Our family has somewhat of a reputation for chaotic holidays. There was the time I stumbled in to check on my wife before dawn on our first Christmas morning together, my eyes blinking against the blazing light pouring forth from the kitchen. I could just make out her exhausted silhouette bent over a raw turkey, arms covered from elbows to fingertips with glistening butter. On the table was a half-empty container of Country Crock.
“It said to use a lot of butter!” she said. Later, while we said grace, she fell asleep at the table, unable to summon even enough strength to chew.
Then there was the Christmas Eve when my wife, seven months pregnant with our second child, suddenly bolted for the bathroom. It was 2:30 in the morning, and we had just tied up the “magic” of Christmas, when her eyes popped wide and her hand shot to her mouth.
“Make it,” I whispered insistently. “Make it. Make it. Make it.”
She made it. Barely. As soon as her foot hit the bathroom threshold, I heard the fluid splash of bile on the tile floor. Yes, I cleaned it up myself, being the dutiful husband that I am, but I’ll never forget the endless moments we spent at the bathroom door together, doubled over in a fit of hysterical, silent laughter as our four-year old daughter slept soundly next door.
Of course, it happened again a year later.
This time I was alone in the living room, putting the finishing touches on Christmas, when I heard my wife whispering from our bedroom.
“Kevin! Keee-viiin!”
(She really can’t whisper. At best, it sounds like a raspy version of anyone else’s inside voice.)
I crept into the dark bedroom, blinking to make my eyes adjust faster.
“What?” I whispered.
Our daughter, again sleeping through the disturbance, was curled up in our bed, and my wife sat cross-legged beside her. Feeding peacefully in her arms was our infant son. Well, one arm anyway. The other was cupping her mouth.
“Oh no,” I said.
She had thrown up again, this time managing to catch most of it by clamping her mouth shut. I didn’t laugh that time. And no, to this day I still don’t know how she managed to call my name two rooms away with a mouth full of bile.
After all of that, you would think our hijinks were limited to Christmas and Christmas Eve. You would be wrong.
Just two years ago, I walked into the kitchen on Thanksgiving to find my wife bright-eyed and energetic. She had already been cooking for hours. When she saw me, she burst into laughter. Again, I was left asking, “What?” And then, sniffing the air, “What is that?” The entire house smelled like apple cider, an ingredient my wife uses in her turkey recipe.
Crossing the room as I searched for the source of the aroma, I hardly noticed the sticky floor beneath my feet. Through giggles and snorts, my wife explained. Apparently, she had shaken the jug of cider a bit too vigorously, because the plastic container had slipped from her hand on a downward swing, hit the hard floor, and exploded. An entire gallon of apple cider covered the floor and part of the walls.
Thankfully, she cleaned the mess up on her own this time, perhaps feeling a bit guilty for forcing me into puke pick-up duty two years straight.
Still, despite the mess, our holidays are usually pleasant and steeped in tradition. This Thanksgiving, we’ll wake early and turn on the parade. My daughter and I will share a tub of French fried onions left over from the green bean casserole, the only dish I can prepare. And then we’ll both do a reasonable impression of someone willing to help my wife cook. But there’s bound to be a mess of some sort, somewhere. There always is.
Maybe the 23-pound turkey the kids picked out was a clue.
