Sunday, December 25, 2011.
Christmas Is A Little Old, A Lot New.
When Christmas was in its peak years for our family, Jude and Mary Leigh were up long before dawn (as in 4:30 a.m.) to open presents. The past decade saw them rise on the classic teenage schedule--nine or ten in the morning--regardless of how great the gifts under the tree. That interfered with our arrival on time at even the latest possible Christmas Mass, precipitating tensions that didn't fit well with the peacefulness of the holiday.
Meanwhile, an enormous majority of Catholics seem to have moved Christmas Mass to Christmas Eve. Late-morning celebrations have become rare. Last year, we missed Mass entirely because of this. This year, Mary Ann found a noon Mass at St. Benedict's in Lakeview--a neighborhood nowhere near any other place we would be today. We barely made that, and only by postponing the opening of the presents until Christmas evening.
So it was that the joyous moment once again returned to the dark hours. Then we discovered what we already knew: that none of the presents were particularly exciting. For example, even though I had more packages than anyone else, all of them contained were bags of flavored coffees.
Nobody complained. Jude has been saying for rather a long time that we have given him plenty enough by encouraging and occasionally supporting his L.A. lifestyle. Mary Leigh is thrilled to be going on the vacation we will commence in two days. And Mary Ann actually doesn't like getting presents. She freely writes checks to all her favorite charities with the money we might otherwise have spent on her.
Between Mass and gift-unwrapping was Christmas dinner at the new home of Mary Ann's big sister Sylvia. It was the first day on which she actually lived in the place. Nice digs, with a great kitchen opening onto all the other living rooms.
Sylvia has decided that the perfect main dish for Christmas is spaghetti and meatballs. She has served that the last few years, after going with turkey and pork loin for the previous decade. As far as I know, there is no Italian blood in the family. We don't know, really, how this got started. But we enjoy it well enough.
Mary Ann's spinach-artichoke dip--based on a recipe I got from Steve Stonebreaker when he operated a restaurant in Metairie--was scarfed down in record time. The mushroom casserole was less well received, as was the pimiento cheese dip, a dish I don't understand. Whoever brought the green bean casserole did a great job. My cheesecake experiment was a success, although some of the guests were dubious when I told them that the crust was made out of cereal. Only two of the sixteen slices slices came home, though.
In general, our family agreed that Christmas was different from the ones we used to know. But then again, which two Christmases were exactly the same?
