Memoirs of a Worldly Guy
I'm sure Mom cooked a turkey for Thanksgiving but the Christmas turkeys were the birds I remember most clearly. I realize there were numerous turkey birds involved, but since they all looked approximately the same once they had been beheaded, stuffed with stale bread chunks and aromatic herbs and roasted to a golden brown, they were amazingly similar in my memory. For nearly thirty years we had a spruce or pine tree or reasonable facsimile in the living room at Christmas.
We started out with our 'family five' with 'Auntie' Margaret included on occasion. Even though we had lots of things for which to be thankful we were not a family that went overboard at Thanksgiving. When I was in Hawaii I learned that they referred to it as 'Turkey Day' and thought of it as much as a football game to be celebrated as a religious holiday for counting blessings.
First Bob got married and brought home a son when he was mustered out of the Navy. Lloyd married soon after he got out of the Navy and before long was adding to the food requirements.
'Screwed myself out of a place at the breakfast table!' he commented dryly after his fourth son was born.
During the thirties the aromatic Christmas tree was decorated with bright lights; tinsel and colourful glass balls seemed to add to the seasonal feeling of happiness and cheer. We were essentially unaware of the origins of the tree tradition but being as close to heathen as social mores and 'mother' pressures would permit in those times we worshipped the tree, but for other motivations than paganism.
Greedily checking the growing pile of gaily coloured and beribboned packages surrounding the base of the tree we tried in vain to ascertain their contents. Hefting, shaking, poking and appraising were all permissible but opening or trying to peer within were definitely prohibited. We deviated very little from the protocol of 'present opening' with one exception. Dad's involvement with hockey meant that he had a hockey game every Xmas day, often in another town or city. As a result, we had our Christmas dinner on the day before Christmas and as soon as the pumpkin pie and Christmas pudding were devoured the table was cleared away and we had a 'present opening'.
Bob and his wife finished up having four children also (three boys and a girl), so we had by this time set up two card tables in the living room to accommodate the dinner-time overflow. The pile of gifts below the tree was impressive. Bob's and Lloyd's older children were mobile and accordingly set to work as 'Santa's Little Helpers', running back and forth across the living room trying to remember who was their current recipient and at the same time watching to see what goodies the last target had received. It was a time of high excitement!
As soon as the 'present' unwrapping chaos was finished Dad and Lloyd used to rise on cue as if obeying a secret command and repair to the kitchen to build themselves large turkey and cranberry sauce sandwiches. They both had prodigious appetites and followed the same routine if, on another night, we had dined on a standing rib roast of beef, supplanting turkey and cranberry sauce with roast beef, sliced onions and tomato ketchup (heavy on the black pepper).
One year I found myself wearing a Santa Claus suit but can't for the life of me remember where it came from or where it went. The only things it lacked were the facial adornments, a shortcoming which was easily rectified by the judicious application of cotton batting; it looked good as long as it remained in place. Improperly secured, it gradually worked its way loose until any objective observer would have recognized immediately who was masquerading as Santa Claus. Astonishingly, children who had seen me on at least monthly occasions throughout the year continued to look at me as though I were the real Santa Claus. I assumed that it was a sort of auto-hypnotism, scary because of its implications.
Some years during the forties 'Grampa' Hope would move to the city with his wife and stay either just below the church hill or across Seventeenth Avenue at Mr. Davey's house. They were obviously present at the Christmas dinner and Mrs. Johnson-Hope would always make it clear to Mom that she would require 'airline service', that is to say, special treatment in her food.
'I just can't abide turkey dressing that has onion in it,' she would say to Mom.
'Don't worry, Mother,' Mom would say, 'we'll set out a side dish for you with dressing in it that has no onion!' Later I caught Mom and Margaret having a furtive mutual chuckle in the kitchen.
'What's the big joke?' I asked.
'It's about the turkey dressing,' Margaret said.
'Oh, the dressing without the onion in it!' I said. 'I just heard her raving about how good it was.'
'Putting it in a separate side dish seems to remove the onion flavour!' she said archly.
'Whatta you mean?' I said.
'She means it was the same as all the other dressing...just in a different dish!' Mom said, barely suppressing a laugh. 'Don't you dare say a thing!'
During the late forties I and my brothers got into the whiskey soon after we arrived at Mom's place. Even she could be persuaded to have a tipple, but not until she was sure that all was in readiness for the dinner. We were all in a celebratory mood and it was not long before there were loud discussions bordering on arguments underway in the living room. 'Auntie' Margaret had a habit of leaving the room if the arguments became too boisterous.
One year Lloyd and I got into an argument that looked as though it might grow into an ugly confrontation. 'Auntie' Margaret rose and walked quietly from the room.
'Well, I know I'm right, and if you don't want to agree with me you can just kiss my ass!' I said indignantly.
"I'd like that!' Lloyd exclaimed haughtily, 'just drop your pants and I'll accommodate you!' We were getting into deep water but I was not inclined to back down so I rose, stepped into the centre of the room and pulled down my pants and shorts. Lloyd came over and, showing no sign of retracting his offer, crouched down and leaned toward my exposed buttocks.
'Okay, you guys,' Bob said with a wide smile, 'enough's enough! Pull your pants up, Ron!' I felt relieved by his comments and reached down to pull up my pants. Lloyd was determined to fulfill his mission, however, and I suddenly felt him fixing his teeth firmly in my right gluteus maximus muscle.
'Ow, goddammit! That's no kiss, you rotten bugger!' I roared, as Lloyd rolled back, paralyzed with laughter.
'The devil made me do it! I just couldn't resist,' he sputtered.
'Mommm!' I shouted, 'Lloyd just bit my bum!!' He'd given me a pretty good 'chaw' but without puncturing the skin. If I hadn't still been proccupied with rubbing the tingling of his bite I might have laughed . After all it was just family! Mom, who had been in the kitchen cleaning up, ignored my cry of distress and carried on unconcerned; it was not her first Christmas dinner and we were no longer children, even though we behaved like them.
-o-
Gunner was maintaining the Santa Claus myth and I was required to phone his eldest son, John, to question him about his behaviour throughout the year (heavy on the Ho, ho's!). For the first few years of the arrangement John was conscientious about setting out a glass of milk and a dish of cookies . It came to an end the year I told him I would prefer to have him forget about the warm glass of milk in the front hallway and store a bottle of beer in the refrigerator. Gunner's mother may have had a hand in Santa's demise.
Dad was no longer able to speak by the time we had Christmas dinner in the last years of the forties but Mom still wanted him at the table. I guess she was in denial to a degree. Dad drowsed off before dinner was finished and he was returned to his bedroom. He died on Christmas day a year later. We had come to the end of an era.
— The End —