“If you want to do ‘Virginia in a nutshell,’ it would have to be a pretty big nut. Maybe a coo-coo nut.”

Several years ago, I received a package from my sister that included the following:

I waited an appropriate period and sent it back to her.

We visited Vermont, and it was in my suitcase when I returned.

I visited NC and put it in her car.

She snuck it into a box from Mom.

I put it inside a handbag that I sent her.

She wrapped it up with my Christmas present.

Neither of us will stop until one of us wins.

We will live FOREVER.

My Big Plans of Blogging Regularly were derailed last week by the arrival of that flu virus that snuck in after this year’s vaccine went to market. Holy moly, have I been ill. I had to drag myself into the office all week last week, no thanks to deadlines, and by Friday night I was ready to entertain the notion of voluntarily going to the doctor.

Saturday was a day of tears, baritones, and Theraflu. My 14-year-old goth self would’ve been so proud of my pallor.

Yesterday I consented to eat an egg. Then I got back in bed, and by the end of the day, I was ready to make some soup. I also threw together a crazy pasta sauce involving Brussels sprouts, chard stems, red peppers, and Greek yogurt, but I can’t tell you whether it’s any good, because I can’t taste it. I am eating it, however, because I figure all those ingredients are probably good for my immune system and my pale, shivery body.

As post-holiday diets go, the flu is effective but not recommended.

What I can recommend, however, is the soup I made: Ham & Black-Eyed Pea Soup with Greens.

I usually make this soup for New Year’s Day, but I’m glad I waited so I had it around for recovering. Mine was made with ham stock from the New Year’s Ham and a big bunch of Swiss chard (see above, re: stems). It’s unctuous and full of protein, and with a heavy dash or three of Tabasco Chipotle, it even has enough flavor that I can taste it through the illness fog.

I don’t remember how old I was when I asked my mother whether Santa was real.

“Of course Santa is real,” she said. “Santa is the spirit of love and giving at Christmas time.”

“But does Santa really bring the presents?” I asked.

She looked at me for a minute, and her eyes were a little sad.

“You have a choice,” she said. “You can believe that there’s no such thing as Santa, that your dad and I buy the presents for you and none of it is true. Or you can believe that anyone who gives an anonymous gift out of love can be Santa. You can believe that Santa is everywhere, whether he’s me or your dad or even yourself when you want to give someone a present without needing to be thanked for it. You can believe that the Christmas spirit is bigger than who did what and how much it cost.”

I asked her whether she believed in Santa.

“Yes I do,” she said.

So do I.

I hope it was a merry Christmahanakwanzayule, my darlings.

In 1987 in Vermont, for midnight mass we went to the Unitarian church in the upper village. My grandmother frequently attended there because it was so much closer than the nearest Episcopal church. The church sits atop a hill next to a farmhouse and barn, and the farmer had a live Nativity scene for after the service.

The closing hymn was “O Come All Ye Faithful”—we sang the first verse and filed out into the night. In the barn there were some local kids in their parents’ bathrobes with tea towels tied around their heads, grinning. There were some sheep and a surly-looking goat. A cow chewed quietly, and the pony was adorable in its shaggy winter coat.

I was walking with my grandmother when we left the barn. It had started to snow in big clumps, and the streetlight shone pink. We were on the final verse of the carol. She took my arm and we sang at the top of our lungs as we marched down the hill in the snow:

Yea, Lord, we greet thee!
Born this happy morning,
Jesus, to thee be glory given;
Word of the Father,
Now in flesh appearing:
O come let us adore him
O come let us adore him
O come let us adore him
Christ the lord

I told this story at Mimi’s memorial service, at that same Unitarian church. The minister looked so thoughtful afterward. “We haven’t done that nativity in years,” she said. “Maybe it’s time to bring it back.” I hope they did.

Arm in arm with Mimi, both of us singing at full blast, with snow falling on our faces out of the black winter sky: it was a moment of perfect joy.

Not quite Christmas, but a few days afterward. The Carolina Panthers were playing in New Orleans on 28 December, so my parents decided to make a road trip of it. They drove down for the game and then down to our house to celebrate the new year.

The kids were with us – meaning a stuffed-full house, so my parents stayed at a hotel (this was perhaps their preference anyhow; my guest room is not known for its level of comfort).

We are great loungers in my family. So there were no trips to see the giant statue of Sam Houston. If San Antonio were closer, my mother would’ve made us to go the Alamo, so thank goodness it’s 3 hours away.

Once I negotiated an argument between two of the Wickeds, and when I turned around afterward, my dad was beaming and my mother looked a little ill.

“Is it weird to see me parent?” I asked.

“NO,” Dad said.

“YES,” Mom said.

Another time, Dad was talking to los childrens and fiddling with the wooden cross that he always carried in his pocket. Then he pulled it out, and it was in two pieces.

“I could fix this,” he said, “but I decided not to. It reminds me that we are all broken, and it’s only love that holds us together.”

He had tears in his eyes when he said that.

On New Year’s Eve, Mom and I cooked up a storm, including a ham the size of New Jersey. Dad went out with Mr. Dingo Jones and the boys to the gigantic fireworks store. They were gone for over an hour, and they came back with at least half the fireworks in the place.

MDJ’s family came over, and we ate snacks and blew things up in the driveway, per Texas tradition. Dad had so much fun he was about squeaky, and he was out there until every last explody thing had been exploded.

We didn’t know at the time that it would be his last Christmas. Sure was a good one. Mama taped his cross to the bed rail by his head. She still has it. It still falls easily into two pieces, and we still strive to hold each other together with love.

One of the great Advent pleasures was going up to my grandmother’s house in Virginia and looking at the Sears catalog. It was practically the size of my torso, and Sissa and I would lie on the floor, pens in hand, and pore over every page, circling the things we wanted. We giggled and flipped quickly past the underwear. We spent a long time staring at the hunting accessories, wondering why anyone would voluntarily participate in an activity that required wearing tubing down your leg and a plastic bag that would get filled with pee.

Every year Mom would fuss at us for circling baby toys, but they looked so appealing, those brightly colored photographs. We would spend the whole weekend paging through and circling, crossing out and circling again.

One year (1978-ish, I think), there was a set of matched outfits that I just died for: pants, a couple of skirts, a couple of blouses, a vest, and a jacket. Some of them were burgundy and some were a tan and burgundy plaid. One of the blouses had a tied collar, and the other had ruffles down the front. The jacket was made of velveteen. I crossed out all the toys and doodads and said those clothes were the only things I wanted, for both my birthday AND Christmas.

Didn’t get them for my birthday. Didn’t get them for Christmas. I don’t remember what I received, but I remember that there were some very nice things, and I fought not to be upset. Late in the day, my mom took me aside.

“I got a letter from Santa,” she said. “He wants you to know that he tried really hard to get that outfit for you, but he couldn’t.” I asked why he couldn’t make it. “I don’t know,” she said. “But he really did try to get it for you.”

Months later, after The Santa Talk, she told me that she, my aunts, and my grandmother had called every Sears in North Carolina and Virginia and that the outfit had been sold out everywhere. In desperation, she even got the New England side of the family to try to find it, with no luck.

My disappointment evaporated. Forget the clothes: those people love me. They went way out of their way, from Thanksgiving until Christmas, just to try to get me a present that I wanted. What I got was a better present.

Our church in Slidell, Louisiana, had a Christmas tree sale every year to benefit the youth group. In 1980 (I had just turned 11), our trees came from Washington state, and they were covered in ash from the Mount St. Helens eruption. They came off the trucks grey and smelling of smoke, and from a distance they almost looked as if they had been dusted with snow.

For southern Louisiana, it was very cold. Trees were stacked everywhere, and the only lights were bare bulbs strung on wire. There was, of all things, a gigantic cauldron full of what I remember as vegatable soup, though in retrospect I wonder. Wouldn’t hot chocolate have been more likely? Maybe I’m confusing it with the stew, also in white styrofoam cups, that I ate at the powwow on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. Anyhow, my dad let me wear his stocking cap because my head was cold. I was supposed to help sell trees, but my method of “selling” involved asking whether someone needed help and, if the answer was yes, bolting for an adult. Mostly I prowled around in the dark, smelling the gorgeous, wide-awake mixture of pine and ash, watching the way that shadow could deepen into further shadow in the back corners, sipping soup when I got cold or just standing with my hands stretched over the cauldron, smelling it. Christmas music played in the background, and a couple of times I crouched down behind a tree and watched my dad without his knowing.

The car coat he was wearing is one that he got when he was in high school: navy blue wool, with a bright red fake-fur lining that zips out and eight or so pockets. When I moved to Chicago, he let me take it with me, and it was my coat for the very coldest days. I wore it for years and years, and it still looks good, even though it’s 40+ years old. When I sent it back to him, in 1998 or so, I put a love note in every pocket. He finally found the first one in 2003 and riffled through the pockets to find the rest of them. He was sniffling when he called to thank me. Now I have it again, with one of the notes still in a pocket.

My dad was a born salesman. He could talk to anyone, and he was a wonderful listener. He would stand with the tree shoppers and ask how big their room was, how long they’d leave it up, whether they had small children who’d get scratched by the poking kind of trees. They would feel needles and shake branches. He’d pull out trees and twirl them around and around to make sure there were no bare spots. He would spend as much time as was necessary to ensure that people bought the right tree for them.

I love my father. I miss him every minute.