Christmas Thoughts from a Lounge Chair

So, 9:00 in the evening Christmas Day, 2013. The nineteenth Christmas we have spent in this house. I guess it has become the place we mean when we use the phrase “home for Christmas,” since it is the place our son comes “home” to from his studies—this year at York University; the last two at Concordia in Montreal. Of course, today he spent most of it at his partner’s parents’ place. Last night was our evening for family at home: David and Kat; our neighbour, Dale; Eva and me. We have this tradition of the Christmas Eve dinner. David told us last night he plans to keep that tradition going—the Italian style fish / seafood soup with seven or eight different fishy ingredients swimming in a home-made tomato soup base; Polish herrings and a Polish potato and herring salad; red cabbage, and a huge bowl of trifle the main ingredients.

I wasn’t sure quite how to take the “I will keep this tradition going” statement. Is he already planning for a time in his life without us to come home to for Christmas? A time when he will be too far away, or too busy with his own life (and maybe family, though he says no to that right now. As did I until I met his mother-to-be). “Home for Christmas” will be a pretty empty phrase if it’s just Eva and me. We are “home” pretty much every day already. 

But the last time I spent a Christmas at my parents’ home was forty years ago. Dad spent a couple of Christmases here with us, before becoming an ex-pat in England for the last twelve or more years of his life (hard to calculate, because he went, came back, then left again).

Christmas was a slow starting affair this year. Eva and I got into a round of running errands for all the ingredients, some receptions from work, that sort of thing. She had kind of shopped for her own Christmas presents from me. Which maybe left me off the hook, but also delayed my getting out and into the seasonal rounds. In fact, all I had for her for under the tree up until the afternoon of Christmas Eve was a flashy pair of red knee-high ski sox.

I’m not a huge retail my way into Christmas kind of guy, anyway—especially since we do not go on such prolonged toy-hunting expeditions for David anymore.  That was a lot of fun when he was smaller. And the odd cool little gadget from some electronics store still has some cachet. But this year I just wasn’t feeling right. Not depressed, the way I used to get for a lot of complex and now by-gone reasons. Just not companionably engaged.

Then yesterday afternoon we went to a couple of our favorite shops—clothing boutique and coffee--where we go as much for the fun of meeting the owners and staff, and the atmosphere, as anything. That turned things more seasonal. At the boutique (Threadhill, on 124 Street) Kim was pretty much on her own, with only her Maltese terrier for company. We were chatting when a father and son arrived, for some last-minute Christmas shopping. It seems the wife/mother had been by earlier in the season, just browsing through the place for the first time, and had mentioned she liked it. So there they were. No idea of her size. No idea really of her taste. But as  luck would have it, Eva knew both men slightly, and she has known the wife/mother for many years. So we became consultants for the afternoon, and Eva modelled some of her favorite designers for them, being about a size smaller than the soon-to-be gifted one. 

That was fortuitous in a couple of ways. One—Eva was able to show them what the garment looked like off the hanger and on someone who wore it well and with pleasure (since neither father nor son had done any boutique shopping before, and didn’t really get the way some designers’ clothes can have surprise elements of shape, texture, or color, that are apparent only when worn). The second: it left the size Eva was modelling available when they bought the next size up. So soon enough I had a couple of surprise gifts for under the tree after all—things Eva had not really been interested in until she tried them on for the two men and realized herself there were some details she had missed. What we really wished was that we could have been at the others’ home this morning to see what reaction the clothes got. But by the time we all shook hands and wished each other Merry Christmases and other joys of the season, Kim was happy. The father and son were very happy. And I was suddenly feeling in the mood.

Then we went to Sorentino’s on 107 Ave. at 109 St. Our two favorite, most hospitable and outgoing baristas, Shai and Daunia, were there. Carmelo (the owner) was there. The place was reasonably busy but in a relaxed sort of way, as Carmelo chatted with some of his older buddies at the counter, but still stopped by to offer us a seasonal handshake and a small liqueur to go with our coffees. When someone asked why he was in on a day so close to Christmas, he laughed and said, “It’s the best day to be here. All my friends come in.” As he put it, on Christmas Eve afternoon, “We are in the people business, not the food business.” And he reminded us to come back on Boxing Day, which we just might do if the freezing rain doesn’t make the street impossible to drive. 

By the time we were home, getting things ready for dinner, I was just ready to be with people again, in a way I had not been, earlier in the day. And it was people who had put me in that mood, just by being on upper moods themselves. We had stopped “working at getting ready.” We were no longer doing the “countless chores of Christmas”: A bit late, maybe, but definitely a better feeling.

Today, out with George, our German wire-haired pointer, to the off-leash park (very empty) and then later around the neighbourhood (after our other neighbours’ pit-bull/American bulldog cross puppy planted Eva in a snowbank in his muscular enthusiasm). 

Eva, this evening, noted how she just could not see herself retired. A day by ourselves to relax together was lovely. But what if it were every day? She mentioned how one of her recently-retired friends is in the mode where she goes one way in the morning, and her also-retired husband goes another, so that when they get back together at home later in the day, they have something to talk about: “If they spent the day together, they would have nothing new to say to share with each other.” 

Time for that another year. This has been a good one after all, and in the end.