0451471075 (N) (18 page)

She shan’t be missed.

(Sidebar: I may miss her a little. I kind of loved actively hating her for sixty minutes every Monday. Now I need to find a new nemesis. I may go back to despising our mailman, as he’s taken to leaving our mailbox open, but only when it’s snowing or raining. I am thisclose to renting a PO box so I can up my battle properly with this assclown.)

On our last night of class, we discuss how Italians do Christmas. Apparently it’s not nearly as commercial over there and the celebration is far more about food than presents, with loaves of raisin-studded panettone everywhere. Instead of beef tenderloin or roast turkey, the big holiday meal is all about the Feast of the
Seven Fishes. Entire villages come out to rejoice together. They begin their partying on the day of the Immaculate Conception on December eighth, ending with the Epiphany on January sixth, and there are nativity scenes
everywhere
. I wonder if teenage boys are always stealing the baby Jesus in Italy, too. Or is it no fun because there are so many that it’s all like shooting (seven) fish in a barrel?

Babbo Natale is the Italian version of Santa Claus but there’s a character named La Befana who’s also important. She’s a good witch who rides around on her broom and fills Christmas stockings, usually on January sixth. In La Befana lore, she was mixed up with the Wise Men somehow, but I’m unclear on the hows and whys. I guess she’s as plausible as a space-time continuum–bending rabbit bringing chocolate eggs to kids in multiple time zones at Easter or a rich, nocturnal fairy with a tooth fetish. In practical terms, it sounds like La Befana isn’t a witch so much as she is a savvy shopper who waits till after the holiday to buy marked-down candy. Personally, I always snap up all the Christmas ornaments on December twenty-sixth because they go half off at Target that day. (If you wait until the twenty-seventh, all the best items are gone. I’m serious—set your alarm.)

Donatella brings homemade tiramisu and we lose our minds over how she’s made it both dense and velvety, but also so very airy, the whole concoction infused with the promise of espresso and liqueur. Then, fueled by sugar, Kahlua, and a competitive spirit, we play Tombola, which is basically Italian-style bingo. Instead of daubing our cards like we would in a VFW hall or church basement, we cover the spaces with large dried beans. I love how we use the same deck that Donatella’s been playing with ever since her childhood. She’s definitely connecting us with her personal history in a way I never experienced in a college classroom. Again, this is the difference between voluntarily learning as an adult and
taking a required class for a grade in pursuit of a degree. Both have merits, but this way feels more meaningful.

Oh, and, I don’t mean to brag, but I
do
win seventy-five cents over the course of the game, so . . . coffees are on me tonight.

The merriment of the year’s last class nicely kicks off the whole holiday season and I really want to celebrate. Every year, it’s depressing to go from the full-court holiday press of glitter-spackled, mistletoe-hung, beribboned first floor to what looks like any other day upstairs in the family room, so I purchase a small artificial tree, adorning it with all the extra ornaments from last year’s day-after-Christmas sale.

I figure I must truly be middle-aged now, having previously fought to the death over having a “fake tree.” Yet I quickly adapt to not vacuuming up shed needles every fourteen minutes and not worrying the whole thing will spontaneously combust when I make a spark dragging my slipper-clad feet across the carpet. Plus, manufacturers have come a long way with the design and technology and these trees are so realistic! Gone are the days of green pipe cleaners stuck in a metal pole. I still have a live Frasier fir downstairs (and two fire extinguishers within grabbing distance) but I can imagine a time when I fully convert to artificial. When I do cross over, I suspect I’ll also finally understand the allure of the decorative holiday sweater and earrings made out of jingle bells.

Feeling extra-festive, I decide to start baking early in the season. Thanks to Martha, I’m fully confident in my newfound culinary abilities, and inspired by Joanna’s Twenty-Four Days of Christmas Cookies, I take to my kitchen with a metric shit-ton of supplies, ready to craft cookies for everyone I’ve ever met. (Except my mailman.)

This is the first year I’ve listened to BackSpin while baking—did you know there are actual holiday rap songs outside of Run–D.M.C.’s “Christmas in Hollis,” such as Snoop Dogg’s “Santa
Claus Goes Straight to the Ghetto,” or Eazy-E’s “Merry Muthafucking X-Mas”? Believe it. Ensconced in a funky backbeat, I begin to make some elfin magic.

(Sidebar: Was the Keebler reference above too esoteric?)

I’m vaguely disappointed when my first variety of cookies turns out badly, but sometimes that happens. My oven confuses me because there’s a convection feature and I’ve been known to hit the wrong button, usually when wine is involved or if I’m panicked before a dinner party. (Redundant?) But today, I’m having hot chocolate, so I chalk it up to bad luck.

Of course, when my entirely different second batch ends up crumbling and dry to the point of Saharan, I’m aggravated. It’s possible I’m grooving too much to pay attention, but come on—it’s hard to focus when MC Shan’s rapping about Santa trading in his sleigh for a Lamborghini with a spoiler kit. Best visual ever!

I turn down the music and proceed with another recipe. I’m shocked and dismayed when I ruin the stupid spritz cookies. These are supposed to be idiot-proof, but apparently not. And when my fourth bunch, this time sugar cookies assembled from a tried-and-true recipe, look less like “snowmen” and more like “testicular cancer,” I’m livid, especially because there’s no one to blame here except myself.

I’m not sure if I got a bad container of baking powder or if perhaps I’m experiencing some kind of divine retribution because Christmas carols are no place
for profanity (regardless of hilarity factor), but absolutely nothing works.

As everything I touch is a disaster, I decide to quit.

Here’s the thing—I still could plow through my supplies, confident that eventually I’d come up with a cookie that’s both attractive and tasty. But after four failures in a row, baking stopped being a treat and started to feel like a chore. I don’t have customers waiting for this product and I have lots of other desserts planned for my annual party. Fletch won’t lack for anything sugary during the holiday season. And every year when I stock the freezer with Fourth of July supplies, I end up tossing bags and bags of leftover holiday peanut butter kiss cookies and Mexican wedding cakes to make room.

What a waste of time, effort, and ingredients.

I don’t
need
to make cookies.

I don’t
want
to make cookies at this point.

So I have to ask myself, why continue to press on? Why push blithely forward toward that which is frustrating and fruitless? It’s not like holiday baking was on my bucket list, and even if it was, the whole notion of having a bucket list isn’t about crossing off various items, as much as I do love me some checkmarks.

The point of this project, and really, my overarching goal for the year, is to minimize that which I regret. When I review my teens and twenties, I’m mortified by so much of what I did. My more callous and cavalier actions haunt me. In my thirties, the regrets were less about bad behavior and more about terrible choices, some of which I’m still paying for. (Hello, FICO score.)

But in my forties, my greatest regrets have been less about the content of my character and more about my caloric intake. Otherwise, I’ve actively worked to get my shit together, whether it’s been adding culture to my life, or putting my house in order, or coming to terms with being an adult. I’m proud of my career and
I love the people with whom I’ve surrounded myself. I’ve striven to make the right decisions, no matter how difficult, and agonized over cutting ties with those who are toxic. I feel like I’m far better for the effort. So every time I do something counterintuitive to that which keeps regrets at bay, I’m mad at myself.

Generation X turns fifty this year, as we’re defined by a 1964 start date. Although I can’t speak for my whole peer group, I can say for myself that by the time I hit my fifties, I hope to have my life figured out. When I’m fifty, I want my default mode to be doing the right thing, making the right choices, and behaving in a way that never makes me cringe upon further reflection.

My friend Laurie tells me that she used to knock herself out to provide the full Martha Stewart Christmas for her family, slaving away all day in the kitchen over the elaborate meal. When it came time to eat, she was not only exhausted, but she’d missed out on all the magical moments with her boys and her husband. When she hit fifty, she decided she was through—not with the family, but with the nonsense and the noise and the unrealistic expectations.

Now her ritual is to buy a bunch of HomeMade Pizza Co. unbaked pizzas and Three Tarts Bakery pies on Christmas Eve, so anything anyone has to do on the day itself is toss in the oven whatever type of pie they desire. Friends and extended family come over to play games and watch holiday movies, happy as can be in their ability to connect without all the pressure of what they “should” be doing. Laurie said that nothing’s been more freeing than letting go of the picture-perfect magazine holiday fantasy, instead forging a path that’s ultimately more satisfying.

I believe the pursuit of a Pinterest-perfect, ultimate-Martha Stewart-lifestyle can be dangerous. Online, I see these women in their thirties exhausting themselves to make sure everything they do is Instagram-worthy. Instead of, say, simply playing with their
kids at the park, they have their spouses shooting virtual lifestyle magazine spreads, where each shot is staged for maximum impact.

“No, Trevor, wrong! You have to come down the slide
smiling
, not
screaming
!”

“Salinger, throw the maple leaves in the air again, but this time, with
attitude
!”

“Maya, step out of the sandbox right now! You’re going to get your Hanna Andersson play clothes dirty!”

For God’s sake, childhood doesn’t need to be art directed.

(Sidebar: As a friend, I’d humbly suggest that anyone who values their children’s privacy and safety might reconsider splashing the kids’ names, ranks, serial numbers, and difficulties with potty training all over the Internet.)

To me, the above is why so much of social media can ring false. Our lives are meant to be our lives, and not a facade presented for the consumption of others; or, WE ARE NOT A MAGAZINE.

I worry that younger women are striving so hard to present a compelling story via images that they’re ignoring the substance that makes the story true. Ultimately, they’re going to end up really bitter later in life (and not the good kind of bitter that sells books).

My message to these women is this—if you want to avoid regrets later, give yourselves a break now and just be real. Enjoy the mess. Revel in the imperfection.

So, if I’m being real, then I can definitely say I won’t be sad about not baking because I’m neither a mini-Martha-magazine-mogul nor a tree-dwelling, cookie-making elf.

(Sidebar: I feel like I just gave the previous Keebler joke more context. Yay for me!)

I immediately scrap the rest of my baking plans, instead opting to donate the massive amount of supplies I’ve amassed. I
supplement my unopened ingredients with additional items at the grocery store. I’m not sure if the food bank sees a lot of donated chocolate chips, colored sprinkles, or powdered sugar, but just because a family’s hit a rough patch doesn’t mean they won’t appreciate being able to bake with their kids. If someone’s in a circumstance where they’re using a food bank, it’s likely not by choice. I’m sure regrets are involved and I empathize. Having once been close to the edge myself, I understand and I want to do what I can to make it better for others. And if providing the materials to make cookies gives a family a chance to feel normal and step outside of their regrets, even for one day, then I’m glad I could help.

After I swing by the grocery store and the food bank, I buy some pretty sugar cookies at Three Tarts, and then I come home to settle in with
Holiday Inn
, basking in the warm glow of my little artificial tree. Over subsequent free weekends, I spend my time decorating instead of baking, not because I’m determined to garner the most “pins,” but because I hope to make the house as welcoming as possible for those I love.

I feel I made the right choice.

•   •   •

By the end of the holiday season, I realize I’ve put back on every ounce of weight I lost riding my bike, which is currently trapped in the garage behind three feet of snow. I won’t be able to ride again for months, considering the hellacious winter we’re having. Even the most hard-core road warriors are currently in hibernation due to the bike paths being layered with six full inches of ice.

As it’s a shiny new year, I decide that it’s finally time to take care of some long-standing health concerns. I’m due for a well-woman exam and I’m worried that something may be amiss Down There. I’m not having any problems, per se, but with three contemporaries having had hysterectomies in the last year, I’m concerned it may be my turn, especially since I keep dodging bullets on my diagnostic mammograms. And at this age, it’s generally one
or the other. I wonder if the husbands who opted for vasectomies in their thirties are all, “Man, I shoulda held out a little longer!” because this seems to be a thing now that Generation X is hitting our second act.