In the spring of ’15, Tyler and Megan moved into a beautiful place just south of town. The house is lovely, enormous and laid out for entertaining large crowds. They immediately offered to host the Pivec Christmas Eve bash, a tradition that dates back nearly 70 years.
When Jay and I first started dating, back in the olden days of the early ‘80’s (Reagan wasn’t even president yet. Jay was a Carter supporter. Love really does conquer all, doesn’t it?) Pat and Frank Pivec were already the proud grandparents of nearly a dozen grandkids. It took Jay some doing to talk me into bailing on my own family's Christmas eve celebration and join him at his folks'.
Growing up, our Christmas eve was like something right out of Dickens: never enough gruel to go around. No, actually we’re like the family of the nephew whose invitation Scrooge would never accept. My grandmother and two uncles always joined us for dinner and presents. Uncle Pat was my Godfather, so he always brought me something and Uncle Mickey was Joey’s Godfather and he always brought Joe something. The rest of us got gifts in the mail from distant Godparents and there had to be something for each of us or no one got to open any presents on Christmas Eve.
Mom was very careful to make sure that everyone got something, or else we’d all wait for morning, where the deluge of Santa presents would obliterate any shortcoming from the night before.
One year, there was nothing for my youngest brother, Andy, who was about four, under the tree on Christmas eve. The rest of us were pretty ticked off that Andy’s lameness was going to prevent us all from opening anything on Christmas Eve, so Margy, who might have been seven, relabeled the thing she’d made for Mom with Andy’s name. Voila! Something for everyone!
Margy saved Christmas Eve!
Until we all opened our gifts and four year old Andy received a piece of kindling wood with a spool glued on one side to look vaguely like a tug boat, colored red with a crayon, the words “Merry Christmas, Mom” scratched out and “Andy” hastily scribbled in it’s place, which failed to infuse the first grader with the appropriate amount of Holiday cheer.
"Where's my real present?!" He screamed at his heartless siblings as they reveled in their new Barbie dolls, matchbook cars and Chip Hilton books.
It was 43 years ago but the screaming and crying* are fresh in my memory.
Margy’s greed wrecked Christmas Eve.
We never celebrated it again.
Right. We’d have killed Andy before we let that happen. And Margy, just to be on the safe side.
The truth is, that kindling/spool tugboat was one of the greatest gifts ever given in our family: we’ve been laughing ourselves sore over that thing for decades. It was definitely the most memorable gift ever given in the Hubbell family.
The Pivec Christmas Eve Bash has evolved in the 37 years that I’ve been attending. While they still lived in the giant house near Lake Harriet that Jay grew up in, the day went like this: During the afternoon, all the kids and grandkids would arrive at the house, bearing food and gifts, which went right under the tree, which stood beside the grand piano in what had once been a porch but was now integrated as part of an enormous living room with windows on three walls. Everyone in town could watch the Pivec’s celebrate Christmas just by walking by. About a half hour before the children’s mass at our neighborhood’s church was to begin, a bunch of us would walk over the hill to the church and stake out the three or four rows of seats that we’d fill. By the time Mass began, we’d all be in place, singing the entrance hymn with gusto.
The year Tyler was two, he got away from my Mom, (we all belonged to the same parish back then) and made a break for the altar. Ty was one of the speediest toddlers the world had ever seen. Mom chased him all the way up the center aisle but was unable to catch the rocket in red overalls. Jay caught sight of him as he flew up the steps to the altar and as any young father would do, realizing his Mother in law had utterly failed in her duty, sprang to action. He leapt out of the pew and charged up the steps to the altar in hot pursuit of the kid who was now zinging around behind the priest and servers like a pinball. When Ty realized his Dad was chasing him, he began to laugh the way only a two-year-old can. I'm afraid the cares of the world crush the ability to laugh like that out of us by the time we start school.
The proceedings of the Mass came to a complete halt while the entire congregation and celebrants watched Jay try to corral his son, who was doing a very good greased pig imitation.
Best Children’s Christmas Mass ever!
After church, we’d parade back over the hill to the house, eat a fabulous dinner, then troop into the living room, where Grandpa Frank would assign Santa duties to someone. All the presents would be passed out, then we’d all open them together. For a few minutes it would be a blizzard of ribbon and wrapping paper, followed by hoots, howls and singing. IF the Grinch had been within five miles, he definitely would be grumbling about the “Noise, noise, noise, noise!”
The rest of the evening was for treats, toys, drinks and singing carols.
As the years passed, the cast of characters changed. One generation died off, one grew old, one grew up and another has sprouted up. Pat and Frank are both gone but what was in 1981 their 8 kids and 9 grandkids has grown into something like 70 descendants. Two branches of the family live in other states now but on those years when everyone who still lives here comes to the Christmas Eve party, it’s a lot of people. A lot. And they’re Pivecs, so ten of them feel and sound like 15 normal humans.
All this is to say that Tyler and Megan bought a house that was built for entertaining Pivecs and last year’s Christmas party was great but this year, Katie is 17 months pregnant with twins and told us back in October that she couldn’t go that far from the hospital so close to her due date, so Jay and I said we’d do Christmas Eve again. We’d done it for the last ten years or so, so it wasn’t that big a deal. Plus, Tim and Tom were both due to spend the day with their in-laws so it's not like we would have to go Full Pivec.
Saturday evening, we hosted a nice, quiet, intimate gathering of about 25. It’s not as hard as that might sound because everyone brings food and drink as well as gifts. We’ve morphed from everyone giving everyone else a present to picking names to the best gift exchange ever: THE GAME.
Everyone brings a wrapped gift, which goes into the pile under the tree or on the table or where ever. When Jay runs the game, he likes to start with the youngest and let each person at the party choose one present. When everyone has a gift, we all unwrap to see what we’ve got. At this point, the person running the game sets a timer, we pass around several pairs of dice and we take turns rolling. Anyone who gets doubles gets to swap gifts with anyone who has what they want. When the timer rings, you keep what you’ve got. It’s a lot of fun. We started playing the game when Josie was a toddler and her Uncle Tim thought it would be funny to take the giant Christmas Bear Josie had unwrapped. That’s when the family motto became “It ain’t Christmas till somebody cries.”**
We went to the Children’s mass at our neighborhood church. Megan and Ty and the kids joined us and Katie waddled up just before things started. MJ and Kent were there with Nanners, Bean and Tot. All the kids were dressed in their Christmas party clothes and looked like a hundred billion bucks. They were all very good through the service, which included lots of singing.
Mass ran a little long and we arrived home to find several cars filled with relatives waiting for us to get home and unlock the door. The first twenty minutes of the party were pretty hectic, as we all had food to put the finishing touches on and set up in the kitchen but a half hour after we got home, everything was under control and people were starting to eat.
We had more little kids than we’ve had in nearly 20 years.
Josie is the youngest of Pat and Frank’s grand kids and for most of her youth, she and her cousin Wes were the only children. This year we had nine kids under the age of 12, which was really fun. I don’t remember any crying.
After the game, we filled the tables with cookies. I got my hands on the newest baby in the house and we were playing in the TV room. Babalouie joined us.
“I like babies!” he said.
“I know you do.” I told him. We got that baby to smile at us and he even laughed a little.
“I think he wants a drum set for Christmas.” Babalouie said, patting the baby’s head.
“I think you want a drum set for Christmas!” I laughed.
He cut his eyes at me and said “I do.”
The party didn’t go too late. Even five years ago, a lot of the cousins stayed at the party until it was time to go to Midnight mass but now most of them have little kids. Not only had they all gone to the vigil mass, they all knew they’d be up early to see what Santa brought, so by 10:00, we were cleaning up.
Tyler’s family brought everything they needed to spend the night. The little bedroom was stuffed with a giant air mattress and a futon so they could all sleep. It looked just like the little house Rudolph, Hermie and Yukon Cornelius spent the night in on the Island of Misfit toys: bed from wall to wall.
And there was even a storm raging outside!
Before the party started, I spent some time moving all the gifts from under the tree to my bedroom where I piled them up on the bed and hid them behind the curtains. Yes, my bed has curtains, just like a King’s bed. Just because you’re a grown up doesn’t mean you don’t like to have a fort for a bed.
After Megan got the kids to sleep, we all moved the presents back under the tree. The kids had left some cookies out for Santa near the fireplace in the TV room. The Christmas tree is in the livingroom and the pile of gifts stretched half way to the front door.
I was tucked into bed, sugar plums dancing in my head a few minutes after midnight.
Merry Christmas!
*I'm sure Andy thought, at that moment, that life couldn't get any more unfair. Little did he know that in a week, just in time for his 5th birthday, Mom and Dad would drop the hammer that Birthday presents were no longer on the menu at the Hubbell house.
**Tim did give Josie back the bear when the timer buzzed.