conversations traveled from bills and taxes to health and gossip, from news items and sales to birds and cars. Almost every topic you could imagine, shared from all corners of the table. We watched the boys, making sure they didn’t stray too far off, and most of the time they scurried back to their rooms to play with their new toys. Black beans and rice, platanos, toasted Cuban bread, roasted pork, mojo-drenched baked potatoes sliced lengthwise on metal trays were the most revered of Christmas dinners; I can’t remember having any other meal for Christmas.

After clean-up, we gathered back around the table, fresh coffee and dessert ready to be served. A pecan pie, pumpkin pie, or key lime would make its way to the table, cookies baked in earnest, and other sweets around the table. Plates made their way around, and more conversation accompanied the slowed-down part of the meal. Nearly 20 people were usually in attendance before they would peel off and head toward their homes. My folks always had to go home early to feed Lady, my dad’s precious Shih-tzu, always worried she would “bust” from being inside all day.

When our oldest entered 6th grade, it was time to tell him about Santa since his friends might blurt it out, breaking his heart. I didn’t want him defending Santa at school. He thought about it, and then asked me, “You buy the presents?” I said I did. I could see the gears in his head turning. “So all I have to do is ask you?” I said yes, and he figured out the rest. I could see how the deceit stung him a little. A few years later it was time to tell the youngest. It was harder; he believed whole-heartedly in Santa, and we had to tell him that we helped him by buying the presents ourselves. Confusion first but understanding came later. To this day, I still write “From Santa” on all the presents, including the ones I bought for myself and wrapped.

However, as all our children grew up, they found partners and re-routed their own plans. Sometimes they joined in later; others left earlier to visit the other sets of parents and grandparents. The meals stayed the same, and eventually I got smart and had the food catered so I didn’t get stuck in the kitchen and miss out on the conversation. Sometimes to-go boxes were made up for those who couldn’t make it; there was always plenty of food for unexpected guests and leftovers.

The year my father died, 2011, holidays started to feel different. It was as if the one person who tied all of Christmas together was gone, and we started to fray at the ends. My mom was still there, but the grandkids weren’t always around. Numbers dwindled each year until there were about nine of us. We didn’t know it then, but there’d be only seven more Christmases with my mom, the last person tying us all together as we started to break along the seams.

My mother’s passing in 2018 changed everything forever. A bitterness fractured the family and split us down the middle. My mother had left a note reminding us to stick together, to spend the holidays together, but that was not meant to be. We had traded off holidays, my Superbaby-brother and I, and we tried to keep traditions going as long as we could. Time seeped in, and all our children became adults, with extended families and many different people to visit during the holidays. We also discovered that not everyone liked black beans and rice. It was time to switch things up.

My brother’s wife likes to make lasagna. I attempted arroz con picadillo from scratch using my mom’s recipe. We were free to make whatever we felt and encouraged family and friends to bring covered dishes. Even these get-togethers started slowing down until we eventually spent our holidays with our own immediate families. This brings me back around to Christmas Day 2023.

Our beach-themed Christmas tree had pine-scented sticks hidden in the branches, white lights twinkling and a silver and white starfish on top. Glass fish and glittered shells covered the tree. Fir and cranberry candles were lit around the house and on the porch. The smell of breakfast brought out my husband and other younger son out of their slumber and to the back porch with the blue and white lights by the window. Bacon, biscuits and gravy, scrambled eggs, corned beef hash, and either eggnog or apple cider were on the menu while dinner later would be ropa vieja and blueberry pie. The Christmas plates sat on silver placemats on a blue and white sparkly tablecloth with a beachy Santa Claus in the middle. We sneaked some food to Elektra and Bo. I put peanuts out in the bird feeder, and we watched the birds have their breakfast as the rain died down. Cardinals, crows, bluejays, titmouses (titmice?), wrens, mockingbirds, and a red-headed woodpecker came to visit.

The excess calories made us sleepy, so we took midday naps. I spotted my parents’ old photo albums up on a shelf and became nostalgic without opening them; the photos would still be fresh in my memory. Would my mom and dad be proud of who we all are today? They’d be disappointed by the separation of the family. However, I know for a fact they would’ve fawned over C the entire time, but the Venn diagrams of their lives had a symmetric difference of at least five years.

Melancholia was setting in, so I decided to go for a walk outside in that gray mist after the morning rain. I pulled up a Spotify playlist of that Time-Life album from many years ago and pondered what to do as C grew up. An idea was hatched in my mind, and I will bring it to fruition one day. I will keep my VCR/DVD combo, and one day I’ll pop in a disk or tape, and we will watch “Rudolph” and “Charlie Brown” as we nibble on poorly-created Mirro Press cookies and drink hot cocoa. I will pull down those photos and show him the past. He may be either two or twenty years old at the time, but I promise to continue sharing my Christmas memories with him as he creates his own.

~~La La Abuela, December 25, 2023