Wednesday, January 18, 2006
the night uncle gene saved christmas
I’ve sort of had a lot going on lately, emotionally and personally and such. It’s been and continues to be a very dense and trying time. I’m so glad I’m on leave while I go through it so I can concentrate on it and give it the attention it deserves. It’s all made me go back to a story I wrote about seven years ago, which I guess is just a little out of synch now but when I read it, it made me feel better, so I’ll share it with you anyway.
THE NIGHT UNCLE GENE SAVED CHRISTMAS
So, who am I to care about Uncle Gene saving Christmas? Because, actually, Uncle Gene and I may never have met. I know I met his wife, Bea, a lovely woman, but Gene, I don’t recall meeting. And Christmas? I’m Jewish, as you might have figured already. So Uncle Gene saved Christmas – and I’m the one who’s grateful. It was a great thing he did and now I can never thank him for it personally. So I’m doing the next best thing: I’m sharing the story so his mitzvah will live on.
Now you’re asking, who’s Uncle Gene? My best friend Andy’s mom’s uncle. Andy and I and my darling wife Kelly went to college together. I consider Andy to be like a brother to me, and I hope he feels the same. Kelly has expressed a similar feeling, such as when Andy came over to patch me up (he’s a doctor) after I fell off my bicycle, or when he lent us his car in the nick of time to pick up Kelly’s sister at the airport. When Andy and his darling, Heidi, got married, Kelly and I were invited, and that’s when I met Aunt Bea. Andy’s mom and dad feel very hamish to me – very like family. When they celebrate, I celebrate, and when they weep, I too feel sorrow. This is enough of a reason to care about Uncle Gene, a dear man much beloved by all the members of Andy’s family. But of course I have more personal reasons, which is why I must share the story of the Miracle of the Steaks.
Now, you may have noticed that my wife’s name, Kelly, isn’t a Jewish name. She is, in fact, a person of Catholic extraction. Andy is a Jew, like me. Andy’s wife Heidi? She was raised without a formal religious community, but now she’s Jewish. In fact, most all of our friends are Jewish. Is Kelly still Catholic? Who knows? I don’t make her keep the Sabbath and she doesn’t make me take communion. She even helps me set up a havdalah every so often and she hosts a terrific Passover feast. She’s very gracious and understanding about my traditions. And does she make her traditions part of our household? Not much, but one thing is still pretty important to her: Kelly likes Christmas.
The Christmas Kelly likes is not a big religious megillah, though. It’s more to do with cookies, and holly, and the smell of a pine tree snuggled into a corner of the living room. She likes to see her whole family together, happy and tipsy and opening presents. She likes to bake and shop, and then to bring goodies to all the people she cares about. She likes to take time off from work just to play with her new toys and her old friends. All her life, Christmas was the one time of the year set aside for unconditional love and fun. Kelly and I have seen some tough times in the years we’ve shared, but every December, whatever else may (or may not) be going on, Christmas cheers her up.
This past Christmas, though, was tough on her. It had been two years since she’d been home to see her family for the holidays – they’re up in the Poconos three thousand miles away. As Christmas rolled around, she started trying to plan a trip back to see them. But we had spent our traveling money on other travels, and she had to face the fact that she wouldn’t make it home. So she started making plans for a local Christmas, baking pastries and hanging a pine swag as big as a Buick from our front door and playing holiday music and lighting a lot of candles and all that. I must admit, our home was cozy and festive. It gave me a good feeling to see the twinkling lights on the tree and to smell the bread baking in the oven. What am I, a rock?
But with all this, there was still an empty place in Kelly’s heart, a sense that something was missing, a sadness about Christmas. She wanted to be with her family. She’s the oldest of five children, and her aunts and uncles and cousins and grandmother all get together for Christmas every year. Well, they get together all the time, for holidays and birthdays and whenever they can, because it’s a big Catholic family and they all live pretty near each other, except for Kelly, who misses them very much, but most of all at Christmas. And you can imagine, as the big day drew closer, she was thinking more and more about how much she was going to miss them on Christmas. And I felt bad about it. We did what we could to make the best of the situation, but with all her family so far away, it was hard not to feel their absence, to feel like we were not where we were supposed to be. Kelly was brave and wonderful about it, yet sometimes she’d just turn to me in the middle of everything, or even (and this was the worst) in the middle of nothing at all, and say, “I really miss them,” or “I wish I was going back.” And that’s why I cared about Christmas – me, a rabbi’s son. I cared because I care about Kelly, and she couldn’t help it, she needed to have a Christmas that would stand up to the snowy mountains, garbled carols and family togetherness she remembered from her every childhood December.
So a few days before Christmas, we decided to go to a nice restaurant for Christmas Eve dinner. It wouldn’t be the traditional family party, with the prunes and the shrimp and the ritual sharing of the big rice crackers, all of which they tell me every Polish Catholic has to eat before it’s really Christmas, but it would be a delicious meal. That would be fine with me. Still, I knew that it wasn’t what Kelly had grown up with. It was a decent substitute, but it wasn’t the real thing.
Then the family came to the rescue. Not the in-laws from Pennsylvania, but the friends up the block. Andy, the mensch, and Heidi, the recent convert to the faith of Moses, invited us to a small party on Christmas day. Just us, them, and two other mutual friends. Heidi would make a roast and cookies and pecan pies and mashed potatoes; I volunteered to bring green beans with crispy onions baked on top. Kelly’s face lit up like our tree. On the day her whole family gathered in her mom and dad’s house to open presents and eat chocolate and ham and fresh baked bread, she was going to be at a party with really good friends, basking in a friendship that felt like family. It wasn’t the same family she had been thinking about, but it was our family now. Kelly was really excited at last. Andy and Heidi were saving Christmas.
Christmas Eve, we went out and had a wonderful meal. The food was exotic and spicy, and we shared a special bottle we’d picked up at a famous winery. By the time I gave up on my dessert, we were the only people left in the restaurant. Kelly didn’t even finish her chocolate cake! This showed me that we were, at least, fulfilling the obligation that on Christmas one should gorge. I was in some discomfort, I ate so much. But even so, I felt a melancholy settle over Kelly as we drove back home. Her family was so far away. She wouldn’t see the twins opening their presents, or hear her brother wail away on Christmas songs. We had eaten well, but there had been no revelry, no Secret Santa exchange, no sharp pinches from Gram to make me take one more dessert. It had been nice, but it didn’t feel particularly like Christmas Eve dinner.
We went home, fell asleep, awoke at leisure and opened a mountain of presents. I had made sure Kelly had lots of packages to open and lots of paper to tear. I even boxed and wrapped some batteries I’d told her I’d pick up for her. After the presents were open, she sighed and called home and we talked to Gram Tara Bert Larry Heather Phyl Frank Frank Paul Erica Karen and Chad; the others were playing games and picking at the turkey. There was incessant noise in the background as toys crashed and songs were sung and people fought over the phone and the stereo and the chocolate. It sounded like a madhouse. After we hung up I looked in Kelly’s eyes and I could feel how she missed them all. So we took a nap and walked the dog and cleaned up the wrapping paper, and got ready for Christmas day dinner at Andy and Heidi’s place, where we hoped we would laugh and drink with the closest thing to family either of us would see that day.
We walked to Andy and Heidi’s house, since it’s about seven doors north of ours on the same block. Andy answered the door with a beatific grin. Since Andy usually answers the door beaming, not everyone would have noticed the especially sublime quality of his expression, but I did. His head was not reared back, and he was not roaring with laughter as was his wont. Instead, he silently embraced us both, ushered us to the kitchen, redolent with butter and garlic and savory smells, and shared the story of the Miracle of the Steaks.
The previous night, Christmas Eve, Andy and Heidi had gone to the best butcher shop in town to buy a suitable roast for Christmas dinner. The shop was closed. So was the next best shop, and the big grocery store, and the small grocery store. Everyone was closed. No one was open on Christmas day, either. So Andy and Heidi had nothing to serve as a main dish for Kelly and me and our friends for Christmas dinner. Dinner could not be cancelled; they’d just have to make do. There was some ground beef in the freezer; they’d defrost it and make meatloaf. Heidi makes a fine meatloaf, and with the rest of the goodies crowding the table, and plenty of wine and laughter, no one should miss the roast they hadn’t been able to find. It wasn’t perfect, but it would suffice.
Well, no one missed the roast, all right. As Heidi was pulling the ground chuck out of the freezer on Christmas day, their doorbell rang. Outside stood a delivery driver, working on Christmas like the right hand of righteousness. He held a package for delivery to Andy and Heidi, from Uncle Gene and Aunt Bea. Andy signed, brought it inside, and tore it open. Inside nestled six perfect fillets of prime Midwest steak, beefy bijoux from Nebraska sent by real relatives who really took care of the people they loved. Al and Jackie arrived, Andy broiled the steaks, and we all sat down to a perfect meal. Each plate was a masterpiece, creamy mashies and steaming bean casserole and stuffing like nobody’s business, more gravy than anyone needed, and crowning it all, Omaha steaks from the magnanimous Uncle Gene and Aunt Bea. Kelly’s face glowed in the candlelight; the table glowed with the happiness she radiated. We laughed and drank and sang and ate until we didn’t know where we were. Then, remembering, we lifted our glasses in gratitude to toast our Aunt Bea and Uncle Gene. They had made this Christmas dinner a classic. We had made it a real Christmas. Kelly missed her family, but knew that if she’d been back east she would have missed our family of friends. And of course, the Miracle of the Steaks.
Now I learn that Uncle Gene has reveled his last holiday season. He passed away before I gathered my wits enough to thank him and his lovely wife for saving Christmas dinner for my darling Kelly, and for showing us that we could share the season’s true spirit even by making it up as we went along. These clumsy lines are a poor substitute for expressing my gratitude in person, but I write them as the only substitute I have. Uncle Gene and Aunt Bea, thanks for the steaks, thanks for the wonderful meal, thanks for a holiday that will warm my heart for an entire year, for as long as memory endures. To bring such joy and fulfillment, it takes a very special kind of spirit. Such spirit must be celebrated. You have helped us learn how to celebrate, and I promise you both, the celebration is only beginning.
