Open Writing

Everybody who celebrates Christmas has his little annoying, yet must-be -done chore that is put off until the last minute. It’s the one that nags at you. Makes you mumble to yourself, Scrooge-like. Or gives you Grinch-like moments.

Years have taught me a few things. I’ve learned how to take things a little easier, starting with toy assembly. One misaligned bolt is all it takes for a major mishap. Which is why thirty years ago I happily slipped “ a little something extra” to the after-school helper in the bike store so that all Santa had to do was load that bright yellow, banana seat bicycle into his sleigh.

I’ve also learned that as inviting as the New York Times cookie recipes sound, I’m probably not going to be baking any. And as charming as the American author Truman Capote made baking fruitcake with his eccentric aunt sound, I won’t be doing it. Ditto for any Yule-shaped confections.

This self-knowledge has been hard won. The height of my Christmas baking came about ten years ago when I baked huge sheets of gingerbread for a gingerbread house. I was too ambitious. The sheets kept cracking in the oven. It was past four o-clock in the morning before I managed four that were not fatally flawed.

When the house was finally constructed and decorated, it had been handled so much that it was inedible. However, it was pretty close to being indestructible and even survived intact after being unceremoniously tossed in the garbage.

“Hey guys, look what I found,” I heard the sanitation guy yell.

I rushed out the door. He was holding the house aloft. I warned him not to eat it. He shrugged and carried it off to the cab of the garbage truck.

I’ve learned that forking over a couple of dollars for a box is the only way I’m going to be able to wrap a Christmas sweater so that it doesn’t look like an oversize cat toy.

I’ve also stopped worrying that there’s no way to disguise a tie box. Or a book.

Ready-made bows are not a cop-out I’ve discovered.

I’ve found that a couple of bright red poinsettias go a long, long way in making a house look Christmassy and nobody but me cares that I didn’t make a dried fruit wreath for the front door. Since I’ve weaned myself from crafty magazines published by lifestyle divas, I no longer feel guilty about any of this.

Storing the red candles along with the other Christmas decorations saves rummaging through the cupboards with a growing sense of panic.

I’ve found that taking out the vacuum cleaner before I put up the tree is a practical idea. And I’ve learned to live with the fact that I’ll still be finding needles about the same time that I’ll be stuffing the green cellophane grass into Easter baskets.

And it’s one of those facts of life that much like the saying, “You can’t make a cake without breaking a few eggs”, you can’t decorate a tree without breaking a few ornaments.

At the very last minute there will always be someone who sends us a Christmas card that’s not on our list. What to do? Send it now and it’ll arrive too late. And end up in their mailbox after the Christmas flurry. It’ll be so obvious they didn’t make the first cut, right? Years ago, I would have dithered away, weighing the pros and cons. Now I say, O.K., they’re on the list next year, and I hope the relationship will survive without an embossed “Season’s Greetings.”

So just as I was congratulating myself on eliminating needless Christmas stress, I found myself creating some.

I took a long hard look at the tree. There were bare spots. Indeed, there were scores of branches unfestooned. They needed, no, cried out for ornaments. The tree was soon going to be subjected to the critical gaze of a discerning toddler and his never-misses –anything one-year-old brother. Or so it seemed to me in my grandmother-crazed state.

So I dashed off to the mall, or the fourth ring of the Inferno, as I think of it. The good news is that ornaments were already on sale. Twenty percent off. Score one for granny. The bad news was that they were picked-over, a tawdry lot relegated to a corner.

Oh well, they’re better than nothing, I rationalized.

I scooped them up.

Now came another problem. I needed the wire hooks. Off to the big-box super hardware store, I raced.

I cornered a burly man climbing down from a forklife. He was busy moving boxed artificial trees out of the seasonal merchandise area and replacing them with rolls and rolls of garden hose. This, two weeks before Christmas.

“Nope, sold out weeks ago,” he replied to my question.

That was the first stop in the ornament hook quest. There was a second, a third and a fourth before I found the ninety-eight cent item that was about to make or break my Christmas.

So life continues to teach me these little lessons. And I guess Christmas stress just goes with the heightened expectations of the season. Nothing that a few deep breaths and a couple of sticky kisses from my grandsons won’t cure.