A Christmas Story

The wind rushed past my speeding form, and I was grateful for a momentary cool on my flushed face. It was only the temperature change from the basement to the main floor, but it was an icy breeze before the heat upstairs hit me like a suffocating pillow fight strike. We wouldn't stay up here long if the holiday heat continued. It was December 25th in Millard, Nebraska with snow on the ground, but the temp inside was nearing 80 as two more warm bodies came in the front door.

The front door was always opening to more families, especially on Christmas. You would see them arrive before they entered, through the tiny quad window panes at peep hole height. It caught their faces just as they sneered at the door handle. 

At 9 years old I still couldn't manage the unusual handle straight out of the Beast's enchanted castle. It had a button latch for the thumb to push and handle like a coffee mug for your fingers to grip but it was always locked even though adults said it wasn't. Adults don't like having to be interrupted, and stand, and open the door every time the grandchildren get stuck outside. Yet people managed the door and came in at will on Christmas day.

The latch did not dare defy my great aunt with her beehive hair. She came in with a distinctive yell of greeting that caused her hair to quiver under the hairspray. She was amazing, short and buxom with the unknown accent of nowhere Nebraska. She could manage a rural classroom or call a herd of horses in the same breath.

I and the younger grandchildren were waylaid by her in the green walled entryway. We were on a mission but it'd have to wait. Our great aunt wanted hugs all around. She shouted our names to be sure she got them right and squeezed each in turn and said how big we were this year. She reached for me and I went to her. I held my breath and faced her looming bosom. I was enveloped by her chest before her arms succeeded in a hearty squeeze. I never really thought about it much, but on days like Christmas with many aunts, I really hoped I'd grow taller than chests someday and be able to breathe above them at family functions. 

I waited while cousins 1 and 2 got swallowed by the great aunt's envelope, in her jolly Christmas vest. Then two of my brothers met the same fate. We all grinned and nodded while we reinflated our lungs. The aunt moved on to the living room full of teenagers to administer another dose of lethal embraces. I scraped up the four boys in the younger kid posse and motioned them towards the stairs. We raced up them like a wolf pack, on all fours, low to the ground for speed. 

These were special stairs – with a railing just for balance and one just for decorating. The short left one was spindled and collected all our books, cameras, purses, and more between the step edges for safe keeping. The spindles were individually wrapped by Grandma in red and white streamers for over 2 dozen, perfectly striped candy cane sticks leading upstairs. We just couldn't touch them or they'd tear. We dashed past them as fast as possible. We were all a little breathless as we burst into the “north bedroom.”

“Okay. I have a notebook in my bag. We can use that and I think I have a pen. There!” I found what I wanted and turned to go. The bright green and white “pine tree” wallpaper glared in stark contrast around me and almost made me dizzy.
“Wait! Bring that bag with yesterday's notes. That can be the ransom money,” my brother reminded me of yesterday's game as he spotted a dilapidated vintage purse beside my exploded suitcase.
“Great!” They snagged the needed articles and all started off down the honey wood floors, sliding purposefully past the staircase on their socks, a few gliding all the way to the opposite bed room on the perfectly smooth surface. Everything slid deliciously on that floor. No dust dared to exist in Grandma's house. Even the door weights were clean and ready for a ball. I stopped as the elephant boys tumbled down the stairs, forgetting our sneaky operation. I hit the floor quickly and ripped my socks off by the toes. I wouldn't be able to slide but I'd be faster running the circuit in the house and better ventilated. I was so hot. 

I went turbo, throwing the socks over my shoulder into the north bedroom, never to be found again. I bolted to catch up with the boys. Four boys on the stairs were so much louder, but my delay meant running into my mom on the way down.
“Hey! Slow down. Stop thundering around!”
“Gotta go, mom!” I shrieked importantly.
“Supper will be soon. Don't disappear!”
“Okay!” As we spoke, I swung around the newel post with its perfect half sphere top like I was dismounting a pommel horse. I gave mom a wide berth to avoid the holiday-mom-vortex and gave a burst of speed to obliterate the entryway length. I abruptly swerved to the basement door. Had I been a spaceship, I would have just maneuvered to swing around the moon and come to a complete stop on an asteroid. 

The checked brown flooring of the dining room might have let me slide right to the door but my hot sticky feet did not allow for this at all. So close to a grand meal, this was also a highly dangerous move and could expose you to multiple adult-induced scoldings as well as catastrophic crashes. Adults never watch where they’re going. 

Two full length tables were set up with chairs and folding chairs arrayed across the room, limiting the basement door access. Great grandma's painting filled a whole wall on the left side and condescended over the space. This sat opposite the small Jesus print, the lion's club plaque, and decorative plates. I'd have to slip out slowly or risk many human interactions when we were enacting a plan and I’d fallen behind the boys.

I froze by the door, poised to slip back downstairs, but the kitchen held grandma, an aunt, two great aunts, and probably soon, my mother. I'd never pull it off, but I hesitated to consider. Just inside the pinkish kitchen doorway with the ugly kissing ball that hit anyone over 6 feet in the head, was the small brown table flanked by kitchen décor going back unfathomable years. On that table sat a red platter with illegible writing and it held, like a tender bassinet, the Christmas cookies. It had been piled high by type. A mountain of sugary delights only made in December. Oh, the impossible heist every child dreamt of at Christmas. But just to the left of the platter, sat Grandma. She was giving directions from her chair of rest to the next generation to do in strict detail. They had to do the finishing touches for the Christmas feast under her eagle eye. I'd never make a cookie snatch with Grandma sitting right beside the ruby red platter.

“Shaina, don't get in the way. We're almost ready to eat,” my mom rounded the corner like a Blue Angel out on maneuvers. She went right into the hot zone and seemed oblivious to the cookie tray on full display. I gave up my sugar plum dreams and opened the basement door the minimum inches and slipped through without a single witness.

I closed the door behind me and was held in a twilight zone. The top of the stairs was held in deep shadow, between worlds. The bright, loud, family above and the mysterious, ancient play area below. A single bulb light fixture lit up the bottom of the stairs, but the top was in near darkness, a pocket of space where one could breathe. The light at the bottom made the red carpeted stairs glow like you were entering a Faust drama. I took a full oxygen intake and descended at full speed.

Half way down the stairs my face cooled with the temperature drop. The basement was always cool and comfortable. The red carpet ended at the landing, a free sliding square of red carpet over the freezing white tile. Your toes were instantly frozen by it and it radiated cold to the whole underground. The basement was huge, equally open and off limits. Full of odd toys and curiosities, secrets, and the antiques of several lives lived. I wanted to touch it all but didn’t dare with any witnesses present. 

An old ping pong table filled the main space, covering random objects, boxes of toys, and junk. It was set for dinner out of necessity and was the “kids table” with many mismatched chairs pushed around it. I think this was because the teens were preferred out of sight during the meal with their “bad attitudes.”  Another carpet piece beyond old was laid out to walk on and my hot feet were glad to not touch the icy tile another moment. ” I walked past more vintage junk, a box of broken purses, and a cart of antique dishware. I came out around the naughty teen table to the rejected furniture corner.

This half of the room had at least 4 old TVs and a community of retired living room paraphernalia. Two half couches sucked up all the cold in the room and were aged to an ever soft and colorless state. One recliner decomposed in a perceived entryway, like an old tom cat of hideous brownish green fuzz waiting to die. A pink scarf was still tied to the arm where we'd tied up a hostage the day before. Two full couches faced each other. One was a puce pink and the other had fabric like tree bark and would never die. Tomorrow we'd race around the square of furniture full of zoomies playing the-floor-is-lava or play hospital with patients laid out on each couch for malpractice. 

But right now, two sides of this square were stacked two feet high with Christmas packages in 40 different paper designs. This Tetris stack could not be touched or our hides would be the next thing displayed at Christmas. We stayed on the floor for now while we stared at this cave of wonders filled with Christmas presents. We knew better than to touch the jewels like a monkey, but we also couldn't be trusted for long. We'd have to eat dinner upstairs in the kitchen, near the adults.

“Quick,” I said to the posse of brothers and cousins. “Mom said dinner is almost ready.”
“We won't finish in time,” a practical cousin countered. He was right but it was for the best. We couldn't designate bad guys and ransom my three youngest siblings before dinner and presents. It was Christmas anyway. A robbery and rescue would have to wait for December 26th. 

An aunt descended the red stairs, announcing her presence to her children and their cousins. She was so short, I'd probably be taller than her soon. It really was my new goal in life to be taller than her 4' 10” height. This ideal achievement burned within me as all of us chanted “Adult! Adult! Adult!” like small fleshy ambulances. A couple boys ran in circles and one jumped on an empty couch, as the grinning aunt went past into a corner bedroom. We peaked after her at its walls lined three deep in great grandma's paintings. A vintage baby stroller and a ship with aluminum can sails perched crookedly among them. We weren't allowed in that room. 

We hid our fake money making scheme and ransom notes in production until the adult vacated. When she opened the door, we could all hear the roar of a well known voice cry out,
“Time to eat, guys!”
The door closed on us after several motherly repetitions of this command, but we still heard the repeated summons to the other extremities of the house. My brother stuffed our robber supplies into the hollow arm of the pink couch and replaced the cover. Later a cousin would stuff his whole body in that couch arm in the name of hospital or hide and seek. It really was the perfect  hiding spot. 

We all dashed for the stairs like wild dogs. For some reason, you never wanted to be the last one up the stairs. I grabbed the banister as high up as I could reach, and swung myself under the railing and into the middle of the staircase. I slowed those behind me and didn't have to use the bottom third of the stairs. Two others did the same maneuver, but I still wasn't last.

If the basement was cool and mellow, the upstairs was a golden chorus of hot humanity. We had to slow and ooze through the doorway into the crowded dining room. A group of dads and teens had been watching football with Grandpa, while more teens and betweens were in the sewing room trying to decide how to preserve their game of Risk for the next day. The posse and I were instantly lost as to what to do next. I heard the recliner footstool drop and everyone knew Grandpa was moving.

“Carroll!” Grandma shouted from the kitchen and it sounded like she’d swallowed a donkey, a bird, and a whale as her voice warbled with effort. Grandpa shuffled past us, gaining speed as he reactivated his limbs from football watching mode. His house shoes were lined with holes along the seams but he never got new ones. He slipped into the kitchen and began his duties. A new aunt and two more cousins had arrived and we all exchanged hugs and awkward giggles. Everyone not in the kitchen lined the dining room walls, while my mom told my eldest brother to get away from the thermostat.

It was hot upstairs. Most had removed their holiday sweaters for t-shirts. My dad held the baby and indicated I should just chill. The kitchen got very loud with many voices all at once. No one was sure why, but then there was an uproar of laughter, and all was well on the Midwestern front.

My mouth began to water. The Christmas meal was always the strange same. Scrumptious pumpkin bread, weird condiments of cheesy celery and olives on an ugly green Tupperware tray. The staple was an anemic oyster soup I had no context for. Some raved about it but it really was just fishy, oily milk. I never wanted to meet an oyster on friendly terms. And I didn't care how much they were a pound this year which was routinely discussed with Grandpa. No market employee knew the exact prices of something better than Grandpa across the whole of Omaha. But it didn't matter. Oysters were gross!

The soup had limited appeal amongst the family gathering. It was hit or miss with each new child born into the legacy, marked by great relish or deep loathing. We'd all survive on pumpkin bread and cookies if the hot salty milk and crackers couldn't be choked down. I stared at the trembling chandelier decorated with tiny elves hanging off the arms with a piece of bronze garland. The hot air of bodies and cooking rolled over all of us, changing the temperature again to a roasting red temp. The green walls were just camouflage for a human oven. 

But then, all was forgiven because the sweetest smell, well known to the Swedish persuasion, pervaded the house. Grandpa had lifted the lid on the griddle and was pulling out the potato bologna to slice. Not a great name, I know. Nothing romantic about bologna sandwiches at home, but that wasn't close to the glory of Grandma and Grandpa's potato bologna. It was homemade every year by my shirtless grandfather with a meat grinder in July to bring joy to the holidays. The casings were filled and coiled in big spirals to be steamed so the potato and onions cooked, and then fried to browned perfection so the pork and beef were delectable. 

These spirals of sausage had my family calling it Snake, but Grandma didn’t approve of that. Oh, heaven and glory, potato bologna is what made you understand a meal time prayer of thankfulness. We were all scolded to start with two pieces but every man, woman, and child would have taken ten with justifiable desire and relish. Potato bologna was the real reason we gathered for Christmas.

Moms were suddenly everywhere, collecting their chicks, issuing small commands, waiting for the ultimate command. It must be a mom thing to remember you have children at feeding times, but we were hushed or hyped by our moms’ holiday states in that hot dining room lined with Swedish descendants. Grandma and Grandpa exited the kitchen and looked at each other meaningfully. A calm fell on the crowd from those in their 70s to the 11 month old I intended to be a hero for ransoming from robbers the next day. My mom wouldn't care. She'd think we were watching him for her so she could visit with the adults.  My grandma spoke.

“Should we sing?” We all knew we were going to sing. The room knew we were going to sing as it was embedded in every paint chip in every wall. The room knew the words better than I did. Grandpa nodded and Grandma gave the pitch by starting the words, “be present...” dressed in her red Christmas sweatshirt and gingerbread apron. Grandpa's tremulous tone was right behind her in confidence. A hush happened. The moment became clear and sacred. Like when a flock of birds takes flight. A moment of silence and then a rush as our voices joined in mass. Everybody sprang into song. 

Together. Some in parts. Some deep and some in pure delight. Some guessed at the words. Grandma tilted her head back in the joy of song. Grandpa seemed to tip forward in prayer, before leaning back to let the sound out fully. A song rose and filled the house from the basement to the upstairs bedrooms. The room rang with “be present at our table, Lord!”

I didn't want to get the words wrong so sometimes I just said “Ah” and slid sideways to be sure my mom couldn't hear me fake it. Suddenly everyone was singing and a four part Lutheran hymn filled the room with tradition and beauty. Then we landed on the Amen with slow cherishing as the chord filled and resolved. A tranquil second held everyone transfixed with the ending sound.

Then everyone smiled goofily at each other. The beauty of the sound of our family made everyone silly and awkward. The moms giggled over the choir sound in the room. Grandma beamed, her dark eyes glowing in her soft, pink, wrinkled face. Then she sniffed an inhaled laugh.
“We sound pretty good!” And she laughed loudly with a wide open mouth.
“Okay, now come through the line. Who wants oysters in theirs?” Grandma went back to her kingdom to watch over the buffet line process.

She watched as kids inched through and got their food. Some one finally convinced her to get food and sit down at the head of a table to rest and eat. I liked watching her hands hold her plate because the colors didn't match. The back of her hands, holding a white soup bowl, were always tanned brown, but the palms were always pink and softer than a baby's skin. It was like looking at a map of mountain terrain. It changed colors along her arm from her hands to her elbows. It was never scary though, with her hands as soft as peaches, clutching a partly used tissue. 

My mom said this was because the Avon lady knew Grandma was a good sale. I swear she was so smooth she didn't have fingerprints. I always thought this might help me glide past her eagle eye because if she tried to get me for slamming doors or manhandling a little brother, I'd slip through her hands because they lacked friction to grip anything. She never dropped anything so that was probably false, but I had to believe I could sneak past Grandma if I had to. She only spanked me once though. It was more the reigning queen’s shrewdness I feared, ready to screech a royal cry in my direction. Her clear, “What are you doing?” had pinned me to the wall each and every visit to Omaha.

My mom put us in line and oversaw us gathering our food for the grand meal. I took sweet pumpkin bread and black olives. I grabbed fistfuls of soup crackers and as much potato bologna as allowed and then froze before Grandpa. Grandpa was tall to me. His bald dome rested flat on his shoulder without any neck. Mom said that's why we all had double chins. His face looked like every baby ever born and now he looked down on me as he pulled up another glass soup bowl and paused to ask me, “Oysters or no oysters?”

“No oysters, please.” He twinkled, but I don't think it was his eyes like Santa’s in movies. He just had a teasing face to me. He had a sleepy face too but I knew he teased grandma by pretending he couldn't hear her and he always had a mischievous grin when he beat me at checkers. But now he was on duty in his Humbug sweatshirt to help dish everyone up and then fill his own bowl for a meal of legacy and tradition.
“There ya go now.” He carefully handed me the half bowl of soup I now felt duty bound to consume. I'd been tasked to be part of the family and eat a treasured recipe of thin fishy stew.

After the slowest conga line of soup carrying Swedes, we all had food and were sentenced to tables. Big kids were downstairs while middle kids were in the kitchen so we were near the moms in the dining room. Aunts, uncles, and adults were in the dining room including the youngest babies attached to my parents. Everyone sat and conversations roared like jeans in a dryer. Laughter burst forth from every corner at any moment. Tomorrow someone might start a fight, but today was Christmas and we loved being in a boiling house together.

I was at the kitchen table with the middle kids posse. The cookie tray had been moved to wait atop the deep freezer in the pantry. Mom still wanted to be able to check on me and my younger siblings. She had the baby and toddler with my dad but I knew I couldn't move until I'd eaten “enough.” I applied the hexagon crackers to my white soup with the film of butter on top. I used the spoon to dunk the crackers a few times and then choked down the salty milk soup like a good grandchild. Dad said I wasn't a good Swede if I couldn't eat oyster soup. I'd prove him wrong. My older siblings all slurped it like they were in the promised land but I wondered where the honey was. I did my Christmas duty so mom would let me have access to the cookie tray.

My cousins and brothers followed suit. We pretended for each other we loved the soup and all filled up on potato bologna and pumpkin bread like bears before the long nap. All while we bounced on the edge of our 1960s dining chairs in pristine condition, eyeing the beloved cookie tray just out of reach in the utility room.

We checked in regularly with our mothers for release to the dessert tray. They watched too closely as they ate and we ate a wall apart. We couldn't snitch with a constant stream of people walking past us for seconds and thirds. Some got more soup but most went for Snake. Bologna is the weirdest word for glory encased with meat but everyone that came through that line, closed their eyes and relished the seasonal treat. Or so it felt as your teeth sank into the skin and holiday joy made you forget the crowd and sweaty house. 

We were finally released from our need to eat “real food,” and allowed a cookie selection. Once we passed the point of “ate a good dinner,” the Christmas cookies could now flow like wine. We would all achieve great snitches and copious amounts of sugar for the rest of the night. No one would notice or care. Or so it seemed. We ate marshmallows dipped in caramel and rice crispies, dipped pretzels, peanut blossoms, and fudge until our bellies extended.

I asked my mom and I was told I could be excused. That meant we could get excited for presents. Adults always eat forever and take too long because they talk too much. I can eat in ten minutes so I don't get why they take forever. I rallied with the sugar high of three cookies hitting my fishy milk stomach. I told the others we should go to the living room. We would have to wait an undetermined amount of time for everyone to be “done eating,” and the “dishes to be done,” before the party could continue. Adults are so weird with time and rules, even on holidays. But I knew, we were really waiting for Grandma. No one moved before Grandma, like waiting for the queen to rise from the table. When she was done and satisfied with the state of her kitchen, the next act would begin.

We all went into the living room to wait out the adults. This was the stage ready for the next scene. Grandma's living room was always the same. The massive, carved piano held one corner down with its broken ivories and worn finished ebonies. It was like a vault in the corner that knew all the secrets and remembered every song. Three full windows went floor to ceiling across one wall to the opposite corner. There the wooden floor TV sat on mute but was still playing a football game. The windows had sacred drapes and I only touched them at Grandma's command with the daily drawing of the cord. That whole wall became useless if the drapes were closed and all were punished if anyone or anything crushed the drapes.

So we couldn't play on that side of the room. Past the TV, under another great grandma painting of a brown and white landscape, was the brown spinny chair. None of us were old enough to sit in it without being told to not hit the stereo or the Christmas tree which was packed into the corner beside the blue suede couch. I think I heard Grandpa say to always get a blue spruce because the stiff branches could hold up the heavy ornaments Grandma bought while traveling. 

I always thought they got the pokiest trees to keep kids away and applied an extreme layer of tinsel that obliterated viewing of the ornaments. No matter the year, Grandma's tree looked the same with the glowing angel aloft. A red ladder went up each side covered in elves and a Santa Claus. I wondered if Grandma had a mathematical equation or just a deep sense of right placement that never forgot where she put it last year that guided her decorating. I loved the warm gold light of the lamps around the room that set the tone for the forthcoming festivities. But we couldn't play near the tree either.

So we all instinctively moved to the middle of the room on Grandma's carpet. We all preferred the carpet anyway. Older than all of us, with a thick padding, the plush oatmeal weave was a sea of sensory goodness. The boys would all have to roll out sleeping bags here later tonight, but for now, we all wiggled and squirmed like a litter of puppies on that perfect carpet. It was weird, because Grandma didn't even allow water in the living room, but her floor was delicious. Like making a nest in a corner of your room and falling into a book for hours. Like getting out of a car after a long drive and stretching far and wide across that beige floor. Like feeling home for the holidays in a house that wasn’t yours.

Slowly, one by one, people began gathering in the living room and we kids started retreating to take up less and less space. All the humans in attendance lined the walls, perched on the piano bench, and filled the furniture if you were “old” enough. Families clumped together and moms began licking their thumbs and cleaning faces like cats before a feline parade. People filled the entry way and living room doorway with the folding chairs. A chair appeared by Grandpa's recliner. I found a spot on the floor by my dad's boots. Finally, Grandma appeared in the doorway, staring at everyone a little slack jawed as she took in the scene. Someone spoke to her and she laughed. She pulled her shoulders back and her mouth fell open in a “ha-ha!” explosion at the joke. Someone followed up with a quip, and she squinted at them, hyperventilating through her nose in wheezing chuckle. She shuffled on to the piano in her white Reebok, to retrieve her silver camera from the top of the vault.

“All right,” she called. “Who's first? Who’s kids are all here?”

Shouts and calling, shifting and shuffling arranged my parents and their eight children before the Christmas tree. Mom poked and fussed, while she handed off her camera to an aunt. Several comments later about us obscuring the tree, we froze in varying stages of cheer and attitude before the tree for the photo barrage. Grandma took several. Aunts took some and someone took them on my moms camera. After the ordeal, we hid as other families were tortured and posed before the tree and then all had to pose with grandma and grandpa in one last mass grandkid cluster. 

Cameras flashed and film wound through the tracks of the canister on this camera, that one, and another still. I blinked repeatedly at the lights stuck in my vision, mimicking the “ogga booga booga” methods of getting kids to look at yet another camera. Aunts are just crazy sometimes.
Once the photo insanity ended, I was able to slither back to a spot, close to the tree but not the same one. I found a spot near my sister who was with older cousins today. I tolerated a brother to be near me as everyone settled. We all had a spot and Grandpa ruined it with, “let's go to the basement.”

Such a train of materialistic children ran down the stairs after Grandpa's measured steps. He gave the teens tall towers of packages but only gave me two or three at a time. I wanted to press for more. I could do it, cause I was strong and could wrestle the boys. But Grandpa wasn't someone you bothered or asked extra questions. He'd just give you something and you should take care of it. We all rushed the stairs like it was an alpine race and piled the colorful packages before the tree with the yearly offering. It was ten minutes of looping the track. Racing up the stairs, bare feet thudding on the stairs. A deposit at the foot of the Grandma tree, and then back downstairs, dodging siblings and cousins to a chorus of adults echoing grandma's shout of “Slow down!”

We avoided collisions but when we finished the presents took up a fourth of the room. They weren't under the tree, but a rampart before it. A wall that a chariot could race along easily. Well. Sort of. The pile was 3 feet tall and stuck out from the tree at least four feet. People snapped photos of sulky teens and the massive blockade as they marveled at Grandma's Christmas haul. Grandma loved giving presents. No one could stop her. 

Then we were done. Grandpa said that was it and we all went back to our places, now I was between my dads boots and my sister, because the pile of packages tied up with string had displaced most of the floor rolling grandchildren.

A hush fell over the room as the patriarch cleared his throat over the decrescendoing murmur of the gathering. A mom hissed for silence from the teens and Grandpa began to recite.

“In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.” Grandpa looked around the room as he told the story of Christ's birth, memorized after many Christmas Eve service recitations. Grandma beamed in the dining chair beside him, her tissue and camera clutched in one hand. Hallowed became the moment. I was hyper for the presents but this moment was different. I wanted to move on but I was okay here too. Everyone focused on Grandpa, some taking photos. I felt the shift like when we were singing and I had to be quiet. I actually relaxed my body, my hip bones hitting the carpet, my foot on my dad's cowboy boot. My sister whispered to my cousin but then stopped too. Someone coughed and someone sneezed. Then we seemed to sync and we all heard the closing words of the well known story.

“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.”

I think that was the part Grandpa liked best, the way he inflected and yet moved on at a steady pace.
“But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart. And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.” 

My rapid energy had stalled and I focused on the man in a humble Christmas sweatshirt repeating the moment the savior entered our story on earth. Everything wild and loud in our family was calmed as he spoke. The tremulous voice covered us all in remembrance. He held us all with his voice and the good old story.

When he finished, Grandma began to sing Silent Night. By the second phrase, everyone had joined. We were so stilled, now we needed to release. A singing people united by family, heritage, faith, and love. This was a moment outside of time. No one could argue or fuss as, “Jesus, Lord at thy birth!” rose and a fermata sat over us. All three verses were sung and I knew all these words. The room sighed collectively. Then Grandma moved. She lifted her tissue and dabbed her eyes.
“Okay. You kids want to pass out the presents?” Yes, Grandma. We do.

Bedlam and insanity reigned as every child tried to read handwritten labels and pass out the three to seven presents per person. Grandma and Grandpa were soon obscured behind laps of gifts. My dad tried to hold his own gifts, moms, the baby's, and the toddler's presents so mom could help them open presents. All the moms rechecked packages to be sure their kids opened the right ones. I tried to oversee my pile and enjoy the handing out process. For 10 minutes people all spoke over each other while the tree’s blockade was dismantled. We all settled onto the sacred carpet with our gifts and waited for the cue.

“Okay. Go ahead,” my mom said. All seven of my siblings and I ripped into our packages alongside our cousins. Grandma yelled in the background to save the bows. I tore the wrappings like a professional paper shredder. Inside was a blond Barbie in a pink swimsuit. I knew from the box shape it was a Barbie and I was on cloud nine. I also opened an Avon box with a diamond necklace and knew I was a legit big kid. I was old enough for jewelry from Grandma! This was followed by a pink sweater with a cardinal on it. I showed it to my mom with a look of disgust veiled from others by the upheld offending garment. My mom said in code, “how nice!” and gave me a facial cue to shut up and say thank you. There was also a shirt with wide prison stripes and a nice white blouse, my mom snagged from me before I could stain it. I also got a jewelry box with snaps, and a set of lotions shrink wrapped into a tiny bathtub.

Grandma thought I was old enough for beauty products! I felt so big holding my gift up to my sister and seeing she and my girl cousins all had similar lotion sets in different colors. In 17.62 seconds, the grand kids had opened all their gifts with the cloud of adult witnesses leaning over them. The room was two feet deep in torn paper and empty gift boxes. I was soon enlisted in saving boxes and tissue paper so we could stack them on the stairs for next year. It was a mass hysteria while grandpa produced garbage bags from his back pocket and boys pelted each other with covert attacks of balled up paper.  

My mom asked me to take a pile of new shirts for my younger siblings up to her room. I took the Kmart and JCPenney's clearance rack in a bear hug, weaving through the crowd of Christmas humanity. I paused beside Grandma's chair, near Grandpa, and whispered an awkward thank you. I wasn't very good at eye contact because at that moment, I felt teary for no reason. I was suddenly embarrassed, and not because of the bird sweater. I barely waited for Grandma's glowing response and Grandpa's sleepy, happy look towards me. I'd never wear that sweater, but man did I love them. They just didn't know fashion because they were old.

I slithered between cousins once removed and darting past buxom aunts, then drove headlong up the stairs. The upstairs was cool and full of cold, smooth surfaces. The hard stairs, the blank walls, the smooth hall floor for sliding. I felt my brain fill with clear oxygen.

I breathed and let the still sense of the empty upper-level fill me as I walked to my mom’s room. The fun was below. The cookies were below. My family was below. But here, I breathed for a moment. I laid the clothes on my mom's bed and stuck my face into the pile of new clothing. I inhaled the scent of Grandma's cedar closets. Grandma shopped every clearance rack in town and kept everything in the two north cedar closets until a given birthday or Christmas appeared that matched a child's given size and age that year. Long sleeve at Christmas, short sleeve at your birthday, grandma had it down to a science, but it was magic too. 

This meant the clothes all smelled of Grandma's house where they were stored. Every birthday and every Christmas, this smell hit, no matter how long the presents were stored. Only Grandma's house had this smell and all of my siblings checked for it too. Just to inhale that scent of Grandma was enough. I breathed deep. Twice. Once more after that and I remembered everyone was still Christmasing downstairs. All the adults would be opening presents now.

I released the pile and dashed for the door, half the clothes falling to the floor from the precarious tower in which I'd released them. I moved on anyway. Since I'd ditched my socks earlier, I dropped to my knees and slid on my leggings a few inches down the hallway floor. I scrambled back to my feet and crashed down the stairs. Then I slowed and stopped halfway down. 

The adults were opening boring presents like cooking pans and tea towels. Someone gave grandpa a squirrel toy and everyone nearby laughed. I sat down, right where the wall became candy cane striped railing to peer at everyone below. From a cool shadow, I looked at the warm, rosy crowd below. Teen cousins and siblings still ringed the room while adults opened gifts with grandma and grandpa. The tree glowed with the lady angel looking down on the group of silly, rambunctious people. My mom’s cousins and aunts all chattered in the entry way just a foot away from my shadow. I'd never get anywhere without slowly threading this maze of relatives.

My mom's face glowed and my dad held up a plaid button up shirt with a smirk. He said he would never buy shirts while Grandma kept him in stock. The posse of cousins and little brothers slid like worms in the rain to the dining room to play with different toys they’d opened at the empty dinner tables. My barbie wouldn't be allowed to play their game right now, so I didn't follow. I stayed in that shadow of upstairs and downstairs. Held between places as something I couldn’t name filled the inside of my chest. 

I don't know what it was or why I had slowed for it. It felt important, I guess. There was something about the heat in the main of the house and the coolness upstairs and in the basement. Something about being in the heart of everything, near grandma and grandpa that was different from my parents and our Christmas at home. Something special about going to grandma’s filled me but I didn't know what to call it.

The closet below the stairs, simultaneously in the entryway and dining room, was filled with coats and ancient rubber balls for the backyard. Hanging by a curly ribbon was a quilted wall hanging that said in white fabric letters, JOY, between red and green puffed fabric.

Maybe that was it. Joy. But not like, happy. This must be Christmas joy. Not in a barn with animals or with angels around like Grandpa told the Bible story but with cousins for playing and crazy aunts and tall scary uncles. Not seeing glory surrounding us for Christ's birth but feeling heat rise in a room of physical bodies, a big family with no more room, but we’d pack in anyway. The moment and the year all enabled these specific people to be together this time. We came here a lot but today, on Christmas, it felt special. 

I think I will remember it all someday. I tuned in to my mom’s laugh in the golden living room, echoed by her sister and her mom. Then my brother started to be weird, and all the teens laughed in the corner by the TV, sounding like donkeys coughing. Other voices got excited as they connected in conversation. I stood to my feet, preparing internal jet engines for extreme stealth mode. In a day or two we'd all go home, and this place would echo with the noise of today. I'd be home with all my new stuff, introducing my Barbie to my collection and trying to figure out how to squirt lotion without making a mess. 

I took a deep breath on the stairs, and I knew this feeling was home too. I stayed in that shadow on the stairs a beat more, hidden by holiday decor, and decided I was joy-filled at being home. I was over-sugared and over-stimulated, but this feeling was real. A millisecond later, I reveled in my body’s spaceship takeoff down the stairs, knowing this was where I belonged. This was home too. I coasted down and around the railing and wiggled through the crowd, into the living room. I’d find a spot to revel and wait until eggnog and ginger ale time. This was Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa.