Navigating Christmas After a Death

I was just telling some friends of mine about what our Christmas was like immediately after my mom died, and thinking about it made me laugh, so I thought it would be a decent blog post. Yes, the pictures are unrelated. :) Hope you can deal. Of course you can, because my pictures are often unrelated. Also, I'm not totally convinced I can do this story justice with such a short blog post. Each one part should really have its own post, and I wish I had related pictures.

A quick note about these pictures, though. We took the kids to Hyde Park on Monday. They're having this really cool Winter Wonderland area with a Christmas market, Santa's village, a carniVUL, not a carniVAL, and a circus (to Mr. A: "Would you like to go to the circus?" Mr. A: "No, that's ok." Of course he doesn't want to do something FUN. He'd rather run around yelling with excitement over common squirrels.). Mr. A got to go on a really weird carnival ride, Mini-Minion sat in a faux-Cinderella carriage, and both kids got to meet Santa. It was a great day, although we learned the hard way for a second time that Converse are NOT the shoes for snow. Ahh. . .will I never learn? Never.

Ok, so back to the blog topic. Picture this. . .My mom died the day after Thanksgiving in 2004. We won't get into all the details, because it doesn't matter for this story. My brother (R) was 12 (almost 13) at the time, and I was just determined that he was coming back to Paris with us for Christmas. In my typical bull-headed fashion, we got his dad to say yes, I spent a ridiculous amount of money getting his passport in two days, and then we just booked his return ticket for when *I* felt like it. There was no discussion with anyone. I felt he should go home on January 2nd or 3rd (whichever it was), so that's when he was going. It's a wonder people like me at all. I think I'm definitely one of those people you either really love or really hate.

Anyway! This was not going to be a ruined Christmas. Sure, we didn't have our other family members with us, but the four of us were together (remember, this pre-dates Mini-Minion), and that's all that mattered. We threw together a Christmas dinner with our wonderful friends Darci and Marla, both of whom were also teaching English in France. Darci had a friend, Amanda, who was flying in from Atlanta, and who was "crashing" our dinner party. The more the merrier!

I had gained another kid overnight. A greedy, materialistic tween kid who I now had to Christmas shop for. I scrambled around trying to find something to get him in Paris (not exactly the coolest place for a young lad -- "Oh, but I'm telling you, EVERY fashionable boy of 13 is wearing pink Lacoste polos this season!"). I think we expedited The Chapelle Show 1 & 2, The Simpsons 1 & 2, and I got him one of those crystal photo things with the Eiffel Tower or something.

Our house was full, the boys were taken care of present-wise, and I was convinced of my own awesomeness, which I assure you is ALWAYS the first indicator that things are about to go wrong. I made cinnamon gingerbread ornaments as gifts, because I was obviously the second coming of Martha Stewart. They started cracking as soon as they dried. No big deal. I gave one to Darci. When she opened it up, Gingey had been quartered. ("Here's a gift that comes from the heart! Merry Christmas!") Sigh.

Christmas Eve, we went strolling around Paris. The boys ice skated at City Hall. We walked by Notre Dame, and the evening mass bells were ringing. I don't possess the writing ability to tell you what it was like. Perfection.

For some reason, I was still on my "Yeah, I'm so totally awesome" delusional kick, so I decided it would be a great idea to make cinnamon rolls from scratch. So I send M to the store to get what I needed. I started making them at 10 or 11pm on Christmas Eve. I made my dough and set it out to rise. By 3am (yes, 3am), I finally accepted defeat and realized my dough was defective. Either that or it had something to do with my dear, sweet, wonderful husband accidentally picking up baking soda instead of baking powder. <--- (the least amusing of M's French adventures)

We had nothing to eat for breakfast, but the boys didn't care. They were excited about their gifts. M had a special one for me. "You remember that disposable camera we found in your mom's room when we were cleaning it out? I had the pictures developed for you." Isn't that sweet? R and I climbed up on the couch together and opened the first packet, excited to see what our mom was taking pictures of. These could have been the last pictures of a family gathering, my baby shower, her with friends. . .who knew? Well, we knew then. They were pictures of some teenage girls we had never seen on a trip to Disneyland. What on earth? Somehow either the cameras or the pictures got switched. Enthusiasm deflated.

Darci and Amanda arrived later that afternoon. Darci pulled M and I aside and said, "I want to pull a prank on Amanda. At dinner, let's tell her it's a Mormon tradition that everyone has to sing a full Christmas carole at the table before anyone can eat." Me: "Umm. . .ok. That sounds pretty ridiculous." D: "I know! It's going to be awesome!"

I tried to make egg nog (my confidence in my own abilities was pretty low at this point, but it obviously wasn't completely depleted) from scratch. . .without any kind of electrical equipment. Yeah. . .just don't. Seriously. Don't ever do that. But the rest of the dinner came out ok, until Darci decided she was the world's greatest gravy maker. I was talking to her, watching her scoop her flour out, put it in the sauce pan, stir a little, and then put another scoop of flour in. Over and over. Finally, I said, "Darci, how much flour are you putting in there?" She looked down and yelled, "Oh my God, it's like paste! I'm so sorry! I ruined Christmas." She spent the rest of the night making comments like, "Wow, look at me, I totally ruined Christmas." and "I bet you don't want to invite me to any holiday dinners again."

We (M, Darci, Amanda, Marla, Alex, Ryan and I) sat down to our gravy-less dinner (I'm not a massive gravy fan, so it made no difference to me), and Darci is giving me the eye. We had discussed our "plan" for Amanda in the kitchen, and we (M and I) were told repeatedly "Ok, but you can't laugh when you tell her." So M cleared his throat and said, "We have a tradition in the Mormon church that no one can eat until everyone around the table has contributed a full Christmas Carole. Darci, will you start?" Oh, plan hitch. No one had told Marla, who was sitting on the opposite side of the table, about our joke. She looked like a deer caught in headlights. Darci starts singing "O Little Town of Bethlehem," but it's coming out that kind of crackly high-pitched sound of someone who's trying really hard not to laugh at her own cleverness. She got through the first verse before turning to Amanda and saying, "I'm just kidding! It's a joke I came up with!" M and I were shaking our heads, Marla was visibly relieved, Amanda seemed confused, and Darci was still laughing at her own joke.

After dinner, we put Alex to bed and we all played Scattergories, which is the worst game ever to play with Darci and Amanda. They came up with the worst answers (Slogan that starts with 'A': "Athletes make for great fitness"). But it was really great to laugh. So in the end, Darci most definitely didn't ruin Christmas, and in spite of everything, that year remains in the top 5 Christmases I've ever had.