Twas the Night Before Xmas

Handel’s Messiah was on blast for about a half hour as the cooking began. But then the young adults and their partners informed me that the finally agreed upon three dimensional chess configuration of holiday plans had crashed as hard as a Jenga Tower and, at 4pm Xmas Eve, no one knew what the plan was. Grandma had cancelled that morning and Aunt Emmy had canceled two weeks ago. Then one significant other’s family also shifted their plans, as did another.

For weeks I had been patiently doing all my favorite holiday things all by my happy little Carol-humming self. My favorite is buying dozens and dozens of presents (maybe even hundreds), which get wrapped over weeks. This year hours of Christmas movies kept me company.

Now we are facing two generational shifts, as the elders painfully release their hold on cherished slots and the youngers learn to negotiate the family politics of extended clans. Watching the kids figure out how to best accommodate the people they love has scattered long-held holiday planning truces to bits.

One of the kid’s significant others held the Christmas trump card of a brand new baby niece, whose arrival in the area had all the awe and endless mystery of a pop star diva’s pre-release schedule, thus repeatedly smashing all planning and family political negotiation repeatedly to the floor, as I heard my son and his love arguing late into the night from the au pair suite downstairs while they tried to please everyone.

We went from a true 12 days of Christmas model in my children’s early years, in which we visited no less than five family celebrations up and down the Eastern seaboard. One year my oldest got confused about which night was Christmas Eve and melted into hysterics when he realized he’d missed it. His grandfather wryly observed that children should learn early that Santa is perverse.

But that was not working for this Mama bear and we had a fresh rash of presents FedExed to the next stop on the tour, at my child’s namesake uncle’s house. This package was delivered by a cringing elf with a letter apologizing for mixing up little Matt with Uncle Matt and therefore delivering gifts late. It’s not for nothing that my in-laws feel I spoil my children terribly. (You try finding someone to show up in elf costume on Christmas Day!)

After this disaster we created an iron clad Xmas Eve dinner and gifts at grandma’s followed by Xmas morning Santa presents at our house. This worked for years until the horror and drama of the divorce years, when the children went to their father’s father’s house for Xmas Day and Mommy cried at home.

This year though Grandma, now elderly, was at the last minute not up to making Xmas Eve dinner. My younger child and I will go to her Xmas Day to make a Noel feast and will do present opening later in the week when my sister comes with her daughters.

But the point, the Christmas miracle, the blessing of the story was at 4pm Xmas Eve everyone had bailed on Christmas and the gorgeous whole wild caught salmon was tragically going to the freezer. Just then my sons said ENOUGH OF THIS LET’S OPEN OUR PRESENTS RIGHT NOW. And, miraculously, their SO’s showed up at the door at just that moment. So we had the raucous tearing and opening and burial in gift wrap.

But — genius upon genius — the kids decided they did not want traditional dinner, they wanted homemade stacked specialty burgers and they bought all the fixings and made all the food and cleaned it all up, leaving me time to crank out this little missive.

But back to the movies — I watched 15 while wrapping presents and learned a lot. Xmas movies always warmed my soul, but I didn’t realize they followed a canned narrative arc that somewhat followed our chaotic Christmas story this year.

In all cases the main protagonists are stymied by some form of worldliness (in our case the sclerotic death grip the older generations tried to maintain on holiday planning) that prevents them from knowing happiness. Through the intervention of canceled flights or actual angels (our angels were our children and their partners and the flexibility to accommodate their needs), they learn the path to happiness is family and the little things and maybe even the unknown good they’ve done in the world.

Every modern American Christmas movie — even Die Hard — references It’s a Wonderful Life. Perhaps the movie is set in Bedford (The Family Stone, Holiday) or perhaps the entire redemption arc is lifted from IAWL. To be fair, Jimmy Stewart’s dark night of the soul was pretty closely copied on Scrooge’s, down to the odd little angel.

Speaking of The Christmas Carol, I watched three versions — Patrick Stewart as Scrooge, a 1938 version, and of course the muppets. Patrick Stewart gets all the love. His Shakespearean presence adds a touch of formality to the proceedings and the amazing late Richard E. Grant as the saintly Bob Cratchit deserves mention. 1938 was muddy, Muppets were giddy, but Stewart & Grant cinched it.

The journey started with two new eagerly awaited offerings: Dear Santa (Satan) and Red One. Despite the always hysterical Jack Black in the former, and the Rock in the latter, I could not make it to the redemption arc in either movie. My curmudgeon shows strong here: the crassness! The rudeness! The real or mimed violence! Clutching pearls (and scissors and invisible tape) I had to bail on both.

Then onto 90s/early 2000s classics that must have once made my elderly aunties clutch their pearls. The sexual freedom of the beautiful protagonists! The workaholism/tough outer shell that melts through the Christmas miracle into newfound love! In The Holiday prime early beauty Jude Law cavorts with stunning Cameron Diaz in the UK, while in LA young Kate Winslet quits stunning Rufus Stewall for (who else?) Jack Black.

The Christmas miracle in The Family Stone is that every single character is more hateful than the last. Sarah Jessica Parker does a genius turn as a clearly Borderline Personality Disorder character, cringey to the 1,000 degree, which she somehow makes endearing despite sleeping with her boyfriend’s brother. Diane Keaton as the mom is fraught and unwelcoming (and secretly dying of cancer) while Rachel McAdams as the baby sister is obnoxious beyond ability to believe. Absolute peak young Claire Danes (Sarah’s sister) is the Christmas angel, her beauty and decency somehow shocking the family into civility.

I spent quite a while in the 30s and 40s: Miracle on 34th Street, the Bishops Wife, the Bells of Saint Mary’s, It’s a Wonderful Life. 34th Street with Natalie Wood playing the jaundiced eight-year old who is re-introduced to childhood joy by the real Santa is a lifelong favorite for me. All of these meet the Christmas arc requirements and bring the bedrock decency of the war years. Well, with the exception of Bells of Saint Mary’s which is like a long Catholic fundraising drive. I had no idea the nuns and priests were so focused on bequests from the soon-to-pass elderly.

We are now post-gift, post-burger cuddled on the sofa, touts les cinq under the covers, watching old family favorite Nightmare Before Christmas. Tim Burton meets all the aforementioned criteria but is still so unique and surprising that he won’t be dissected here. Dear reader, we knew and sang every song at the top of our lungs.

We had forgotten to say grace over our Christmas gourmet burgers, so the grown up kids later shared things they were grateful for in 2024. They went deep, really deep and I was so grateful they felt safe enough and recognized to do so. They are great kids, they are international celebrities, they are scientists and artists and they are the planet’s next best hope.