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| nee Judi Rice |
My mother loved Xmas. I have the great fortune of having grown up as an atheist because of her because my kooky grandfather forced her to go to a Seventh Day Adventist church. She was not having that, so I got to not board the religious homophobia train. Hurray for me. Christmas though not religious for us involved all of the normal stuff including singing hymns, her wreath, peppermint, and russian tea ball cookies. Christmas Eve dinner with all of the finery, and Christmas brunch with her special pancake recipe which involved sour cream and a liberal shake of four letter expletives.
They built their place in the Cascades in the late 80's and every year we'd schlep up there at first from LA (800 miles) and later from SF (500 miles), with last 150 usually on crappy winter roads. It was mother's first white Christmas. It was also Aric's first white Christmas. We'd often go out to the forest to get a fir tree for which my stepfather built this industrial strength holder since the trees were often 12 feet high. Many of the ornaments she made by hand, but the best one was from my grandmother who made one of a reindeer whose head hid a Hershey's kiss. we thought it looked better with an old cigarette butt too.
We had a don't ask don't tell kind of arrangement until I was about 28 when we were drunk while camping and I told her, and she then told me that my uncle was gay too which caused huge drama in the 40's. I can only imagine. She knew about all of my boyfriends and I never hid them at all from anybody and was fiercely protective of them, taking my then ex in when he was in a bad space, and getting right into the face of my homophobic prick uncle when he was making nasty remarks about Aric. A wasp was on her side and dutifully stung that uncle.
Toward the end Aric and I did most of the cooking, but our niece has picked up on the cookie making while I am constantly trying to get that darn standing rib roast cooked correctly. The Orrefors out, sterling laid out, with the choice of several generations of china, and then the whole spread ready. She even insisted that the damn football game be switched off. As adults, we had a banter especially after she had a little too much wine in her water and get up on some soap box or another much to all of our amusement. I was definitely good at pressing her buttons.
The traditions go on, but just without her now. After 7 years, it's still pretty raw knowing that something she'd know right off the top of her head is now probably lost forever, and especially a lot of her genealogy work (it's there, but how she figured things out is gone). This will happen to you too, and you're going to morn being able to tap into her knowledge for all kinds of family things. Make certain you remember she's going to be gone one day.
Happy hanuramuquanzamastice everybody!
