It’s Time to Send the Angels Packing

And so we pack Christmas away for another year, the eggnog glasses, the angel ornaments and a couple of the kids. Jeez, after two weeks of vacation, don’t your kids drive you nuts sometimes? For a moment, we consider stuffing them away with the nutcrackers and the Christmas tree skirt.

“Somebody grab that angel,” my wife says, and I don’t know whether she’s talking about the one on the mantel or the mouthy kid with the grape juice on her sweatshirt.

“Yeah, Dad, grab that angel,” says the little girl.

Christmas. It’s time for you to go.

“Can’t we, like, just leave some of the decorations up?” the boy says before belching, then sneezing, then smiling, the entire range of adolescent emotions.

“Yeah, Dad,” says the little girl. “For once, just leave the Christmas stuff out.”

Like a lot of families, we’re suffering from post-traumatic Christmas syndrome. We don’t want Christmas to end. We don’t want to return to work or school. With post-traumatic Christmas syndrome, denial is common. The overwhelming urge: to do nothing at all.

“OK, this one can go out,” my wife says.

“Him?” I ask, pointing to the boy.

“No, the box,” she says.

So I carry another box to the basement, thinking as always, that every house should be required to have a Christmas closet, a very large, very deep cabinet just off the living room where you could conveniently stash the decorations till next November. Or August. Or whenever it is we begin Christmas anymore.

“Here’s two more,” my wife says when I get back.

There is a lot to think about as we de-decorate the house. About what a great holiday season we had, everyone safe and healthy. Mostly sane.

The older daughter is still home from college, where she is majoring in sarcasm and minoring in sleep. Fortunately, they have an excellent program in sarcasm at the school she attends. In one semester, she has made great strides--though she also possesses a family gift for the flip remark, one of the better Irish traits.

“Maybe you could get a sarcasm scholarship,” I tell her during one family dinner.

“Dad,” she says, “that would be my dream.”

This gift of sarcasm will serve my lovely daughter well in life, as long as she doesn’t allow the sarcasm to deteriorate into cynicism, which is unattractive and self-poisoning. But so far, sarcasm is serving her well.

“Nice sweater, Dad,” she says as I carry another box out of the house.

“Thanks,” I say.

“Or is that a girdle?” she says.

I’m wearing my new Christmas sweater, which fits me like a condom, tight everywhere--in the shoulders and the waist.

I can barely move my arms, so tight is this sweater. To scratch my nose, I need to rub it against a tree.

It’s the kind of sweater Richard Dawson wore on “Hogan’s Heroes,” ribbed and dark and with a severe military look. I lift each Christmas box with the goal of not passing out.

“You look sharp,” the little girl says as I flail about in my wool body cast, trying to take down some lights.

“Thanks,” I say.

Christmas is slowly going away, and it’s a terrific time to look ahead to other celebrations. Mardi Gras is nearly upon us. Pitchers and catchers report to camp in just under four weeks. Right after that, the Winter Olympics.

The auto show is on this week, and there’s that deep quilt of snow beckoning in the Sierra. I haven’t even mentioned the NFL playoffs.

In 2002, there is also work to be done and resolutions to be kept. Mine? To eliminate those pesky little stickers from fruit. It’s an ambitious goal. It may take more than a year. Maybe a lifetime. I grow more devoted every time I accidentally swallow one with my apple.

After that, there is even more to do. At work, my buddy Irv tells me about a new place in Porterville to buy steak. According to Irv, he’s found a ranch that feeds the cattle a mixture of molasses and Cheerios.

“The meat marinates from within,” he says with a gleam in his eye.

“Molasses?” I ask.

“Yep,” says Irv. “And after every meal, the cattle get a nice massage.”

It’s a beautiful concept, one that gives me hope for the food sciences in general, and optimism about man’s ability to triumph over the ordinary. If you can marinate a cow from the inside, those pesky little fruit stickers ought to be a breeze.

“The thing is, you have to buy the entire cow,” Irv says, and all I can do is picture us returning from Porterville with a live cow tied to the bumper of Irv’s SUV, me holding a feed bag of molasses and Cheerios.

“Slower!” I’ll yell to Irv. “She’s trying to eat!”

So amid the challenges of 2002, there may be great adventures as well.

“Rhonda called,” my wife says as we wrap together one of the last Christmas boxes. “She wants me to play bunco this week.”

“Mr. Green called,” the boy says. “He wants us to go to the auto show.

Already, what a year it’s been. Can you believe it’s almost 2003?

Chris Erskine can be reached at [email protected].