It is the day after Christmas and I am almost dead from exhaustion. Have been on the holiday go for a while now and I am getting old, delightfully old, but also very tired old. On Monday morning I woke up before 7 a.m. to pack and prepare for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at my daughter’s house. I was going to teach her how to roast her first turkey. I think I might have arrived at around ten in the morning when the family was just settling in for breakfast. So I joined them.
Breakfast sort of slid into lunch. After lunch it was finally time to start the turkey, which apparently wasn’t there yet. We were going to pick it up at a friend’s house that night on our way home from their Christmas Eve dinner with their father. Meg, their stepmother, is a friend of mine. I had seen her a few days back at a lunch we both attended. “Hey, I’m crashing your dinner party again this year, did my daughter tell you?” I asked her jokingly.
“No you’re not,” she said, “I told her to invite you. Didn’t she tell you?” We both laughed.
Anyway we were going there that night but first we would work on the stuffing. Preparations were very fast, I thought. Well, my daughter has help and they peeled and crushed the garlic, sliced the onions and celery, prepared everything for us so everything went swiftly. By three in the afternoon we were done. I could even go upstairs and catch a brief siesta before going to dinner.
I was excited because I would see this batch of people who I call my “American grandchildren”. Two of them I have not seen in eight years. The last time I saw Mikel Vladimir (Vladimir is the name of my father), the youngest of them all, he was eight years old. Now he is a tall handsome 16. You know how meaningful those eight years are? The same applies to his sister Natalia whom I like to call Tucky. She was 12 when I saw her last. Now she’s 20, in college, drives her own car, wears make-up. I mean she is all grown up. Once they were all babies I used to love to carry and sniff. I love the way all babies smell. Now they are all grown up. Where have the years gone?
Dinner at Meg’s house was wonderful. The entire patchwork family was there from the eldest grandson Paolo to the youngest Alejandro, who is a really cute little boy. Last year his parents couldn’t come because he was newly born. This year he is a year old. Once again we all sang Partridge in a Pear Tree in our weird voices but we sang it anyway. By eleven we all went to bed and I immediately fell asleep.
The next morning at five, Andres, my youngest grandson knocked on my door and escorted me downstairs with his flashlight. We opened our gifts, then had breakfast together. Then I told my daughter what to do with the turkey. Salt it with your herbals salt, then stuff it from both ends. Use that thingie to close the holes and keep the stuffing in. Then baste it with butter with white wine mixed in. We were having a lot of turkeys this season. It all began on Thanksgiving, which my family observed on December 9, then last night and soon this noon.
After we put the turkey in the oven I went back upstairs and slept again. But at around ten my daughter woke me up. She thought the turkey was done. I checked the thermometer, thought it wasn’t. Anyway we put it back in the oven and it ended up a bit dry. But the grandchildren were sweet to say it was good and we had tons of stuffing leftover.
I enjoyed myself watching my grandchildren fool around with each other. Powie, the eldest, fell asleep. Nicc, the one who lives here, kept fooling around with Mikel and his sister, Tucky, kept rolling her eyes when I asked a question and the answer was Nicc. They loved each other immensely. That much I could tell and inside me I thanked God deeply for that.
My son and his family arrived late but they came anyway. At the end of lunch we all had our photographs taken. I looked so old and tired but genuinely happy. I am sharing or most recent family photograph with you.
But first I want to apologize to all who sent me Christmas greetings and got no response. I am sorry. I was too busy laughing with my grandchildren but I received your text and thank you.