Monday, December 1, 1997
Holidays bring about those unforgettable winter tales
COLUMN: Family, season festivities, traditions keep time
together interesting
As the holidays approach, I think we all get a little
sentimental. The scent of cognac and microwaved red vino filling
the streets reminds us of Dad, the sight of frozen lasagna and
advertisements for grocery store precooked turkeys reminds us of
Mom, and the sound of unamplified electric guitar strings being
scratched at to the off-tune squealings of "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath"
reminds us of our older brother, Brian.
And then we think of Mom getting crocked at the last Super Bowl
Sunday party we had, cussing out the head coach of the Niners for
benching Steve Young, and Dad maniacally making Brian eat an entire
bowl of tomatoes when he was seven just because he knew Brian
detested them, and Brian ripping off our covers every Saturday
morning that we felt like sleeping in past 9:00 a.m. and we just
have to crack open another Pabst Blue Ribbon, with a tear in our
eye, and sigh. Ahh, home.
A recent roommate poll found the winter festivities just as
exciting in every household across the country.
Jen: "One year over Thanksgiving, when I was seven, I remember
my uncle made me eat grass. He was 23 and he thought it was really
funny."
Liz: "When I was pretty young and we were still living in New
York, our car stalled after coming back from the Thanksgiving day
parade so we had dinner at a deli."
Sam: "I must have been around four because my parents were still
together, and I remember feeling totally sick. I couldn’t even eat
my pancakes. My folks knew something was wrong, so we spent
Christmas at the hospital."
And what, you might ask, is my most enjoyable holiday memory?
Probably the year Uncle Bob told off-color jokes concerning Mexican
youths just across the border filling out applications for Los
Angeles high schools. We all sort of glanced at each other with
looks of horror as he discussed graphic prostitution jobs and gang
rituals. Gee, that Uncle Bob, he’ll have you rolling.
I remember one time he came to a dinner party that we had for a
Swedish co-worker of my Dad’s, and not two paces over the
threshold, he starts talking about U.C. Buerling, this Swedish
opera star. The co-worker barely spoke English and next thing you
know he gets his ear talked off for an hour about some obscure dead
baritone. Now that Uncle Bob has a glass eye and has just taken
retirement, he’s become that much more entertaining. You can count
on him to bring over the Hillsboro Argus every Sunday morning, a
local Oregon paper that tells about who’s doing what in the town my
Dad left about 30 years ago.
But my Mom still wonders if he ever did leave in actuality. Who
knows, the old man may still care what happened to old great aunt
so-and-so the other day on the way to the Pic and Save. I take that
back. He does care, there remains no doubt in my mind.
And then there’s always Uncle Alan. He’s good for getting tanked
with you and giggling about how ridiculous your parents are. He may
be about 60, but he knows a bull-shitter when he sees one. And
believe me, the VanderZanden clan is full of them, myself included.
All we like to do is talk and talk and talk. It really makes no
difference about what. We’re authorities on anything you might
think you know something about.
But, hypocritical Uncle Alan fares no better. Sure, he’ll bring
a couple of chocolate See’s candy turkeys over and blab about how
the winner at Tripoly, a poker-esque card game tradition we’ve all
come accustomed to, gets to chow on chocolate, but you have to
listen to him go on about wanting to write a novel in a rainy
cottage in Scotland and how people should be more accepting and
yet, conversely, how half of America is full of idiots, before you
can get your hands on that decadent turkey. But he’ll look you
squarely in the eye, well, actually sort of shakily, after several
bottles of English stout and a few before-dinner gin and tonics and
mid-dinner glasses of Chardonnay, and tell you never to change.
Never to trade-in your green and purple hair for brown, your
squaw braids and headband with paper feather attached for barrettes
(Hey, let’s not forget our native pals on this traditional day.
Someone’s got to represent the original Thanksgiving participants,
and I don’t know any Native Americans personally. So I like to take
up the slack.) or your bright pink velvet mid-’80s high school
formal dress for a sedate, cotton brown frock. Or maybe he just
likes having someone to drink with. No matter.
And then there’s Uncle Dick and Hazel. Neither older party
offers much in the way of intrigue, but every once in a while old
Uncle Dick has been known to wield his wry wit in a number of
hilarious ways and Hazel, well, she makes a damn fine vegetable
dip. So there you go.
It all adds up to a bunch of drunken crazy folks hugging,
kissing and making fun of one another. The best sort of family
lifestyle I can imagine. I mean, sure, it’s not "The Donna Reed
Show," but hell, who wants that? Does Donna Reed ever spend
Christmas Eve splitting the remaining wine that she hid from her
guests with you in the kitchen, grinning from one 60-year-old cheek
to the next, her bleached blond hair cascading down her forehead,
saying "We deserve this – they didn’t cook. They aren’t planning on
doing the dishes. They just come here and eat. Screw ’em. This
wine’s ours." Rock on, Mom, battle warrior of the domestic home
front.
And, would Mr. Donna Reed blast Maria Callas so loud that it
reaches the sidewalk on a Saturday night at midnight, as he offers
you brandy and a discussion on 18th century Spanish sword-fighting
techniques? Sure, today this sort of pathetic attempt at
communication sort of disgusts me, but when I was around five, it
made me feel really mature. I mean, I had no idea back then that
the only reason he talked to me about stuff that I didn’t
understand was because he was too tired and drunk to get anyone
else to listen. But now, I realize, no one really understands the
old codger anyways. So whether I listen or not is rather
irrelevant, I mean, he’ll talk to the neighbor’s cat if it happens
to creep in, so, no big deal.
And there’s always Brian, who’s the only decent person I’ve
found to tackle in the past 20 years. Other guys take that form of
affection too seriously. He just tells me "Look out for the Sunday
Punch" which has something to do with some wrestler back in the
’80s and commences to clobber me playfully. Why can’t all guys be
like my big brother?
Even if he does stick my head in his armpit to check if he needs
a shower and seems to be on some kind of a destructive mission to
marry a domenatrix-esque French female who will be "so cool smoking
her cigarette and drinking coffee" that he’ll just spend every day
trying to be worthy. Somehow, the fact that neither of us expect to
find ourselves in an equal, mutually loving relationship endears me
toward him. That and the fact that he could spend hours giving a
dissection of Bruce Springsteen tunes to the extent that I find
myself respecting the otherwise yuppie fan-based artist.
So, yeah my dad’s an alcoholic, my mom’s a lunatic and my
brother’s an ex-frat boy who hasn’t really ever reached the same
inflated social status that he enjoyed in high school, but I love
them. Because they love me. And if they were normal, I might be
content to shop at the Gap and fall in love with some moronic
football star and become a lawyer or a manicurist for a small,
independent beauty shop out in Anytown, USA. Instead, I question my
sanity on a daily basis and flip out obsessive-compulsively about
whether or not the dishes have been done, and I like it that way,
by golly. I really do. And I dig my strange, chaotic childhood and
can only hope this Christmas Eve proves as goofy as the last 19. Or
else, it just wouldn’t be the holidays for me.
VanderZanden is a third-year English student.
Vanessa Vanderzanden