Merry Christmas

Even though the blog has been a bit silent lately, during the holidays I've been thinking much about y'all.

My mother's standard benediction anytime during the holidays is: "Drive safe! There's so many drunks out!"

So this Christmas I questioned her on it. "Really, Mom? Why would the drunks be out on Christmas Eve? I mean, New Years Eve? I understand. But why Christmas Eve?"

"Because everybody's getting drunk because they have to see their families and they have such trouble in their families."

She told several illustrative stories about her parishioners whose distressing families make holidays agonizing. And I decided she's right. People are incredibly disappointed and tortured by their families. And these kind of ritual celebrations, where we work so hard to avoid naming all the elephants under our family tables, can be the most bizarre, surreal experiences...

I'm lucky that I have such an idyllic (albeit, desperately screwed up in some ways) family...

...but on the other hand, there's something about Christmas that reminds us that we're always trying to recover something magical from our memories -- that we hope or suspect or desire will emerge from the people we remember. That our gatherings will somehow be everything good we faintly remember and also completely fulfill who we have become since then.

The older we get, the more cynical we get, the more we know that we can't ever find *that* on Christmas -- but in the looking and the considering and preparing not to get -- I find myself incredibly grateful. Both for the real, albeit fragmented and imperfect love i share with my given family. And also for all the love I've felt with and through so many of you.

Hope you've found some...

peace~

Holiday Esoterica

Wrapped up hours and hours of administrative work at school yesterday. Today we pilgrimage North to Michigan.

"Minnie" is still getting a new tailgate so we'll be condensing and squeezing into a rental sedan with a vague residual olfactory memory of smokers for six hours.

I've been growing out my Christmas beard during advent. It's bushy and thick now. I'm frickin Grizzly Adams.

Several of my favorite students just finished their time at Malone. As is usually the case -- our parting rituals seemed a bit inadequate. But then, we live in a society where most of the rituals seem a bit inadequate. Especially if you compare our rituals to others around the globe.

I'm hoping to read two good novels, re-read my novel, take another crack at an old screenplay and see my friends the Livermores and my friend Joe.

At thanksgiving, our football team (Opa's Angels) trounced the other team, so we've yet to have a good flaunting ceremony about that.



we've been playing this game for more then ten years and the teams are older than that. A three year hiatus based on yearly trips to emergency rooms and elderly fathers' pretending to have a bad back has finally been broken. Opa's Angel's are back!

In *OTHER* family news, my two brothers -- the bishop and the moron -- several years ago, under the guise of a "missions trip" betrayed the rest of the siblings and took a long vacation in Jamaica together with their families. Well. Ang & I have been plotting our revenge for *years* and it looks like things are finally coming together this year. We're pretty stoked about it. maybe i'll blog about it...we'll have to see how humiliated the two brothers are afterwards...

Are all family holidays this aggressive and competitive?