Originally published 1/10/16
The three most important Christmas traditions are: food, a constant soundtrack of Christmas Carols and decorations - lots of decorations.
And yes, the celebration and birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. But I've reviewed that in a previous post.
Michael isn't crazy about any of my secular Christmas traditions and has, in fact, tried to get me to call the four weeks leading up to Christmas "Advent." For the record, I was raised Lutheran, and I do indeed realize that the four weeks leading up to Christmas are indeed Advent. But in my secular, commercial and traditional mind, they are Christmas. I might ease up a bit, but it's really not up for negotiation. The house will be decorated in December, Christmas Carols will be played all the time, and certain foods will be baked.
My mom did this to me. You see, we came to South Carolina in 1969 from Seattle. I might have recounted this story earlier, but we're the only branch of either family on the east coast. My dad came to work for Milliken Textiles when Boeing downsized in a major way in 1969. I was born Sept. 22, and my dad left 9 days later to start working. My mom, brother and I came 6 weeks later.
Instead of growing up with big, extended family Christmases like they had in Seattle, we had small intimate Christmases at home in SC, with just the four of us. My mom worked very hard, she told me later, to establish Christmas traditions in our family, because it was just the four of us. I think she didn't want us to feel like we were missing out on something by not being in Seattle with everyone else. I don't know. We went to Seattle a couple of times in my childhood, which was fine, but I was always glad to get back to our South Carolina Christmas the next year. I loved Christmas at home.
We had Christmas records - the kind you used to buy at the gas station for a dime that had a variety of artists on them. And we had several children's choirs, and one that was an organist who played every carol really really fast. We always laughed at that record and said he must have been in a hurry to go home. The year Amy Grant came out with a Christmas record was the start of the secular recordings, and I begin to collect those. My favorite one of all time is a recent purchase, about 10 years ago, called a Soulful Messiah. It's a gospel/history of black music rendition of Handel's Messiah. And it is awesome. I usually have to listen to it once in October because I've missed it during the year. I also love the Charlie Brown Christmas/Vince Guaraldi trio.
Michael hates both of those. He suffers them, along with Donna Summer, Mercy Me and Michael Buble, among others. Headphones are helpful, but sometimes you just gotta listen to Christmas music on the hi-fi. I mean the Bose.
Anyway, Christmas music starts the day after Thanksgiving, officially. Though lately I've been known to sneak in some music on my headphones in November.
My mom was a teacher, which means we didn't get to decorating the tree until the day school got out, which was pretty close to Christmas! On that Friday night, Dad would get the lights on the tree, and then get the boxes down that held all of our ornaments, each carefully and individually wrapped from the year before. We would carefully unwrap them (and refold the tissue paper and put it back in the box) and put them out on the couch so we could see what we had. Each one had a story, or a special memory. It's kind of like renewing acquaintances with old friends each year. I'm always so glad to see each ornament, and remember where it came from, or why I love it so much.
This bear, at left, was always my favorite ornament. He's so special I keep him in my jewelry box now. I don't even know why. He just reminds me of my childhood, and my love of Christmas.
I love my ornaments. One year, I came home from college and was so excited to see our tree. There it was, in the front window (where all trees should but which modern architecture precludes, much to my dismay), covered in ornaments and tiny colored lights. I sat down in front of it and stared at its twinkly branches, and looked for all my favorite ornaments. None of which were there.
"MOM!" I yelled.
"I told you she'd notice," my dad said to my mom in the other room.
"Where are the rest of the ornaments??" I demanded to know.
"Well," she faltered, "I thought we'd have a theme tree this year. With just musical ornaments on it. I've always wanted a theme tree."
I just looked at her incredulously.
"Shall we get the rest of the ornaments out and put them on?" she volunteered.
"Yes, we should," I said.
"Too soon for a theme tree?" she asked.
"Too soon, Mom."
Somewhere in my late 20s I received a Christmas present: a bag full of all of my favorite Johnson family ornaments. My mom was ready for a theme tree.
On that Friday we would decorate the house, too, placing the choir of angels on the side table, hanging the needlework wreath above the mantle, and hanging the five handmade globe ornaments in the front hall. Everything had its home, and went there every year. Then we would surround it all with sprigs of fir cut from the bottom of the Christmas tree. The house smelled so good, of fir and .... you guessed it, cookies.
You cannot bake too many Christmas cookies. But you have to bake: datenut pinwheels, Russian teacakes, peanut butter balls, and gingerbread men.
On Christmas Eve, cookies were the treat we had after church, dessert always with cocoa. We arranged them on beautiful plates, then ate them in front of the tree. The tree, to me, is never more beautiful than on Christmas eve, at its most expectant, most glorious, waiting for the onslaught of the next morning.
Mom's tree, at right, on Christmas Eve this year.
For dinner, though, we always had homemade New England clam chowder with cold cuts and crackers. A light supper, mom always said, because we had cookies after dinner and a big eating day the next day. The next day, breakfast was always almond braid, eggs and rice casserole. Rice casserole? I know, weird, don't know why we had it for breakfast but we did. Then the prime rib went in the oven for dinner. Popovers, potatoes and all the good stuff. We got so ingrained in our traditions that now Mom feels like she has to let us know when she veers. For example, no almond braid this year. Even though I wasn't there for breakfast, she still let me know.
"I just didn't get the almond braid made this year," she said, clearly disappointed in herself.
Don't fear, she made up for it with a huge coffee cake, eggs and grits. No one went hungry.
I think those things are just as important to her as they are to me.
As an adult, I had planned to have equally as memorable traditions, but my life didn't quite turn out that way. I divorced when Isabel was three, which means she's always switched houses on Christmas day at 2 p.m., and every other year we have her in the morning. So Christmas was never exactly the same for her as it was for me growing up. We were as steady as we could be until I met Michael 8 years ago. Then Christmases really took a turn for the crazy. He has three children, a dad in North Carolina, and a brother with three children who lived with us for a year once.
Still, no matter the scenario, there has always been a tree, lots of Christmas music, a buffet of cookies and dinner at a beautifully decorated Christmas table.
Left, Christmas table at the Johnsons.
Until this year.
I knew this year would be different. We were on the road, between parental homes, none of which are the homes we grew up in. Which is fine, but not being in my home, with my tree (bird-themed this year, as a result of our not being in town for long, so all of my old friends did not come out of the box), my Christmas china and my Charlie Brown CD, shook things up a little more. I know for these three years I won't have a traditional Erika Johnson Cannon Christmas. I do. I'm OK with that.
I did my best to schedule our holiday trip back home to make sure we would see everyone for enough time in the right kind of Christmas atmosphere to have a memorable holiday experience. For some of this scheduling, however, I depended on Michael. Mistake No. 1.
Michael's dad lives in Flat Rock, NC, just over the border, about 25 minutes from my parents' North Greenville home. So the timing and distance is convenient for a split holiday. Charlie is a retired priest who really just wants to celebrate the birth of Jesus, so we made sure to get to church with Charlie Christmas Eve and Christmas morning. My family has become Baptist, so the church thing is not as important any more. Last year, we did the same, and Charlie provided us a beautiful Christmas lunch and thoughtful gift exchange after church at his home. I left the coordination of the visit with his dad up to Michael. He knows how much I love a Christmas tradition, and what a delightful time we had last year churching and lunching with his dad.
It was all going to be perfect.
Until I learned Charlie was not fixing lunch. And that Michael thought we could just go out for lunch on Christmas Day.
Do you know how many restaurants are open in the Hendersonville/Flat Rock area on Christmas day?
I was in the back seat as we drove across the Western North Carolina landscape, looking for cooked food. I was cooked. I was seething. I was furious. I couldn't believe we were driving around on Christmas Day looking for a place to eat.
We drove into the McDonald's parking lot. It was packed. I put my foot down. As a rule, I don't eat at McDonalds, and I absolutely will not eat at one on Christmas Day. We decided to head home, and just go on to my mom's house, where I knew a proper Christmas dinner would be had.
Then we passed the holy grail of dining establishments, which is always open, and upon which disaster experts base the severity of the current weather situation: Waffle House. Which never closes, and which, our waitress told us, asks potential employees in their job interview whether they are willing to work on Christmas Day.
Right, the actual Waffle House where we ate Christmas lunch.
"All this talk about food has made me hungry," Charlie announced. "Maybe I could eat."
Michael swerved into the Waffle House and said "We're eating here."
You cannot imagine my horror. Me. The keeper of homemade Christmas tradition - New England Clam Chowder, cookies, prime rib, popoevers. We were going to eat Christmas lunch. At the Waffle House.
There was a line. They were actually taking names at the door.
I couldn't go inside. It was raining, but at least it wasn't cold. Michael came outside and got me.
"You have to come in. There's a chair," he told me.
I reluctantly went in and sat down. My eyes welled up with tears. I went to the bathroom. I actually had to pee. I looked at myself in the mirror, splashed water on my face, and told myself not to cry about this.
Is it the end of the world? Christmas lunch at Waffle House? I couldn't reconcile it. Not at that moment. This isn't how you're supposed to spend Christmas. At Waffle House, with a bunch of strangers, eating, well, waffles. That's for Friday night after too much whatever it is you do. Or Saturday morning after too much whatever it is you do.
And, we had to wait to be seated. Are you even kidding me?
Michael and Charlie were chatting up the Waffle House hostess, finding out about the Christmas Day interview question, the new one opening up in Hendersonville that she wanted to work at, and usual labor practices on non-holidays.
A family with two small children left, and we were awarded a booth on the kitchen, the kind where the waitress just leans over and takes your order, then yells it directly to the line cooks behind you.
Our waitress, who was wearing a headband with reindeer antlers, leaned over, and slid us our plastic-coated menus. It is amazing how many different things they make on that line at Waffle house. I couldn't, however, even begin to make a decision about eating, though I was getting a little hungry...my mind was still baffled by the fact that I was at Waffle House on Christmas Day eating lunch. So I ordered a waffle.
As we waited, I begin to look around. My Christmas-tradition fog begin to clear enough so that I could see what was happening around me.
"But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people." Luke 2:10
Those shepherds were probably a bit befuddled too, when an angel interrupted their daily, traditional work. They were supposed to be tending sheep, sleeping in a lean-to, cooking beans over a fire. Then this angel shows up? Man, that must have shook up their day. But they paid attention, and were calmed.
So I paid attention. The staff knew many of the customers who came in the door. Some were dressed up, and some weren't. They said "Hey! Merry Christmas!" long before their regulars ever got to a table. They asked about someone who wasn't with them, or if they have been to church, all dressed up.
There were so many employees packed in that kitchen, each working at a frantic pace, but with joy and peace on their faces and in their countenance. None of them were begrudged to be serving me on Christmas Day. The waitress refilled our coffee, got our orders to the table, and made sure we had enough syrup.
That waffle was good.
Michael generously tipped our waitress. We really did appreciate her working and serving us on Christmas day. And Michael just appreciated the time with his dad, who will turn 80 this year.
Now I'm able to laugh at that lunch, appreciate it, and maybe understand me a little better. Michael thinks we should make Waffle House lunch a new tradition.
I wouldn't go that far.
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