Holidays bring about those unforgettable winter tales

Published: Monday, December 1, 1997

Monday, December 1, 1997

COLUMN: Family, season festivities, traditions keep time together interesting

As the holidays approach, I think we all get a little sentimental. The scent of cognac and microwaved red vino filling the streets reminds us of Dad, the sight of frozen lasagna and advertisements for grocery store precooked turkeys reminds us of Mom, and the sound of unamplified electric guitar strings being scratched at to the off-tune squealings of "Sabbath Bloody Sabbath" reminds us of our older brother, Brian.

And then we think of Mom getting crocked at the last Super Bowl Sunday party we had, cussing out the head coach of the Niners for benching Steve Young, and Dad maniacally making Brian eat an entire bowl of tomatoes when he was seven just because he knew Brian detested them, and Brian ripping off our covers every Saturday morning that we felt like sleeping in past 9:00 a.m. and we just have to crack open another Pabst Blue Ribbon, with a tear in our eye, and sigh. Ahh, home.

A recent roommate poll found the winter festivities just as exciting in every household across the country.

Jen: "One year over Thanksgiving, when I was seven, I remember my uncle made me eat grass. He was 23 and he thought it was really funny."

Liz: "When I was pretty young and we were still living in New York, our car stalled after coming back from the Thanksgiving day parade so we had dinner at a deli."

Sam: "I must have been around four because my parents were still together, and I remember feeling totally sick. I couldn't even eat my pancakes. My folks knew something was wrong, so we spent Christmas at the hospital."

And what, you might ask, is my most enjoyable holiday memory? Probably the year Uncle Bob told off-color jokes concerning Mexican youths just across the border filling out applications for Los Angeles high schools. We all sort of glanced at each other with looks of horror as he discussed graphic prostitution jobs and gang rituals. Gee, that Uncle Bob, he'll have you rolling.

I remember one time he came to a dinner party that we had for a Swedish co-worker of my Dad's, and not two paces over the threshold, he starts talking about U.C. Buerling, this Swedish opera star. The co-worker barely spoke English and next thing you know he gets his ear talked off for an hour about some obscure dead baritone. Now that Uncle Bob has a glass eye and has just taken retirement, he's become that much more entertaining. You can count on him to bring over the Hillsboro Argus every Sunday morning, a local Oregon paper that tells about who's doing what in the town my Dad left about 30 years ago.

But my Mom still wonders if he ever did leave in actuality. Who knows, the old man may still care what happened to old great aunt so-and-so the other day on the way to the Pic and Save. I take that back. He does care, there remains no doubt in my mind.

And then there's always Uncle Alan. He's good for getting tanked with you and giggling about how ridiculous your parents are. He may be about 60, but he knows a bull-shitter when he sees one. And believe me, the VanderZanden clan is full of them, myself included. All we like to do is talk and talk and talk. It really makes no difference about what. We're authorities on anything you might think you know something about.

But, hypocritical Uncle Alan fares no better. Sure, he'll bring a couple of chocolate See's candy turkeys over and blab about how the winner at Tripoly, a poker-esque card game tradition we've all come accustomed to, gets to chow on chocolate, but you have to listen to him go on about wanting to write a novel in a rainy cottage in Scotland and how people should be more accepting and yet, conversely, how half of America is full of idiots, before you can get your hands on that decadent turkey. But he'll look you squarely in the eye, well, actually sort of shakily, after several bottles of English stout and a few before-dinner gin and tonics and mid-dinner glasses of Chardonnay, and tell you never to change.

Never to trade-in your green and purple hair for brown, your squaw braids and headband with paper feather attached for barrettes (Hey, let's not forget our native pals on this traditional day. Someone's got to represent the original Thanksgiving participants, and I don't know any Native Americans personally. So I like to take up the slack.) or your bright pink velvet mid-'80s high school formal dress for a sedate, cotton brown frock. Or maybe he just likes having someone to drink with. No matter.

And then there's Uncle Dick and Hazel. Neither older party offers much in the way of intrigue, but every once in a while old Uncle Dick has been known to wield his wry wit in a number of hilarious ways and Hazel, well, she makes a damn fine vegetable dip. So there you go.

It all adds up to a bunch of drunken crazy folks hugging, kissing and making fun of one another. The best sort of family lifestyle I can imagine. I mean, sure, it's not "The Donna Reed Show," but hell, who wants that? Does Donna Reed ever spend Christmas Eve splitting the remaining wine that she hid from her guests with you in the kitchen, grinning from one 60-year-old cheek to the next, her bleached blond hair cascading down her forehead, saying "We deserve this - they didn't cook. They aren't planning on doing the dishes. They just come here and eat. Screw 'em. This wine's ours." Rock on, Mom, battle warrior of the domestic home front.

And, would Mr. Donna Reed blast Maria Callas so loud that it reaches the sidewalk on a Saturday night at midnight, as he offers you brandy and a discussion on 18th century Spanish sword-fighting techniques? Sure, today this sort of pathetic attempt at communication sort of disgusts me, but when I was around five, it made me feel really mature. I mean, I had no idea back then that the only reason he talked to me about stuff that I didn't understand was because he was too tired and drunk to get anyone else to listen. But now, I realize, no one really understands the old codger anyways. So whether I listen or not is rather irrelevant, I mean, he'll talk to the neighbor's cat if it happens to creep in, so, no big deal.

And there's always Brian, who's the only decent person I've found to tackle in the past 20 years. Other guys take that form of affection too seriously. He just tells me "Look out for the Sunday Punch" which has something to do with some wrestler back in the '80s and commences to clobber me playfully. Why can't all guys be like my big brother?

Even if he does stick my head in his armpit to check if he needs a shower and seems to be on some kind of a destructive mission to marry a domenatrix-esque French female who will be "so cool smoking her cigarette and drinking coffee" that he'll just spend every day trying to be worthy. Somehow, the fact that neither of us expect to find ourselves in an equal, mutually loving relationship endears me toward him. That and the fact that he could spend hours giving a dissection of Bruce Springsteen tunes to the extent that I find myself respecting the otherwise yuppie fan-based artist.

So, yeah my dad's an alcoholic, my mom's a lunatic and my brother's an ex-frat boy who hasn't really ever reached the same inflated social status that he enjoyed in high school, but I love them. Because they love me. And if they were normal, I might be content to shop at the Gap and fall in love with some moronic football star and become a lawyer or a manicurist for a small, independent beauty shop out in Anytown, USA. Instead, I question my sanity on a daily basis and flip out obsessive-compulsively about whether or not the dishes have been done, and I like it that way, by golly. I really do. And I dig my strange, chaotic childhood and can only hope this Christmas Eve proves as goofy as the last 19. Or else, it just wouldn't be the holidays for me.

VanderZanden is a third-year English student.

Vanessa Vanderzanden