Since the boys and grandbabies weren’t going to be here Christmas morning, we decided that we’d postpone opening presents until everyone came home. I bring this up because that decision freed up Christmas morning for mass.
For the last thirty two years, we’ve gone to the children’s mass on Christmas Eve. As anyone who has attended knows, these masses are great fun, you get to sing all the good songs and usually all the little kids are invited up to sit on the altar while the priest reads the Christmas Gospel. If there’s anything more joyful than the sight of dozens of little kids, all dressed in their Christmas finery, pulsing with the anticipation of Santa Claus, I’ve yet to see it.
Every family has at least one story of the toddler who escapes his mother/father/grandparent’s grip and charges up on the altar during Christmas Eve mass to run with gleeful abandon. Ours features Tyler who was two and already the quickest little thing on two legs. He was wearing a red and white striped turtle neck under bright green corduroy Christmas overalls. His grandma was watching him as he ran off his toddler’s Christmas exuberance in the back of the church. After several laps of the back hall, he veered right up the center aisle. There’s no way on God’s green earth mom was ever going to catch that kid, whom we would’ve called Lightnin’ McQueen, if Cars had been a movie yet. Jay caught sight of the green flash as it soared straight for the altar steps. Naturally, he joined the pursuit. As long as I live, I’ll never forget the unholy joy that rippled through the congregation at the sight of Jay chasing Ty back and forth across the altar while Ty shrieked with glee behind the priest, who froze in place, arms raised in prayer as the comedy/drama unfolded behind him.
The downside to the Children’s masses is that they’re always packed. Everyone loves the idea of starting the Holiday with mass, plus still being able to hold the threat of no presents over their kids (who had better behave at mass! Goddammit!!) And of course, who really wants to be distracted from the pure greediness of present opening by being reminded that the Holiday is really about God Incarnate and not getting stuff, stuff and more stuff?
The simple decision that we would not open presents this morning but go to mass, have brunch and pick up Zack from the airport meant that we had two hours (two hours!) more prep time to our party. In short, what is usually a fairly frantic, possibly stressful dashing about trying to have food, house and outfit thrown together to our satisfaction by 3:30 or 4:00 became a lovely, stress free day of cooking, wrapping and dancing around to Hall ‘n Oats Home for Christmas until folks started arriving. It actually turned out to be more than two hours since our guests didn’t actually arrive until after 6:30.
I started the gumbo around 1:00. It simmered all afternoon. Jay had two trays of ribs in the oven and the grill in the yard was packed with wings. In short, our house and yard smelled like Heaven all day.
Katie and Josie got home around 3:00 so we watched A Christmas Story.
I got dressed at five, threw the fish in the gumbo, took the covers off the furniture (they’re to protect it from cat hair. Yuck.)
Jay had hung his last minute decorations and moved all our coats from the back hall hooks to make room for our guests to hang theirs.
At 6:30, one hour after the party was scheduled to start, five of us stood alone in the kitchen wondering if we were being punked.
At 6:45 twenty five of us were laughing, eating and dancing around the house.
Everyone brought meatballs.
It was a meatballs Christmas!
I don’t know how it works but every little kid who comes into our house discovers the chalkboard wall pretty quickly. I’d bought a new box of colored chalk for the party.
We played the dice game around 8:00 and I think it was the best coordinated game yet; everyone had a great time and there were two or three gifts that people fought over. No one cried.
The party dispersed around 10:30. Lots of our nieces and nephews have kids now, so they had to get them home to bed before Santa showed up.
Katie and Adam declined to spend the night and Josie ran over to Meg’s house for an hour or so.
Santa arrived and then I watched How the Ghosts Stole Christmas.
It was a perfect Christmas Eve.