A Lexus in a pear tree
I was putting up the outdoor lights the other day when my wife, Posh, came along and pushed me off the ladder. I thought she was just being playful in that cute, physically intimidating way she has. But no, she really needed the ladder.
Her plan: to jump off the roof and spare herself the agony of another holiday season. I thought about it a bit — 20 minutes max — then picked up a bullhorn. To leave me alone with our kids during the holidays, I pleaded, would go against the spirit that the season represents.
“And while you’re up there, could you clean the front gutters?” I asked.
So, if you get a Christmas card with a photo of a beautiful mom standing on the edge of a roof, cleaning glop from the gutters, you’ll know the little back story. Fortunately, she was wearing a nice sweater, so we made a card of it.
Getting her safely down off the roof took only an hour or so — her center of balance is right around her knees. But it was a good hour. I hadn’t seen her from that angle since our third date.
To boost her mood, we went to the local Christmas parade that night. I don’t know of any state that does as many Christmas parades as California does. This was one of those community parades that feature Cub Scouts and moms pushing strollers. Politicians. Radio personalities. Dog rescue units. Breathtaking in every way.
It was a lovely night, the temperature just low enough to turn your nose blue. Posh wore her wedding dress, still the warmest thing she has, and the little guy wore freckles and a beanie that made him look like a figure from one of those old Claymation movies. He’d brought along his best buddy, Chase.
Still, we didn’t stand out from the crowd, for it was one of those audiences with whiskey-voiced 44-year-old grandmas and youngish Kardashian clones — plenty to see.
And this I’ve got to ask: When did it become fashionable for young moms to wear riding boots everywhere they go? They stomp around like state troopers. Whenever one comes up next to me at the supermarket, I hand her my license, thinking she’s writing me a ticket. Here you go, officer.
Anyway, the parade was good — and by good, I mean free and of a decent duration. First, Santa flew over on a helicopter, then later showed up on a firetruck. Some guy in a yellow “EVENT” windbreaker kept the parade moving by barking at spectators to “keep the emergency lane clear! You’ve got to keep that lane clear!”
Give a guy a yellow windbreaker and a flashlight, and the power immediately goes to his head.
On the way back to the car, we sang a little. By that I mean I tried to get some carols going and the rest of the group tried to hush me up by throwing stuff and mocking my song selection. I’d even improvised a version of the “12 Days of Christmas” involving PlayStations and iTunes gift cards.
“On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a Lexus in a pear tree.” That kind of stuff.
Now you understand why they threw things.
At this particular Christmas parade, the drivers were just nuts, either coming or going, and it didn’t slow them a bit that there were pedestrians darting everywhere.
“This is $%$^**&*%$ crazy,” I heard one barefoot guy with a beer say as he talked to a buddy in a pickup truck.
I had to agree.
You know the best Christmas ever? The year I lived in Miami, just out of college.
In the apartment above mine, Mrs. Finklestein used to celebrate the holidays by making a big batch of her holiday punch, known around the condo complex as Mrs. Finklestein’s Christmas Eve Punch.
What she’d do is wait for Mr. Finklestein to go out of town, then she’d make her holiday punch and invite over a few of her friends, 45 or 50, mostly men. It didn’t even need to be December. Some of Mrs. Finklestein’s best Christmas parties happened in February or July. Sort of a Madonna figure, she wore a moo-moo and called everybody Clyde.
It was good punch too. Her recipe called for equal parts Hawaiian Punch, grain alcohol and embalming fluid (a Miami holiday tradition). The punch bowl was so big it had its own tides.
To this day, Mrs. Finkelstein’s ribald parties are the yardstick I use to measure the holidays by. In fact, on Christmas Eve, I always try to make a small batch of Mrs. Finkelstein’s Christmas Eve Punch, just for tradition’s sake.
I mention this because that’s what I told Posh when she finally came down from the roof. Christmas doesn’t require grand gestures or huge expenses. It’s not about diamonds and smartphones, riding boots or Lexuses (Lexi?) in a pear tree.
No, Christmas is about fellowship, camaraderie, tradition — and big crimson bowls of holiday hooch.
Merry Christmas, Mrs. Finklestein.
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