When All Is Said and Done 12/27/2020

By: Jennifer Richardson Holt

She always hated when it was over.  Perhaps hate was too strong of a word.  If she were being accurate there were probably a paragraph’s worth of words that she could use to describe the awkward time when the Christmas Day festivities were over.  Maybe she didn’t truly hate it she just legitimately didn’t know what to do with it.  All year the excitement of Christmas is built up and then, since they didn’t adhere to the more extravagant practice of having 12 days of the holiday like she felt seemed entirely more appropriate, then all in one action filled day it was all over. Really, once everyone had stuffed themselves with the likes of ham, dressing and a gloriously festive green velvet cake (the ridiculously beautiful accident that happens when you don’t have enough red food coloring), it felt like it was all over and it was just past lunch time.  She looked at the living room rug scattered with a variety of toys, boxes and miscellaneous bits of red paper. Judging by the beloved family members lounging about rubbing bellies that were protruding slightly more than they did when they arrived, she wasn’t too far off when it appeared that the bulk of the celebratory activities were winding down.

Her previous few days had been a flurry of the most festive of preparations.  One gift had finally pulled up in a familiar brown truck only two days ago.  She was all set to get it wrapped and under the tree but there was the small matter that her gift wrapping looked like what would happen if your gift was wrapped by one armed two-year-old with a case of the shakes.  She couldn’t remember how she originally talked him into it but luckily for her, her husband obliged her and handled the wrapping. Knowing her she likely let him see what one of her wrapped gifts looked like and it was so appalling to the achiever in him he had to remedy the situation. That sounds like a strategy she would have applied.  But luckily that gift was shortly post arrival wrapped and under the tree, well more accurately in front of the tree protruding into the living room but, at that point, you put things where they fit.

There was another point of last few days where she watched this same aforementioned husband and her daughter working on a cake of velvet that turned out to be green rather than the usual red.  She had done her best to remain as calm as possible as she watched her daughter sitting on the counter in pajamas (because that is often the uniform of choice for all of us during holiday preparations) that were gaining splotches of powdered sugar and cocoa.  She had applauded herself for not overreacting until he handed the little girl several full bottles of green food coloring to squeeze into the batter.  For the sake of preventing new pajamas from permanently looking like something the Grinch threw up on she spoke up at this point and with careful supervision the green stayed off of them.  The fact that her little girl had a few interesting freckles on her fingers and bare feet now would just have to be conversation pieces.

She was unkempt in her own right when she was up to her wrists in egg yolk trying to get the perfect devil into her eggs.  She never did get the flavor how she wanted it. Once it was all said and done she just knew that she’d tasted and retasted her concoction to the point that she would not be partaking of the finished product.  She’d reached her egg limit as one does. Her not partaking would serve no problem though. Honestly even if not a single other person did partake, her husband would rectify the situation. He was to deviled eggs as a bear is to honey.  Leftovers would not be something that was a problem.

But all this cooking and all this gift wrapping were now things of the past. Now she was looking at her mom playing a new game with her daughter on a rug full of gifts of every kind.  Beneath the tree was the rarely seen tree skirt.  She forgot what it even looked like because it wasn’t something that she saw during the season. Usually by the time the tree was up and decorated, there were already wrapped (obviously not by her) gifts scattered around the base of the tree.  Now the area beneath it’s lower boughs looked much like how she felt: empty. Perhaps all this build up was just too much?  Maybe anticipating all year for such a magnificent holiday and stuffing it into a few hours was asking too much?  She hated to admit it because she loved Christmas more than any other holiday but perhaps it was just one of those things that the days and hours right before the arrival were really better than the moment itself?

Just when she was about to sink into a deep hole of post-holiday disillusionment, she let her saddening eyes travel around this room.  She saw the faces of her parents. Her mother beamed as she played with a granddaughter who was also aglow with the predicament of too many new forms of entertainment and deciding which to enjoy next.  Her dad and her husband’s grandfather were telling stories that varied in topic of days gone by with ranges in subject matter to hunting to the sordid success of rat poison (in hearing this she couldn’t help but hear her daughter’s favorite movie quote, “Who knows the ways of men”, being said in her head).  Her husband’s grandmother sat off to the side laughing and smiling as she watched her great granddaughter revel in a floor full of joy. Even the cat had found a box he thought particularly enticing and had happily closed himself inside it. Perhaps that was it. We had to let this holiday empty us. We had to run down all our fuel stores that we had built up all year so that we are completely clear so that we can look around and really see what we need to actually fill ourselves with. She saw the joy of just being near family and the pleasure of reminiscing in memory.  She couldn’t help but thinking that this little gathering, even though the gifts were already exchanged, and the food already eaten, was the beginning of something.  Maybe now all the love and joy that the season had been building had just found enough room to catapult itself out into the world that was meant for the message all along.  Maybe now, she thought, we’ve made room for all the real gifts the season meant for us to give.