Grandma

When Nina Simone moans, pigs in a blanket with hummus are being served, and my sweater doesn't itch, I know that it's Christmas day in the Phelps household. The only household on the block with a menorah in the window, and last night we still had carolers at our mezuzah-affixed door. My sister Caitlin smokes or breathes outside. She stands leaning into snow piles like albino butt cheeks. My stepmother--Nancy--worries about using coasters on a glass table. And Dad can't give two bananas for the reason today's important. He celebrates the tinseled tree, the stepfamily celebrates the menorah, and I celebrate the rare visit of my dear, dear Grandmother. Grandma Phelps, how good it is to see you.

Grandma is alone. But she doesn't mind. She can walk around with a cane and a banister and nothing else. She can dye her hair reddish on her own (though she chooses not to). She lives in a large home that has now emptied out via death and adulthood. She reads constantly, finding comfort and company in the grocery check-out pulp fiction she buys last minute. She cooks meat 'n' potato meals for herself, bathes herself with a handled loofa, dresses herself in clothes from 1962, plays Scrabble with herself, et cetera et cetera et cetera. 90-something and still independent. Go Grandma.

But Christmas gifts...Grandma doesn't know how to do Christmas gifts. And it's not that she's not materialistic or so overjoyed by the love and comfort of the Christmas spirit and our family getting together that she can't keep her mind on who might like what. It's more her senility, and the oblivion that her age has brought about.

"I hope you like it; I got one for each of the kids' kids." Grandma undulated to my anticipatory pizazz. She always refers to her offsprings' offspring in this indirect way, a subtle though nonetheless scathing distance that's all too evident. Sad emoticon.

I replied, "I'm sure we'll love it, Grandma!"
Bow off.
Wrapping paper tearing...
Wrapping paper off.
"Ooh--a Popcorn Tin. Thanks so much, Grandma. Caitlin and I will have this finished before the night's out!" Cheddar, Butter, and Toffee Loveliness in a spherical tin two feet high and one foot in diameter. How do we tell her this gift is thoughtless? That it's cheap? That it won't work? We both had braces.

Each year for the past six years, a new tin of popcorn. We have since learned to put them in the corner of our basement den and, anytime we have friends over, break it out for all who enjoy to enjoy. "Dude, this shite is stale. How old is it?"

One particularly memorable year I received a pair of socks, a small wooden box, and a toiletries kit. Pair of socks? Always handy; good job, Grandma. Wooden Box? Weird little elephant etching up top, but I can put condoms and mints in it; good job, Grandma. Toiletries kit? Always handy, again; good jo--...oh wait. A clear plastic bag with zebra stripes. Dove deodorant. Nail file. Hand lotion. Nail clippers that say "BOYS STINK."

"Are you sure this was for me and not for Caitlin, Grandma?"
"Yep!"
"..."
"Do you like it?!"
"--Of course! Why wouldn't...I?"


Before my parents divorced, my mother would tell my sister and I the horrors of her Christmas experience at the Phelps household in Fulton, NY. Grandpa would silently growl at her all night long, the rest of the family would banter trifles and trivia with her in order to ignore the distance that was their reality, and she received red gloves annually from Grandma.

"Thanks, Mom."
"Mrs. Phelps, dear."
"Sorry."

So Today. My stepgrandmother Nana received from her fellow wrinkleton in the room one of those Chicken Soup for The Soul books. This was specifically Chicken Soup for The Christmas Spirit. Nana is Jewish.
Mazel Tov!
Nancy received a bar of soap wrapped in an exfoliating techniwarmcolor Alpaka fur. Nancy gave the same bar to Grandma last year. "Regifting is okay," Nancy whispers in my ear with a sneer.
Caitlin received a small porcelain jewelry box with orchids etched on the top. It's god-awful ugly and she doesn't wear jewelry.
Dad received a book (thumbs up, Grandma) and a Hickory Farms sausage and cheesespread kit. He promptly looked at Nancy upon unveiling it, she gave him a pussywhip eye (whuh-psh!), and he handed it to me out of Grandma's sight. Yum. Thanks, Grandma, and Nancy's fascist grasp of Dad's diet.

And then there's me.
Shaving everyday me.
Living on his own me.
With a job that doesn't pay in tips me.

Mine was in a box. Outside of the box, I see Santa Claus looking up curiously with an index finger to his beard. In yellowed water. With yellowed pellets representative of snow. In a snow globe. A snow globe.
"Twist the bottom. Look at the bottom. See the turning--there y' go! Let's see what it plays!"
"Th-thanks, Grandma. I've never owned a snow globe before. I was beginning to think I never would."
Silly me....