Friday, December 02, 2005
Dreaming of the perfect holiday? Dream on
Libba Wolfe
Libba Wolfe's column appears twice monthly in Extra.
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We all have plans for perfect holidays.
Sometimes things turn out. Sometimes they don't.
It's funny how the perfect holidays all clump together, while the disasters get a name and become part of the family lore. The year I stumbled and fell while carrying the gravy boat into the dining room is known as Our Dry Thanksgiving. We still talk about the Christmas morning at Mama's when we were busily getting dinner ready and putting last-minute touches on a huge afternoon birthday party for Daddy. The kitchen plumbing completely failed. Oh my, what a day we had.
Years ago, my friend Stacy planned one of those magazine-layout Christmases in a ski lodge at Lake Tahoe. Snow falling softly as they sang carols by a glowing tree and a roaring fire -- you know the kind of thing she had in mind. Her husband and son left early to get the perfection started. She and her daughter still had some perfect present wrapping to do. Well, the perfect snow started a little earlier than she planned. She and her daughter and all the presents spent Christmas trapped in a grungy roadside motel halfway to Tahoe.
Not at all what she had planned -- but a famous chapter in their family story.
This is the same woman who spent every day last summer swimming and lifting weights to get her arms in shape for her mother-of-the-groom dress. Her son's wedding was scheduled for mid-October in Mexico. She was mighty toned and buffed on the wedding day as she watched Wilma hit Cancun on the Weather Channel. She laughed as she said she might need sleeves put on her dress when they reschedule, but they have another great story to tell.
We had to give up our Hallmark Christmas when our son was married Dec. 27 in Pennsylvania. We spent the 25th on the road. I'm not sure why I thought we'd happen upon some cozy little place with a turkey feast on a table near the fireplace and room for the four of us, but I did. I certainly did.
Late Christmas afternoon we finally found the only place open in Baltimore. It was exactly like the Chinese restaurant scene in my favorite movie, "A Christmas Story." The staff hovered as we had a holiday feast at The Egyptian Pizza. We'll never forget that Christmas.
My daughter-in-law Karen showed me the good sense of relaxing and letting it go when you have to.
For months, I had been hearing something in my son's voice that told me he had finally met "the one." Then she invited us to Thanksgiving at her house ... a major relationship indicator. You know her head was full of visions as she planned a perfect day for 35 guests, including her possible future in-laws. Any woman could tell you this situation was "fraught."
The night before T'giving she had planned an all-night cook 'n' clean-a-thon. But she locked herself out of the house. Trying to break in, she fell and broke her foot and spent the night in the emergency room.
Her vision of a Martha Stewart dinner was ruined.
I'm afraid if it had been me I would have ruined everybody's day by fretting and fussing and endlessly apologizing. Or crutching around the kitchen being bossy and getting in the way.
Karen taught me a lesson in grace during ruined expectations. She propped up on the sofa with the dogs while the guests hustled around, got the house in order and made a grand feast.
I'm sure the pain meds helped, but it's not easy to let go of your plan for perfection. The same women who understand "fraught" understand control.
That was The Broken Foot Thanksgiving. Privately I call it "When I Knew Karen Was A Keeper."
Some of us are dead set on re-creating a holiday exactly the way it's always been. But our families change. We lose loved ones. Our children grow up, and their in-laws want them to spend Christmas at their house -- imagine that. Somebody changes the turkey dressing recipe. Ice storms and accidents ruin our visions of perfection.
Sometimes things turn out the way we plan. Sometimes they just turn out, and we have a good story.
