Filed under: Your Home, Fun Stuff, Parties & Entertaining, Holidays
Our writer loves her family, but she doesn't love spending Christmas with them.About the same time Christmas tree lots start popping up in parking lots and radio DJs start playing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" on an endless loop, I start getting more calls from home. On the other end of the phone, my mom and dad ask about work, the dogs and the weather before getting to the real reason for their call: To invite, encourage and cajole me into coming home for Christmas. They take turns making hard-to-refuse offers like, "Dad will make pancakes on Christmas morning!"
A photo of the author on Christmas in 1977 -- back when she was forced to spend the holiday with her family. Photo: Jodi Helmer
It's hard to decline their invitation -- but I do.
This December marks a decade since I last celebrated Christmas with my family. During holiday season's past, I've spent Christmas traveling to Hong Kong (see me and a Chinese Santa Claus below) and Peru, rented a cottage at the beach and celebrated solo.
There are many reasons I choose not to go home for Christmas. Home is the suburbs of Toronto, Canada, which feels a little like the North Pole in December. There isn't a suitcase large enough to hold the boots, mittens, scarves and long underwear required to make the trip. Frigid temperatures and towering snow banks are as certain as the arrival of Santa on Christmas Eve. Add outrageous airfares and lines at the airport that make me want to drink too much spiked eggnog and a trip home for Christmas makes me want to borrow the Red Ryder BB Gun from Ralphie so I can shoot my eye out!
The author with Santa Claus in Hong Kong. Photo: Jodi Helmer
We're a close-knit little clan and we love spending time together. When I do go home, we eat too much, talk too loud and laugh like banshees. We take candid snapshots of each other making weird faces, wrestle in the living room and tell crude jokes.
But during Christmas, the frenzied pace leaves little time to connect with each other. It seems that someone is always working, shoveling the walk, finishing their shopping, hiding in another room to wrap gifts or making a last minute trip to the supermarket instead of piling under blankets in the living room and watching "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" or gathering around the dining room table for a game of cards. We argue over time slots for the home's sole bathroom and fuss at each other about who makes too much noise in the mornings and who ate the last cookie.
The number of parties, breakfasts with Santa, white elephant gift exchanges and open houses that we've navigated over Christmas could rival the President's social calendar -- and that makes it hard to spend time hanging out in front of the Christmas tree.
The last time I went home -- in 2000 -- was so hectic I decided that I was going to plan trips in the summer when there were fewer obligations and a more relaxed pace at the house. So far, it's worked. Last summer, we sat outside on the deck from morning until night. My two-and-a-half-year-old niece, Charlotte, ran through the sprinkler while we ate hamburgers and corn on the cob. When my dad wasn't manning the grill, Charlotte grabbed his hand and convinced him to run through the sprinkler, too, even though he was wearing slacks and loafers. There were no parties or social obligations, no expectations of elaborate meals, no pressure to get dressed up, no fights or frustrations over gifts given or received. It was just our little clan spending time together in the summer sun.
One year, the author went home for a visit during December but not for Christmas. Photo: Jodi Helmer
Over the past decade, I've continued with some traditions from home, including making pancakes on Christmas morning and sitting in front of the tree, taking turns opening gifts. I've also created some new traditions.
On Christmas morning, my partner and I take the dogs for a long hike. We call our families, listen to Christmas carols and trade stories of childhood celebrations and favorite gifts. We skip the traditional meal in favor of making new recipes. Last Christmas, I made pot roast for the first time. This year, we've set our sights on making sweet and sour Indian stew and homemade bread. Instead of pumpkin pie, we split a pint of Ben & Jerry's for dessert. We leave all of the dishes in the sink, change into our pajamas and spend the evening drinking hot chocolate and playing board games in front of the fire.
Who knows? One of these years, I might take my parents up on the invitation to come home for the holidays. For now, I'm content to embrace Bing Crosby's mantra: "I'll be home for Christmas...if only in my dreams."
Jodi Helmer is the author of The Green Year: 365 Small Things You Can Do to Make a Big Difference.