(Not) Home for the Holidays

To say that I am a stickler for preserving family traditions is an understatement. As my family and friends know, I’m not exactly adept at change — especially between the dates of November 23^rd through January 1^st.  

I didn’t realize how renowned my holiday fervor (er, obsession?) was until my college roommates and I were decorating our suite for Christmas. We had a tree, wreaths, and ornaments strewn all over the living room. I left the room to get something (probably another six-pack of Leinenkugels, our favorite holiday beer) and when I came back…the decorations were exactly as I left them. My roommates just stared at me for a minute, until one of them finally broke down and said: “We didn’t want to do anything without you here, in case we didn’t do it right!”  

No you may NOT help me decorate! Okay fine...but only if you wear the antlers.

As the first big event of the holiday season, Thanksgiving embodies so many of the traditions that my family holds dear (and that I clutch white-knuckled). We have Thanksgiving at my house in Topsham with the whole family, and I mean the whole family — both sides, all cousins, aunts, uncles, two sets of grandparents, and always a few friends. This in itself is my most cherished family tradition, one that my grandparents instilled in my parents when they were kids: there is always room at our table for one more chair.

(Some of) the fam at the annual Thanksgiving Day Turkey Trot. We have uniforms.

In fact, our Thanksgivings are so large that we rent banquet tables to seat everyone. We fill the dining room table (the kids’ table) and then run two long banquet tables straight through the living room, so everyone is seated in a large “T” formation. Remember the final scene in Dr. Suess' "How the Grinch Stole Christmas"? (The cartoon version, duh. I don't mess around with that Jim Carey nonsense). It looks a lot like that, only swap the Who's for Londons and Levesques, and replace the Grinch with my dad (if you know me, you know I mean that as a term of utter adoration). We typically have somewhere between 24 and 34 guests, although it never feels that big. It just feels like family.

Dad carving the roast beast.

So it came as a huge surprise to my family (and myself, for that matter) when I announced that I — the holder of the traditions, the marker of the calendar, the planner of the festive table decor — would not be coming home for Thanksgiving this year. 

After five (or is it six?) Thanksgivings spent apart (not to mention a ton of other holidays during four years of dating long-distance) my boyfriend Ben and I decided it was time to stick together. I was long overdue for a visit to the homeland, and excited for some quality time with his family. So to Minnesota we went.

Not-so-festive his and hers airport food.

I was apprehensive — not about Minnesota, which I love, or his family, whom I love even more — but about the empty seat at the kids table where I used to sit. Who would put the paper leaves on all of the plates, and arrange the dessert table in order of pie circumference, and force everyone out of the house to see a movie when we were too full to move off the couch, let alone to drive?

You can probably guess the answer. In Minnesota, we spent the long weekend eating until we could no longer move (Ben's mom is an incredible cook); rolling ourselves down to Arden Park for the annual Turkey Bowl on Thanksgiving Day (I scored a TD!); and saw Dickens’ A Christmas Carol at the Guthrie Theater, one of the most fantastic architectural spaces I have ever stepped foot in (and it was the most hilarious rendering of the play I had ever seen).

Me, Ben, and Hubert!

In a word: it was family. Different from mine at home, of course, and about 1500 miles to the west, but familiar in so many ways. And absolutely wonderful. The world did not implode, as I subconsciously fear when it comes to deviating from The Plan, especially around the holidays. The fire was still crackling, the old stories were still told, and the Tofurkey (which I eat every year as the lone vegetarian) was still divine. I even attracted a few lighthearted jabs for not eating the turkey, which — as you know if you've ever had Thanksgiving at my house — made me feel right at home.

Ohh…I get it. That’s what it’s all about, huh? Ayuh.

P.S. — I'll be home for Christmas!

Across a Wire

I emailed my cousin Rebecca the other day to check in and see how she was doing, and was amazed that right as I sent my message, a response from her popped up in my inbox. I opened it, thoroughly impressed by her attention and obvious speed-typing prowess…only to see that her email actually predated mine by about four minutes.

Meaning that she had sent it while I was still in draft mode.

Meaning that we had just emailed each other at exactly the same time.

This would be weird enough if we were sitting in the same office, or even lived in the same state. But Rebecca isn’t even on the same continent as I am.

She’s currently studying abroad. In Sweden.

Let’s ignore for a moment the fact that Rebecca and I are essentially the same person. Four years my junior, she goes to Colby, drives my old car, wears my old clothes, and spent this past summer living in my old room in my parents’ house (are we seeing a pattern, here?). Again, ignore the fact that she is more bubbly, brilliant, and blond than I am. The truth is, for my family (or, “the London clan,” a term of endearment that I’m sure was once self-described but now is basically a pronoun) this exchange isn’t weird at all.

Me and Rebecca being...me and Rebecca

Nearly every time I call home my mom answers it with “your ears must be burning,” Mainer-speak for “we were just talking about you, but all good things, I promise.” Sometimes I take out my phone to call her only to find it vibrating in my hand with her name on the screen.

There was a time when we were all in Maine, the whole clan, with no one farther away than a two-hour drive (and that’s Sugarloaf, our second home anyway). Calling at all was almost frivolous; we’d just drive over and “take off our coats, stay awhile” (also Mainer-speak, for making yourself comfortable). 

But as we’ve grown up (four of the eight grandchildren are now out of college, the rest in it or close behind), some of us have moved away, and the others are constantly traveling (including two sets of grandparents who “snowbird” in Florida). Still, we find a way to keep in touch with check-in calls, Facebook messages, and (when we can get it) time at home to visit.

Family news is telegraphed this way, across states and even continents. A recent call home to my dad disclosed that my uncle was at the house on his way to the airport to visit my cousin in Sweden. This was followed by a call to my aunt, who told me what day she would be home at Christmas and asked how my mom’s road race was earlier that morning. Which turned into a call with my mom, telling me she was just arriving home from a road race (yep, already knew that) and that she was pulling into the driveway and my uncle’s car was there (yep, knew that too) and had I heard that he was going to Sweden to visit Rebecca?

“Yep, mum, I heard.” I knew.

I always know.