I need drugs to get through almost any function at my parents' house. Unfortunately, for my street cred, these drugs tend to be over-the-counter allergy pills and pseudoephedrine. I am roughly one-twentieth of a speed freak when it comes to family functions.

Christmas is the worst of all, as it stirs up an aerated brew of pet dander, particulate bird and cat droppings, tree pollen, and whatever pathogen constitutes the majority of children.

My parents assemble a tower of Babel to holiday consumerism. I have Amber stand beside it, so I can reliably report its dimensions as four by six by five. It is 120 square feet of presents by volume. A small car could have parked itself in the living room. For what they spent, that is not out of the realm of possibility. I bought my contributions off Amazon and ThinkGeek on the same day, with the exception of a bunny shaped baby blanket Amber used my card to buy from an Israeli on Etsy. Amber had bold, ethical notions of buying local in Red hook, but the days we tried to do this were either bitterly cold or soaking wet. To stave off her guilt, she wrapped up nearly new items from her childhood and I purchased a membership in her CSA for my mother, assuming I will end up giving Amber the equivalent money eventually anyway, so I ought to get something for subsidizing her endeavor.

Amber knows all the presents I've gotten her (an autographed copy of the Art of Asking and a USB heated travel mug) and managed to give me a marvelous Present Face anyway, feigning her disappointment.

I feel that Amber and I do well when it comes to gift-giving and hat most of our attempts are well received, though our niece Alyssah, who is not even ten, reacts to the nail polish and Twilight Sparkle figure we give her with a teenager's haughtiness. Though she once loved dolls and gripping Amber's hand, she now had a tablet and unlimited access to Youtube videos of people doing themselves physical and moral harm. It is hard to compete.

My brother Bryan operates by checkbox logic. He considers Christmas all year, but only in the sense that he is on the lookout for a closeout sale in March where he can buy three salad spinner or sets of salt and pepper shakers that resemble nothing so much as turgid penises. He purchases these for a tenth their original prices, then considers his shopping done. In his defense, he once wandered the mall for hours one December, searching for just the right gift for me before settling on a woven brown scarf with pockets at each end. He is capable of empathetic gift-buying, but only when pressed by circumstance.

My mother, on the other hand, dedicates herself to finding just the right gift. However, she does not believe in humbleness in the giving. If we want something simple, she will find the top of the line, shiniest version of it. We try to get around this by giving her genie-wish proof descriptions of the desired items for Santa to put in our stockings, but that only goes so far. I credit her with most of the technology I use on a daily basis.

Christmas properly begins the night before, when we gather in their driveway and wait for Santa and Frosty to drive by on their fire truck. I am not positive what the logic of this is supposed to be-I am certain Frosty would want to avoid flame whenever possible-beyond that the town has the trucks and why not?

Before the fire truck containing Santa arrives, my mother urges us toward her neighbor's house. My mother passively cares for the woman who lives in that house, whose husband lives with the daughter while slowly succumbing to Alzheimer's. My mother says that she cannot allow someone to be alone on Christmas, so we bring her some of the pizza we had earlier and presents my mother had wrapped. My mother opens up her door and shouts up that we are here, then my whole family sings "Jingle Bells," since it is the only carol we can reliably be expected to know most of the lyrics to.

Every other year, fire fighters follow after in a less grand truck, getting out to hand us candy canes. This year, it is sprinkling slightly, so they throw fistfuls at us from the truck bed and speed away. However, this is a part of the annual tradition and I am not allowed to cast aspersions on it like so many candy canes flung at my niblings' heads from a truck.

Christmas Day, Amber and I stopped by my mother-in-law's house to have cinnamon rolls and open their presents. I had then intended to continue to my parents' alone and have Amber meet up with me for Christmas dinner, but my mother- and sister-in-law are working on little to no sleep and would rather rest than spend the next five house entertaining Amber. It is only the four of us, all patient adults, so the unwrapping takes a matter of minutes.

Amber had unwrapped all of my family's presents to her the night before, so she has nothing to unwrap. I hand her occasional presents of mine to unwrap, so she will be a part of the experience, but she does not care about this. She is far more occupied cooing at our infant niece Adalynn.

Adalynn is Amber's favorite of the niblings because she feels the most like hers. Alyssah remembers Melanie well enough to have once harassed me about having two girlfriends. Ayannah and Alieyah remember Emily, though Ayannah informed me that Emily was "mean" the one time I asked her about it. I am certain that Aaryn cannot remember anyone but Amber, on whom he has a small crush, but Amber was not there to hold him shortly after he was born. As for Aydan, I doubt he could point Melanie out in a line-up, but he cuddled next to her a few times.

Adalynn is the one who makes Amber most feel as though she is someone's aunt. She likes them all, but she loves Adalynn in an instinctive way. She makes frequent jokes to the effect that she will steal Adalynn away should anything ever happen to Becky and Dan, to forestall "her" baby from falling into the clutches of someone who would not be as good a parent. Adalynn is the one who prods the alarm button on Amber's biological clock.

I am confident that Adalynn does not especially care for me. If she realizes that I am the one holding her, she begins whimpering with increasing urgency until a better caretaker, Becky, Dan, my father, mother, or Amber, in descending order, relieve me of my avuncular duty. Our only significant interaction came a few months ago, when I dared to sit down in the chair usually occupied by her father. She grabbed at my pant leg, expecting him. When she saw my face, she burst into inconsolable tears until Dan, only four feet away, took her off my lap. I am convinced she has never forgiven me for this.

Christmas exists in this liminal, almost sacred space in American culture. I see people complaining on the internet that Christmas just doesn't feel like Christmas anymore. I understand the issue is that they are seeing it from the internet, where nothing really changes. They slap a red and green coat of paint on it, but it is just a recycling.

The Christmas spirit demands from us a leap of faith: sincerity. We live in a culture that considers publicly admitting one likes Christmas carols just about the lamest thing one can do. All the same, we want Christmas to have a texture. We want to have fond memories, and these are never made with ironic detachment.

Soon in Xenology: New Years

last watched: The Shining
reading: The Time Traveler's Wife
listening: Mindy Gledhill

Wake to Answers ««« 2014 »»» Yule Be Fine