Yes, I wrote CHRISTMAS Vacation. Deal with it, all you non-Wasps! Shouldn't have declared war on baby Jesus.
For those of you who like to skip to the end, this story ends with me chewing on a morsel of remarkable and unappreciated turkey, tasting notes of thyme, apple, candied ginger and regret.
For those of you who prefer political diaries, this isn't one. Think of it as a Hello Cruel World diary from someone who just took a long break from Daily Kos.
I felt full of the spirit this season. It's like Frosty the Snowman had made love to my ear with a carrot-stick member as Rudolph and the other reindeer watched, eyes sparkling with gratitude. It felt like the four chambers of my heart had been elf-stuffed with candy cane powder, figgie pudding, wassail and mistletoe puree -- all of which, as you know, are deadly poison.
I've never been so happy with my life as I am right now, despite the fact that I'm surrounded on all sides by foreclosed homes, unemployed people, and rapidly burning American currency. None of that seems to matter underneath my roof, and I don't mean that in an "I've-got-mine-so-fuck-you" way. I just mean it's hard to remember how hard things are for others when everything seems to right in your own life.
Thusly filled with contentment of mind and soul, I thought, what could be more joyous than to invite every friend and loved one into my home for a feast for Christmas? Had I paid attention to the warning signs, I might have realized the folly of it all. The Chrysler-sized slab of coal, impeding the multicolored holiday lights at the end of the tunnel.
So invite I did. And the first sign that not all was right in Christmastown came when I realized that I wasn't going to be able to get the free-range turkey of my fevered dreams. Apparently they don't grow them that big. At least not here in Oklahoma. Not even Whole Foods.
Full of yuletide benevolence and optimism, I brushed this meager holiday hindrance aside and crafted a new plan. We'd serve a ham, to supplement the smaller (and caged-before-death, rather than born free) bird. Even so, I'd do this bird right, goddammit.
Mrs. Droogie cooked the ham the easy way. The only other ingredient than the ham itself was brown sugar. The gob of meat simmered pleasantly in the slow cooker, as my wife moved on to other duties.
As she did, the kitchen was mine. Like a mad scientist, and looking more Halloween than Christmas, I concocted my ingredients for the ultimate turkey. A brining solution made from kosher salt, whole peppercorns, raw honey, candied ginger. Afterward, I stuffed it with honeycrisp apples, a California chardonnay and sprigs of thyme and rosemary direct from my garden.
This would be a fowl to remember, I thought. The centerpiece of an amazing event. A fucking Christmas miracle, ripped from the sappiest made-for-TV special. All directed by me -- yes, me. The man of the house. Without any sense of hubris, a line from "Donnie Brasco" flickered into my brain. "Anywhere you go in the world, all the best cooks are men." I'd show em, Mr. Al Pacino. Yes indeed, I thought, with a flash of something bordering on vindictive.
And the turkey was not alone. Oh, no. I carefully selected wines and after-dinner beverages. I chose plates and glassware. I made arrangements for seating. I devoted great thought to a iPod playlist of Christmas music that wasn't too corny or overplayed. I borrowed heaters to keep people warm should they venture outside. And of course there were all the other trimmings -- a bold, new take on stuffing that included dried cranberries; mashed potatoes made with loving care; and so forth.
As the day took shape, it was looking like I was going to pull it off. Ha. How many times had the holiday meal been late when aunts and grandmas and moms had hosted? Not this time, relatives! I don't invite people over unless I can do it on time! And on time it would be. Christmas Eve. Sharp!
Somewhere in between when I put in the turkey and when I began working on arranging chairs, I started to realize how serious the winter weather outside was becoming. The forecasters had predicted a "White Christmas." Charming, right? Here in Oklahoma, snow rarely sticks too hard.
What we got was a thick layer of ice, coated with 10-14 inches of snow. With the wind, it was drifting feet high.
Shit.
Doubt.
Then phone calls.
A cousin can't come. Well, that's all right. Just one guest. Mrs. Droogie's grandparents cannot make it. Understandable, given they live so far away. More call to cancel. They're sorry. I say well, we've got to be safe, right?
As the snow got deeper and the turkey got browner -- a gorgeous brown, by the way -- the enormity of it started hitting me. I just threw a huge holiday party for nobody except for me, my wife and my son.
I remember talking to my parents on the phone. They live less than three miles away, with good, solid road in between us. I told them the full situation and how much it would mean to all of us, especially me, if they could just try to make it over. But in the end they decided to sit for three hours in their power-outage hit, darkened house than come to a warm house with a hot, delicious meal.
There were four guests, aside from my household. My brother-in-law's family did make it over. They said everything I'd done was wonderful, but it felt hollow. Obligatory. I wanted to kick this holiday's ass, not reap pity kudos from lonely guests!
Sometime just before dinner I got another call from my mom, who never came. She proposed that we aim for a do-over tomorrow.
Her idea was that I do everything that I did for this day, over again?
I'll spare you what I said when I unloaded on my poor wife, who was taking comfort in the fact that I would be unable to kill anyone with the electric knife I'd borrowed for cutting the turkey. Not enough length of cord on that. But what I said was unpretty.
The best I could suggest was that I sleep on it before committing to a Christmas mulligan. Before I did go to sleep, I cut the bird into pieces, as carefully as I would have for my guests. It was a sad affair. But I did a magnificent job, using tips offered by chef Alton Brown on a Youtube video I'd watched earlier.
When we pulled the wishbone apart, I wished that I would never allow myself to offer to host anything ever again. My wife wished that we would not suffer a power outage. She's the practical one.
The next day, we did have people over. We were supposed to travel that day to Oklahoma City, where we usually do my side of the family's Christmas Day get-together, but the trip would have been a 150-mile sheet of ice, and the highways had been closed by our state's government.
My mom, who didn't, couldn't, or wouldn't make it to my Christmas Eve dinner, said she felt sorry for the hostess of that get-together in OKC, having put together everything as she did and having nothing to show for it.
"I know what she feels like," I said, quietly.
"Well, what did you do?" she asked matter-of-factly, and with a clueless look on her face.
My wife, who stood behind her, grimaced visibly.
"Never mind," I said.
When my brother and his wife tucked into the turkey and the ham, they praised the ham -- for which my wife had spent a total of about 15 minutes preparing -- over the turkey, for which I had practically fought the Trojan War. Again, my wife grimaced visibly.
"I'm sorry!" she mouthed to me silently, from across the room.
"Well, I guess the turkey wasn't worth it, in retrospect," I said.
Over the next few cold, icy days, we ate our way through our feast, having carefully divvied it up into freezer bags and plastic microwave-safe boxes. This is when I chewed the morsel of the much suffered-for bird, drowned myself in the wine I'd bought for guests and thought that it wasn't at all worth it.
But we did learn some things. I learned not to attach my ego, my masculinity and my self-worth to something that can be ruined by our state's worst blizzard in a quarter-century. My family learned which of our friends are really there for us when it counts.
And maybe I learned that the holiday specials are right about one thing, despite all the shopworn Christmas corniness and hackneyed pleas about remembering the meaning of Christmas. That is this: Meals, gifts, and good times don't mean dick unless the people you love show up for it.
I write this so maybe I can get to the "look back and laugh" phase of when awful things happen. I'm not quite there yet, but I've been too tired and angry to give anyone a full account of everything that went into everything that went so very, so perfectly, wrong.
So, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a blessed New Year to all of you.