Christmas

Every Christmas morning, my sisters and I tumble downstairs, pause to survey the adorned Douglas Fir and its outlying territory, then continue to the kitchen.  It’s a family tradition that before fingertips ever meet wrapping paper, we sit down to a big breakfast of bagels and lox and scrambled eggs with onions.  In my less ripe years, I considered this practice illogical frivolous excruciating; however—predictably—as the son of God’s¹ birthdays have accrued, I’ve discovered pleasure in the affair. The frequency of fully populated family breakfasts has shrunk since two of three children have moved out from under our parents’ roof and I think we all appreciate that this Christmas meal not only guarantees full family attendance but also promises that each party is going to be upbeat, which I’m not sure how other families work, but let’s admit that the wear of most days isn’t conducive to an atmosphere where all the faces at a table are invariably smiling.

I’m nervous. I’m not sleeping well. The greatest challenge of my life is one month away and I have yet to start planning it: Christmas dinner. Everything will be riding on it. Not just my self-respect; the respect of my gender – every man who has ever said to his stay at home wife, “Hey, I’d take your job in a minute.” Well, she gave it to me. It’s all mine. And now I’ve got to deliver. Put a stunning meal on the table this Christmas; one that lets my hard working, career-driven wife know she married the right …well …wife.

Let me be frank. I’ve survived these last few months on nothing but moxie, a crock-pot, and a copy of Cooking for Idiots. And now I’m staring at one hard cold fact: not only have I never cooked a Christmas dinner, I can’t recall having eaten one. I’m a Jew: a Jew, who pompously volunteered to cook for his Cuban wife and her family on their most important Holiday of the year. What the hell was I thinking? If some couch potato wants to firm up, you don’t tell him to enter a marathon. You tell him to walk a little, then jog a bit, see if he can eventually work himself up to a mile. Yet here I am, a couch potato running a marathon, a culinary novice planning the mother of all meals: Christmas Dinner. Yikes!